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by JP1967 on November 30th, 2003

JP1967

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What is Ramadan / Ramzan?

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  • by Too Much Time On My Hands on August 23rd, 2004

    Too Much Time On My Hands

    Ramadan is the name of the ninth month on the Muslim calendar. It is important to Muslims because we believe that it is the month when God began a series of revelations to Muhammad (pbuh) which form the text of the Qur'an (the holy book of Islam, confirmation of a lot of established Judeo-Christian tradition plus some new stuff).

    Muslims observe Ramadan by fasting from dawn to dusk on every day of the month. This is not so much decreasing your total food intake as altering the schedule of it. The fast is one of the 5 pillars of faith that all Muslims must try to perform. Exceptions are when you're sick or menstruating (in which case you make up the days you miss) or suffer from long-term poverty and malnutrition (in which case you're exempt). It is also a time to examine your behavior closely, to be mindful of your personal relationship with God and try to feel closer to Him, and to do good deeds for others (almsgiving and its more modern charitable counterparts are another pillar and are traditional during Ramadan).

    Fasting has many purposes: to teach self-discipline, to bring you closer to God (every time you feel a hunger pang you will think of why you are voluntarily doing it), and to teach empathy with those who go hungry every day without a choice. Therefore, to receive the full spiritual benefit of this exercise, it has to be done willingly. It is not intended to bring hardship or pain, and it doesn't if practiced responsibly-- in fact, many Muslim children look forward to being old enough to fast (they often begin around age nine and start by fasting half-days the first year).

    Sorry if I went into too much detail on fasting, but non-Muslims are often curious about it and I have found that people sometimes use "Ramadan" to refer to the month-long fast as well as the name of the month.

    Comments

    • Very useful info for non-muslims. I fasted my first Ramadan this year (SubhanAllah) and the benefits are astounding.

      AhMeD_2_3

      by AhMeD_2_3 on November 22nd, 2004

    • very informative and nicely explained

      guddu22

      by guddu22 on February 4th, 2005

    • we all from Pakistan gona fast 2morow...as the holy month starts..

      Dj De-Vista

      by Dj De-Vista on August 11th, 2010

    • Excellent and correct answer. Thank you for taking the time to put this out for non-Muslims

      Spengo

      by Spengo on August 12th, 2010

    • nicely done brother excellent work

      Night Stalker

      by Night Stalker on August 16th, 2010

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