Sunset in Mecca

A friend of mine from Canada told me about a group of Muslim new-arrivals who were taken to a festival in Edmonton in the middle of the day earlier this week.  The city was having a heat wave, so it was very hot out on the street, the women were wearing long veils and multiple layers of fabric while the men were also conservatively dressed, and everyone was melting under the sun.  They were hungry, thirsty, and all exhausted from staying up all night eating and praying at the mosque, since the morning meal needs to be finished around 4:20 in Edmonton this time of year and the evening fast-breaking doesn't come around until nearly 10 pm.  Now that's dedication.

I stopped fasting late last week, 12 days into this year's Ramadan.  Once that typhoon I wrote about in my last post hit us, the humidity went through the roof and never went back down.  It's the kind of weather where immediately after towelling off from a shower you feel like you need to hop right back in and have another one because the sweat is already rolling off you.  I wasn't taking more time for the kind of spiritual practices that I liked from my other experiences of the fast (taking more time to pray, meditate, be aware of other people in the world, be thankful).  I was too busy being sweaty, thirsty, headachey, sleepy, and obsessed with the time for way too much of every day.  I never did figure out exactly what I should be eating, so although I did okay for those 12 days, I wasn't feeling great for most of them (hunger, thirst and fatigue aside).  And because I also didn't have anyone else around who was fasting, it was disruptive to my nearby friends and family (who were entirely supportive in any case!) and isolating for me.  Not ideal conditions for me to foster mindfulness in.  I decided I would be better off working to incorporate those practices into my normal life than just hanging in there for the remaining days.  I feel good that I lasted 12 days in what were for me extremely difficult conditions.  And I feel good that I stopped when I did.

It occurs to me that at the time the directives for fasting during Ramadan were given, the Islamic world was not so broad a place (geographically speaking) as it is now.  I see that sunset in Mecca right now is shortly after 7pm, and sunrise at 5:46 (meaning the morning meal would need to be done by 4:46).  And this is the hardest Ramadan gets in Mecca - as close as possible to the longest part of the year.  Within a few decades of the Prophet Muhammad's death, Islam had spread through the Arabian peninsula, the Persian Empire, to Byzantium, across North Africa and to some of the Aegean islands.  Of all those places, Istanbul has the latest sunset right now - around 8:30pm - but a similar sunrise time to Mecca (about 20 minutes earlier).  Those extra hours those new-arrivals in Edmonton are dealing with are A LOT when you haven't had anything to eat or drink all day.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not minimizing the experience of people fasting ANYWHERE in the world - even in the "easiest" of circumstances (hello winter in New Zealand!) it takes a tremendous amount of determination, faith and perseverance.  I just wonder if the "rules" of Ramadan might have been a little bit different if Muhammad had started out in my hometown in Alberta (current sunset: 10:28pm) instead of in Saudi Arabia.  Something I will never know.

For everyone still fasting during this holy month, respect, peace and blessings to you.  For everyone else, exactly the same - respect, peace and blessings.