Ramadan - how can Muslims get it so wrong?

I know rather a lot of Muslims; one or two are even relatives, but not one of them appears to know precisely why they fast from dawn to dusk for the best part of a month each year.

"To know what it is like to be poor" is one response; "To please Allah" is another but they do not really stack up as being reasoned rational answers.

The official reason for such stringent fasting is that it aids one to become more spiritual, more humble and more obedient to God.

In reality it lets loose on society a large number of people who are temporariliy off balance; not quite sound.

Let me explain. Severe fasting over a lengthy period takes its toll on both the mental and physical condition of the person fasting. At College, all Arab engineering students were banned from using dangerous machinery during the month that it lasts. The potential for nasty accidents to occur was just too big a risk to take. Lecturing and support staff were instructed on how to calm down volatile young men who were prone to fly off the handle.

 Tempers fray when your last intake of food and water was, say, twelve hours ago (assuming a 4am start and a 4pm finish to the College day).

In addition, those Muslims who normally liked to smoke (forbidden but very common) quite often gave it up during Ramadan. Again, the results were very predictable.

Now you can take preventative action with students but just imagine, if you will, how many Muslim bus drivers, train drivers, brain surgeons and so on, there are in London alone. It would be interesting for an analysis to take place of road traffic accidents this month and a comparison made with previous non Ramadan periods.

But it's not just the safety aspect that renders Ramadan a dubious exercise; the rule is from dawn (pre light) until dusk (post light) and that is a long time in this country.

Pre dawn breakfast for one?

The wealthy Middle Eastern Arab families make an annual pilgrimage each year to either Great Britain or Switzerland. They depart their home countries at the end of May and return at the end of September. This is to escape the appalling heat.

However, when Ramadan falls in this period, they quickly nip back home and put up with the heat because the hours of daylight are considerably shorter in the Middle East and the fast is much easier to fulfil as a result.

For those British Muslims who are stuck back home in Blighty they resort to stuffing themselves full of food and drink at 3.30am and then await, camel like, until 9.30pm when they again consume meals of gargantuan proportions. I hardly think that such actions are pleasing to Allah. Nor are they very good for the constitution I suspect.

Contrast the Muslim and the Catholic styles of fasting; the Muslims fast to extremes often placing themselves and others at risk and interspersing periods of fast with periods of gluttony while Catholics fast enough to feel it and recognise it as just one form of penance.

And if you want evidence of just how short tempered the Muslim community can become during this period, then visit a Muslim country.

 I have learnt several things in this respect. Firstly, do not travel if you can possibly avoid it. Secondly, never go near a mosque. Thirdly, keep on the move and do not loiter anywhere and, fourthly, do not sit in the Hotel Restaurant window seat to eat your lunch!

And, finally, there are, apparently, seven Muslims living on the Orkney Islands (where the sun barely sets before it rises in the summer months). Have pity on those poor souls who must have to endure a fasting period of close to 24 hours!

FYI: Ramadan 2011 ends on August 30th