As I sit down to write this post at 2pm on Friday, a mere 4 hours away from my goal of fasting for the first week of Ramadan, let's get into some specifics of my fast. The mini-objectives have been as follows:
Let's reflect on the first objective:
I figured it would be easy to just look up the sunrise and sunset times each day and go from there. But at the time, I didn't know about Suhoor, only Iftar. There isn't really much conflicting information about when the fast ends. It's basically from the beginning of twilight (which has always been my favorite time of day.) Beginning the fast is a little trickier. Even though I'm not a Muslim, it's helpful, sensible, and respectful for me to use their guidelines as a reference when deciding what my fast will be like. Although I was able to easily find out when the pre-dawn meal time was, I haven't been able to nail down when I must stop eating. Apparently, many others have this issue, as terms like "suhoor before or after fajr," "confused regarding the time to stop eating sujoor," and "when does suhoor end?" are very popular with Google.
Trying to figure this out is incredibly frustrating. It seems like it should be as simple as stopping all eating/drinking a few minutes before fajr, or dawn prayer. But here in Qatar, fajr times are nowhere near dawn. Well, that's not true. It's at the very beginning of dawn, astronomical dawn when it's still very dark. Confusing. In which case, when should I wake up to eat? Then there are calendars that have suhoor and fajr at the exact same time. Remember when I said the calendars were all cool and useful and whatnot? Yea, I rescind that statement to an extent. Most are conflicting. The amount of astronomy involved is incredible. I think people just follow the traditions they have had in their families for generations. After hours upon hours of reading, and learning some basic astronomy, this is how I will approach it in my second week, which is much different than I did my first week:
During Ramadan, you aren't fasting from sunrise to sunset, as I originally thought. But you can, I guess. It just wouldn't be Ramadan. You are fasting from dawn to sunset. This gets tricky depending on your location on the globe. What I will do is try to fast from CIVIL dawn to sunset, or more specifically, civil twilight (and this site is super helpful to me). My suhoor window will be from the local suhoor timings to the local dawn timings. Civil dawn, not astronomical dawn because I find that to be more...civil. This still helps me to feel empathy for what my colleagues and friends go through, while leaving me some breathing room to reconcile my understanding of it all. This means that I will allow an eating window of roughly 3:10-4:15am, instead of 3:10-4:40am as I was doing previously. It's not as expansive as the fajr to maghrib fast which starts at about 3:10, but then again, I may end up basically doing that anyway since the last two days I've just been having water in the morning. This works for me. And to those who've accused me of "cheating," it wasn't on purpose! Great Islamic scholars disagree about the interpretations stuff (though admittedly, none said you can eat until sunrise haha), I can be forgiven for getting it wrong on my first try :)
- Determine the parameters for when I will begin and end my fast each day, as a non-Muslim not following the prayer times
- No food, water, sex of any kind, swearing, or sinful thoughts from sunrise to sunset
- Praying or meditating at least 3 times a day
Let's reflect on the first objective:
I figured it would be easy to just look up the sunrise and sunset times each day and go from there. But at the time, I didn't know about Suhoor, only Iftar. There isn't really much conflicting information about when the fast ends. It's basically from the beginning of twilight (which has always been my favorite time of day.) Beginning the fast is a little trickier. Even though I'm not a Muslim, it's helpful, sensible, and respectful for me to use their guidelines as a reference when deciding what my fast will be like. Although I was able to easily find out when the pre-dawn meal time was, I haven't been able to nail down when I must stop eating. Apparently, many others have this issue, as terms like "suhoor before or after fajr," "confused regarding the time to stop eating sujoor," and "when does suhoor end?" are very popular with Google.
Trying to figure this out is incredibly frustrating. It seems like it should be as simple as stopping all eating/drinking a few minutes before fajr, or dawn prayer. But here in Qatar, fajr times are nowhere near dawn. Well, that's not true. It's at the very beginning of dawn, astronomical dawn when it's still very dark. Confusing. In which case, when should I wake up to eat? Then there are calendars that have suhoor and fajr at the exact same time. Remember when I said the calendars were all cool and useful and whatnot? Yea, I rescind that statement to an extent. Most are conflicting. The amount of astronomy involved is incredible. I think people just follow the traditions they have had in their families for generations. After hours upon hours of reading, and learning some basic astronomy, this is how I will approach it in my second week, which is much different than I did my first week:
During Ramadan, you aren't fasting from sunrise to sunset, as I originally thought. But you can, I guess. It just wouldn't be Ramadan. You are fasting from dawn to sunset. This gets tricky depending on your location on the globe. What I will do is try to fast from CIVIL dawn to sunset, or more specifically, civil twilight (and this site is super helpful to me). My suhoor window will be from the local suhoor timings to the local dawn timings. Civil dawn, not astronomical dawn because I find that to be more...civil. This still helps me to feel empathy for what my colleagues and friends go through, while leaving me some breathing room to reconcile my understanding of it all. This means that I will allow an eating window of roughly 3:10-4:15am, instead of 3:10-4:40am as I was doing previously. It's not as expansive as the fajr to maghrib fast which starts at about 3:10, but then again, I may end up basically doing that anyway since the last two days I've just been having water in the morning. This works for me. And to those who've accused me of "cheating," it wasn't on purpose! Great Islamic scholars disagree about the interpretations stuff (though admittedly, none said you can eat until sunrise haha), I can be forgiven for getting it wrong on my first try :)
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