While parents are overjoyed with the start of another school year and kids are bummed, for area Muslims Labor Day has another significance this year as it also marked the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan.

In this month Muslims abstain from food and drink (yes that also includes water) from dawn until dusk, which is from about 5:30 a.m. until 7:40 p.m.  That is the physical restrictions of Ramadan and frankly other than a few hunger pains that part of it is easy.  The difficulty is restricting one’s tongue from backbiting and lying and perhaps most difficult thing is controlling one’s anger and mood.  So if you run across a Muslim at Ukrop’s, at work or in your neighborhood and he or she seems a little moody you will know the reason.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.  It was prescribed to Muslims in various verses of the Quran one of which is from the second chapter and 183 verse, “Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you many learn piety and righteousness.“ 

As a child it was hard for me to understand the spiritual nature of the month and for what Muslims were striving.  The extra prayers, the extra generosity and the reading of the Quran from cover to cover seemed insignificant to me as all I understood was that it was May and I could not eat until close to 9 p.m.

It was not until years later ( I should say close to 15 years later) that I began to fully appreciate and understand, and that the abstention from food and drink was an insignificant drop in deep ocean of Ramadan.