Ramadan 2020

The safeguards for different circumstances have been there from the beginning. So yes it was foreseen.

The proof is in the pudding. Millions of muslims have been fasting for centuries. Whatever ethnicity, country, rich or poor (or time zone!). Some have been doing even under prosecution even to this day (Ughurs).

Life is unfair. That's the point.
Part of the spirit of Ramadan is to appreciate inequality in the world and improve ones character. You really think a few hours here and there is going to affect a muslim fasting? Would also be pretty petty when one is focusing on improving him or herself. The only people it tends to upset are a handful of Athiests!

Seems Ramadan is quite complex for some people to understand.
 
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Buddy said:
The safeguards for different circumstances have been there from the beginning. So yes it was foreseen.

The proof is in the pudding. Millions of muslims have been fasting for centuries. Whatever ethnicity, country, rich or poor (or time zone!). Some have been doing even under prosecution even to this day (Ughurs).

Life is unfair. That's the point.
Part of the spirit of Ramadan is to appreciate inequality in the world and improve ones character. You really think a few hours here and there is going to affect a muslim fasting? Would also be pretty petty when one is focusing on improving him or herself. The only people it tends to upset are a handful of Athiests!

Seems Ramadan is quite complex for some people to understand.
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Well said :)
 
Buddy said:
Life is unfair. That's the point.
Part of the spirit of Ramadan is to appreciate inequality in the world and improve ones character. You really think a few hours here and there is going to affect a muslim fasting? Would also be pretty petty when one is focusing on improving him or herself. The only people it tends to upset are a handful of Athiests!

Seems Ramadan is quite complex for some people to understand.
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I'm not sure it is tbh... I think you're missing the point/problem being raised above - I don't know if you were perhaps unaware that some places can have 24/7 sunlight at time and others can have super short nights - it isn't necessarily about just a "few hours here and there" - imagine being a muslim in Svalbard (say a Chechen working for one of the Russian firms there perhaps) - you'd starve without a workaround! Likewise Somalians etc.. now living in northern parts of Norway, Sweden etc.. can have a similar issue.

That's why a workaround was needed for them to observe Ramadan - Norway's solution is in the form of a fatwa AFAIK, this wasn't something necessarily anticipated.
 
dowie said:
I'm not sure it is tbh... I think you're missing the point/problem being raised above - I don't know if you were perhaps unaware that some places can have 24/7 sunlight at time and others can have super short nights - it isn't necessarily about just a "few hours here and there" - imagine being a muslim in Svalbard (say a Chechen working for one of the Russian firms there perhaps) - you'd starve without a workaround! Likewise Somalians etc.. now living in northern parts of Norway, Sweden etc.. can have a similar issue.

That's why a workaround was needed for them to observe Ramadan - Norway's solution is in the form of a fatwa AFAIK, this wasn't something necessarily anticipated.
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No actually you're missing the point.

I've already answered these questions in the previous 2 posts. Even you have partly answered yourself with your limited Islamic knowledge (so it's bizarre that you ask again??). You even admit "AFAIK". I'm not going to explain how Islamic laws are derived. The history of such Islamic laws. How Islamic Jurisprudence is approached.

You are conflating two separate issues.
1. Extreme time zones where there is either no daylight or no night. This has been explained.
2. The varying time zones. This has also been explained.

It really is that simple.
I'm not prepared to go down a dowie hole tbh. I mean you've already started to be selective with your reading with a splash of sarcasm. This is futile.
 
This is where I read about it - found the link and Atlantic article from a few years back:

https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...n-the-arctic-where-the-sun-doesnt-set/277834/

As Hassan Ahmed, a Muslim resident who came to the city from Somalia and works at the Islamic Center of Northern Norway told me, "the sun doesn't set. For 24 hours it's in the middle of the sky." Faced with the impossibility of adhering to the sunrise/sunset rule, Tromsø's Muslims must find alternative ways of determining when to fast. "We have a fatwa," or clerical decree, Ahmed said. "We can correspond the fast to the closest Islamic country, or we can fast with Mecca."
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I realise there is a desire to talk down and obfuscate if a non-muslim talks about islam... do a bit of hand waving, it's complex, you don't understand etc.. but... that a fatwa was issued for this sounds like it wasn't something that already had some foreseen rules etc.. but rather that use Mecca time seems to be a more recent workaround that a clerk has decided is somehow compatible with Islam.
 
Well of course a fatwa is compatible with Islam. It cannot contradict the Quran and the Prophet's teachings........

Its 12am. I better get to bed. Hope you have a productive month.
 
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Pudney said:
It's only a point if you think the total hours and minutes spent fasting is important. If that isn't an issue then the varying daylight hours isn't a big deal either. My understanding of Ramadan is that it isn't a divine command, rather it's a time of reflection on the overall beliefs and purpose of Islam along with the hardships that some are faced with.

Equally it means it doesn't really matter that it's a repurposed Pagan holiday, or more relevant in the Middle East etc.

For the Muslim members, Ramadan Mubarak. Apologies if spelt incorrectly.
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You then go and stuff your face with delights after. It's hypocritical. The hardships these people face doesn't allow them to go and eat high quality food later. They are poor. You should eat what poor people eat for the month, if that's really the case.
Ridiculous and misleading.
 
Buddy said:
The proof is in the pudding. Millions of muslims have been fasting for centuries.
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Which proves nothing other than that islam has been around for centuries. Which nobody is denying, except maybe the rather strange people who believe that ~600 to ~900 never existed. They're about as strange as the flat earthers.

Also, of on a tangent, the phrase "the proof is in the pudding" is also strange. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" makes sense as a way of saying that the true test of something is how well it serves its purpose, but "the proof is in the pudding"? If people are going to shorten the phrase into something meaningless, why not go all the way and replace the saying with "proof pudding" and save some syllables?

The only people it tends to upset are a handful of Athiests!
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That would make sense - atheists would have no religious reason to deliberately impose unfairness.

Seems Ramadan is quite complex for some people to understand.
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It seems simple to understand to me. Having control over your followers' primal needs is a potent show of power and a method of increasing the duration of that power. So religions often incorporate it in various ways. Attaching a nobler motive can be done either before or after, but is just an add-on. The point is control, power.

But whatever motives any particular person attaches to it, the thing itself is simple. No food, no drink. Pretending it's complex is just condescending flim-flam.
 
why fast and then eat meat?.
how is that Godly?
Also what did Mohammed prophesize as he is called a prophet?
Religion founders tend to be spiritual masters/ saints who have conquered death such as Jesus or Buddha.
 
Angilion said:
It seems simple to understand to me. Having control over your followers' primal needs is a potent show of power and a method of increasing the duration of that power. So religions often incorporate it in various ways. Attaching a nobler motive can be done either before or after, but is just an add-on. The point is control, power.

But whatever motives any particular person attaches to it, the thing itself is simple. No food, no drink. Pretending it's complex is just condescending flim-flam.
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giphy.gif


I'm glad someone gets it. No point trying to explain that to the brainwashed though.
 
Jesus fasted for 40 days and Buddha came out of the wilderness enlightened.
They abstained from the pleasures in life to become enlightened.
my point being what purpose does intermittent fasting serve when you pig out at night and probably eat meat which is wholly unspiritual and will devolve the soul.
 
kully1972 said:
why fast and then eat meat?.
how is that Godly?
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Whatever fits the rules of any given religion is godly in that religion.

Also what did Mohammed prophesize as he is called a prophet?
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How accurate is that translation, i.e. does the Arabic word actually have the same meaning as the modern English word "prophet"? I vaguely recall reading that the meaning of the word changed over time in English and used to mean someone who had a message from a god or gods.

Religion founders tend to be spiritual masters/ saints who have conquered death such as Jesus or Buddha.
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Founders of religions are founders of cults that gained enough power. They can be anything. Some of them are or were believed to have conquered death by their followers. Some of them aren't or weren't. Also, I'm not sure that Buddhists believe that their Buddha conquered death per se, since he died. Once. No rising from the dead.
 
@dowie @Angilion are you asking whether the consequences of global fasting using the sun were known and still intentionally enforced regardless of equality?

Your statement on control is widely agreed upon, the impact of these festivities are more likely unintentional and perhaps expected to be undertaken/delivered with common sense across the camps of followers. Time skews history, clouding intent.

TurtleTwo said:
You then go and stuff your face with delights after. It's hypocritical. The hardships these people face doesn't allow them to go and eat high quality food later. They are poor. You should eat what poor people eat for the month, if that's really the case.
Ridiculous and misleading.
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You don't need to grab your sleeping bag and camp out under a flyover spraying solvent into your face to give a homeless man a fiver or volunteer at a food bank.
 
NVP said:
@dowie @Angilion are you asking whether the consequences of global fasting using the sun were known and still intentionally enforced regardless of equality?

Your statement on control is widely agreed upon, the impact of these festivities are more likely unintentional and perhaps expected to be undertaken/delivered with common sense across the camps of followers. Time skews history, clouding intent.
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Forgot to reply to this - I suspect that the person/people who came up with the rules simply weren't aware that it might be an issue in future.

Buddy seems to have decided this is two separate issues but really it's the same issue - simply that there are varying durations of night time hours depending on latitude, closer to the equator night time doesn't vary so much... further out it can vary quite a bit even to the point of no night time.

I can empathise with a range of viewpoints on religion but fundamentalists, people who are into literal interpretations etc.. still seem a bit odd. It's not like it's universal among muslims - I know various people who are muslims, would (generally) observe Ramadan etc... but are more doing it for cultural reasons/tradition etc..

When you start getting into this notion though that some bloke or some book is perfect and everything was foreseen etc.. then it becomes silly. That isn't a judgement on people believing in a god or gods or not but how you view your religion, religious text. Like say Christians who believe the earth is only 6000 years old etc. or some Hindus believing some sandbank/bridge was literally built by monkeys... that's where it gets a bit silly. Whether you believe in a god(s) or not you can still recognise this stuff was written by humans etc.. isn't perfect and lots of it contains rules etc.. that might have made more sense at the time etc...

This Norwegian example is a workaround a cleric had to come up with via a fatwa - the answer to that is that of course it is compatible with Islam, it can't contradict the Prophet's teachings etc.. well that (as a general viewpoint) is very dubious - clerics are just humans, any number of them issue fatwas, some of them might well have contradictory views, opinions etc... Was the Iranian fatwa to kill that notorious author compatible?

I just think it gets a bit silly when people claim something is perfect, everything was foreseen - you get trapped in a closed belief system like that and then all the flaws have to be explained away with convoluted explanations... essentially have to do some mental gaslighting to yourself and pretend that it's all so complicated etc...

I guess in the UK a large portion of the Muslim population comes from Pakistan/Bangladesh/India and can be quite conservative etc... in fact perhaps increasingly so no thanks to Saudi Arabia. On the other hand there are various muslims in the UK/West in general from North Africa, Iran etc.. who IME at least have tended to be rather more liberal, will drink alcohol etc.. treat it more as a cultural thing, general belief in "something", kind of like lots of Christians etc.. do. This can be a bit of a head **** for some more conservative UK muslims and some might claim that people not following some rules etc.. aren't proper muslims etc.. but then why should the conservative types have a monopoly on who gets to be muslim or not?

For example I know an Egyptian girl who used to like clubbing, would drink alcohol - a British Pakistani co-worker was disgusted by it when he found out she was muslim, referred to her as a ****ing ****. There was a Moroccan girl at a previous workplace who used to drink too, except during Ramadan - to some people she's not a proper muslim.

Some conservatives can be a bit hypocritical though - for example we questioned the colleague who got angry - "are you a virgin then?" etc.. technical sex before marriage is a no no... yet I'd suspect that even male muslims from conservative backgrounds break that rule and conversely expect/demand their female relatives to adhere to it. This guy used to smoke too and spread bet - IIRC there have been fatwas against smoking (and harming yourself like that is often considered haram), likewise gambling is against the rules... but apparently "trading" with a spread betting company doesn't count etc...

I don't think the more conservative type views will last more than a generation or two in the UK, hopefully in the future more people will be a bit more liberal about this stuff - see it as more of a cultural, tradition thing etc... It doesn't make them or their beliefs any less valid because they're not fundamentalists or conservatives - you can have a relaxed attitude to religion and still identify as Muslim, could decide it is more sensible to observe Ramadan according to Mecca time etc.. if there are shorter nights where you are - it doesn't necessarily need a fatwa etc.. it's your own decision/belief/interpretation etc.. that ultimately counts.
 
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