Beginner - Trying to fast

thank you ,could you tell me the name of the meal which takes place befor dawn in the fasting month?

the word sharaab is noted as water in the transcripts,should it not be drink?although in tunisia it is used to speak about wine in local arabic.

Ahlan Berry, yes the word sharaab means drink, that was a slight mistake in the transcript.

The meal that is taken place in dawn before the fast takes place is called سحور - Su7oor

At the moment this is about 3:20am in London :roll:

Ehab did you say "I tried fasting for one day"?

Na7la, if you refer to the exact time in the podcast when I mentioned that probably I would know exactly what you mean.

Ehab, at the end you asked us to write a comment in arabic, like .... at 8:48 mins, and you added that we should figure out what it means ;-) Shukran!

she is referring to the very end of the podcast where you said: "ana jarrabt asoom yawm"

Yesterday in class we also did some Ramadan vocab, so the teacher asked us which religion we had. One of the students replied انا شيوعية. Everybody was laughing of course, but then she explained that she had grown up in socialist East Germany where no religion was allowed.
رمضان كريم

Personally, even as an Atheist, I like the idea of fasting, and mostly for the same reasons listed by Mohammed in this podcast. I just wouldn't want to be forced to behave this way by some tradition (which is what you basically have with religion).

That is, if you fast on a voluntary basis, then you have to muster up the self discipline to do so... plus, I agree that it gives you some perspective about hunger that you wouldn't otherwise understand. I actually have fasted a few times in recent years.

Even so, I don't know that fasting is a very healthy behavior... dieting advice givers generally don't recommend fasting to anybody trying to lose weight, because the problem is that your hunger just shifts to a later time and you end up eating a lot of food all at once, which is then not metabolized as well as it would have been if you spread your eating out evenly over the day. The key is to permanently not consume certain calories. Of course, you could force yourself to only eat a small meal at the end of the fast, maybe.

I don't know, maybe if I were to invent my own personal tradition, maybe I'd just choose to consume low low calories for a week as a healthy alternative.

@Jennki - The fasting in Ramadhan, which I am doing now, only happens for 29-30 days out of the whole year. This is one of the pillars.

What you didn't know though is that in my religion, (the one where people fast in a month called Ramadhan), we also do voluntary fasts on Mondays and Thursdays, (this is most common) and also on other days out of the month. These voluntary fasts happen throughout the year. Ramadhan is the only time when fasting is obligatory.

I wrote this comment because contrary to popular belief and the opinion held by people who claim to follow no religion, fasting is not something "forced" upon us. One can see the error in such an allegation by the fact that we voluntarily fast outside of Ramadhan and the number of days outside of Ramadhan far exceeds the number of days of Ramadhan itself.

As far as whether fasting is healthy or not, the obvious and most correct answer is that it is. Fasting for half of the day for several days in a row will give your body a break from all of the constant and excessive grinding it does 365 days a year when people constantly shove food down their throats. Our bodies have rights over us too, you know.

@Aliyah.m - I actually do know about Ramadan, quite a bit, actually, having once lived in Saudi Arabia, when I was young.

By the way, just out of curiosity, what kind of eating habits do you adhere to when your fasting periods (voluntary or otherwise) are over? Are there some types of food that help get your body back into shape after the fast, without pigging out?

i am off to tunisia this weekend to catch the last bit of the blessed month, it is so joyful, and the days so peaceful without all the alcohol and smoke of the west.a feeling of being together in quiet cities and nights of simple joy, The fathers take their freshly cut baby boys to the sea to splash water on their wounds, and the shab have new clothes which they wear in gangs of friendly posing , changing boring streets into a kind of fashion show ..its a great time, and i am very lucky to be able to join it.This is more than not munching.

@Jennki - fasting is not a means of weight loss. Therefore, when a person breaks their fast they will most likely continue their regularly schedule eating habits. Now, if you're asking me, myself, personally, I havent found a single food that gets ones body in shape. The only proven method of getting ones body in shape is exercise.

I always watch what I eat. have a figure to maintain. :)

Aside from maintaining a figure, there is basic protocol that we (people of my faith) adhere to when eating - at any time - and that is: One third of our stomachs for water, one third for food and the last third for air. This is the balance. Once this is transgressed, you start to say things like "oh man im stuffed!" "I can't eat anymore!" - and this is when the pounds start adding up.

^^ The last thing I mentioned about 3 thirds is the cure for pigging out. A stomach can only hold so much.

"fasting is not a means of weight loss"

This was exactly my point.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your own habits. Of course, even if I don't agree with religion, I'm still fascinated by the habits that people hold. I believe Catholics also fast, but I don't know anything about that...

For an Atheist like me, fasting is purely a matter of self discipline... not weight loss.

@Jenkki-Im sure many of my faith would certainly agree that we do not fast ramadhan or voluntary fasts for weight loss. The signifigance of the fasting itself is heavy enough to humble a mountain so certainly something as trivial as weight loss cannot be equated to such a noble action.

Thanx for such a nice حوار :)

وأنا أيضاً أحب هوارنا
شكراً لكِ

لا شكر على واجب يا صديقي

Ps: (this is certainly not out of haughtiness but as a fellow arabic learners we should correct eachother)

7iwaar=Dialogue or conversation & it is spelled with a ح

Good on ya Jenkki. Lets chat more sometime, shall we?

نعم، يصعب علي الحجاء في العربية
لذلك هذا التمرين جيد جداً

Arab friends have told me that, during Ramadhan, people often gain weight, possibly through overeating after sunset and, perhaps, because the body digests food less well when it is eaten not long before sleeping so more is stored as fat.

In my tradition, buddhism, sometimes people chose to fast for a day (typically at a full moon) or for longer. The fasting differs from that observed by muslims in that (non-alcoholic) drink is permitted but no food at all, even between sunset and sunrise. I've only tried it for one 24hr period, many years ago, and certainly didn't find it easy!

Jenkki - There is no fasting whatsoever in our modern American Catholic tradition, albeit we have some interesting and much less strenuous observances like not eating meat on Fridays.

Catholic official code does however technically require fasting on a couple of days, and also the ban on meat is regarded as a type of fasting. http://catholicism.about.com/od/catholicliving/p/Fasting.htm