For Muslims, Ramadan is about much more than abstinence - it's more a spiritual detox than a physical one, writes Kathy Sheridan
For followers of Islam, much of the beauty of the religion lies in its detailed prescriptions for daily living and its certainties as a way of life.
This week the unnamed managing director of Amusement City in Westmoreland Street alleged at the Employment Appeals Tribunal that a former Muslim employee, Linda Heffernan-Benkouider, exhibited "general mood swings", aggression to staff and an "unkempt" appearance. He said that these might be attributed to the Ramadan period, "where, as part of your religion, you went without food for long periods".
But the women at the Clonskeagh mosque are certain about one thing. "Unkempt? That's the one thing I'd never have said about Linda," said one. But the principal reason why it could not be true, agreed the others, is Islam's "focus on cleanliness . . . Naturally, when fasting, your body is calling out for something, no doubt about it. But it's a duty on a Muslim to be hygienic, tidy and presentable".
And yet, as Ireland's 20,000 Muslims begin day five of Ramadan, it seems reasonable to surmise that any person obliged to eat breakfast before sunrise (5.56 this morning), knowing that not a hint of food or water must pass her lips before sunset 13 hours later, might be baring her teeth at all-comers by mid-afternoon, or be at least looking a trifle baggy-eyed.
"You might feel, like, a bit weak," concedes Summayah Kenna, "but it's not like you're slouching." In fact, says Summaya Keller, "it gives you extra energy . . . It's a detox". An official Muslim publication about fasting, by Dr Jamal Badawi, calls the fasting "an annual physical overhaul of the body".
Whether a "fast" can be defined as such when broken by a large evening meal or whether a regime can be defined as a "detox" when fluids are forbidden for most of the day, are moot points. But the strictures of Ramadan - which oblige "all who are sane, adult, able and resident" to abstain from food, drink, sexual activity and smoking, including passive smoking, between dawn and sunset for a month - do have consequences in a western context.
The practical fall-out for the ill- prepared was evident on Thursday evening, when some 70 Muslim residents of an accommodation centre on Kinsale Road, Cork, blocked the road to highlight claims that they couldn't get food from the canteen after 7pm because their Ramadan fast ends at around the time the canteen staff go home.
The health implications were highlighted last year when a Manchester soccer club, the Abraham Moss Warriors, refused to play morning games during Ramadan because of fears that fasting players would become dehydrated. The club was fined and thrown out of the Lancashire League. The FA later changed its rules and now says that no team has to play if it affects religious observance.
This is precisely what a diplomatic-minded Ali Selim of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Dublin likes to see. "Give the people the chance to express their religion. It's when people are suppressed in some way that things get complicated. There must be some flexibility. If someone is fasting and the canteen closes, for example, are they allowed to take food in the room in exceptional circumstances?" But he has no complaints about Irish attitudes to Muslims and their religious practices. An employer who objects, say, to a girl wearing hijab (headscarf), simply misunderstood what it was about. "He thought that it was a religious symbol where to us it is an Islamic obligation . . . Muslims in Ireland love Ireland and Ireland loves Muslims . . . You can't say that Ireland is Utopia because there is no Utopia. But I have to say that Ireland is the best place in Europe in this context".
He gets many calls, he says, from Irish employers about Ramadan, "trying to create a better atmosphere for employees, enquiring the times of breaking the fast, for example. This year, we break about 7pm, and that's fine but in other years, [ sunset] was at 4pm or 4.30pm, and employers allowed people to leave early, to go home and have dinner with their family".
Selim does not accept that a fasting worker, employed on, say, machinery, might have difficulty remaining alert during a long day. "I think that fasting does not affect you at all. What about people in deprived and marginalised countries or disaster areas who have to eat the leaves of trees and boil the water five times before they can drink it? "
The phone rings and it's a woman who is breastfeeding, wondering whether having a drink of water might break her fast. "Of course she is exempt," he says. "She just has to make up for the missing days after Ramadan, doing, say, about one or two days a week."
The rules of Ramadan are strict. Dr Badawi's booklet lists five actions that invalidate fasting and require Qada' (making up for the equivalent lost days after Ramadan): eating or drinking deliberately; forcing yourself to vomit; the beginning of menstruation or post-childbirth bleeding "even in the last moment before sunset"; "ejaculation for reasons other than sexual intercourse (e.g. kissing or hugging one's wife)"; mistaking the times of dawn and sunset for eating/drinking/ sexual intercourse purposes.
Full sexual intercourse during daylight not only invalidates the fast but attracts an additional punishment. "The penalty is to set a slave free. If this is not available or possible, one must fast an additional period of 60 continuous days. If one is not able to, then he must feed 60 poor persons one average meal each."
Meanwhile, Muslims as young as 10 at the Muslim National School in Clonskeagh are observing Ramadan. Marwan, a fast-talking 10-year-old, says that after a long PE session, you can "really want a drink". For Ahmed (11), not being allowed a drink "is the hardest bit" of Ramadan. But there is flexibility. Amear (10) was feeling a bit sick today, so he's not fasting.
Tamanna Rahman, a young Manchester journalist who is keeping a Ramadan diary for the BBC, describes light-heartedly how fasting "certainly gave me a heightened sense of awareness. For food anyway." She is missing her "lovely raspberry muffin" in the morning. "The gurgle of the water tower. The slurp of a colleague's cup of tea. The crack fizz of a bottle opening . . . an e-mail from someone with the surname 'Drinkwater' . . . just seemed to be poking fun at me". She talks about the "huge effort of will power" required to get up at a pre-dawn hour.
Ramadan is much more than a ritual. It is described, says Selim, as "a school of morals". It's a time for strengthening relationships with God, family, friends and neighbours, for doing good deeds and for alms-giving.
But the social dimension is also very important. Huge emphasis is placed on good behaviour in both adults and children. "There's no point in fasting if you're smoking and using vulgar language," says Patricia Fitzpatrick, an Irish Muslim. "It's to do with manners, really."
Tibrah, Summayah Kenna's 11-year-old daughter, says everyone behaves much better. "In our religion, they lock up the devils for the whole month so if you do something bad, it's your fault. You can't blame the devils if they're not around."
Hospitality is central. At weekends, up to 300 people come to the mosque, where there is a meal for anyone who wants one after sunset on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Those who are exempted from fasting, such as elderly people, are asked to give a meal to a poor person every day. Families are encouraged to invite in their friends and neighbours for dinner.
Tibrah says she gets "excited" about Ramadan because "our family is always together doing different activities". The decorations, for example, are of the crepe paper variety, and so the whole family has to work together to assemble them.
As a preparation for Eid (the big festival day that marks the end of Ramadan), each pupil gets a package containing a calendar similar to an advent calendar, with a window to open each day (Thursday reminded them to "take care of your mother") and a "penny box", for which children are encouraged to save and sponsor poor children around the world. This year, it's for eight orphans in Iraq. "Lots of their dads are dead," says Abduraheem. "They all have bleeding legs," says Marwan, "and one lives alone."
Meanwhile, as they thumb through their Argos and Smyth Toys catalogues at night, PSPs (Portable Playstations) are the toy of choice for the magical day when the mosque is filled to twice its capacity for prayers, where people celebrate over rice and soup in the gym and the grounds play host to five huge bouncing castles and barbecues.
For all the privations, the end of Ramadan is "very emotional", says Fitzpatrick. "You're asking yourself how you did - did you fast well, did you pray well. It's all about reforming your character. You have to be good to fast." Many of the women are Irish Catholic converts who believe Christmas has become too materialistic. "The church should be a lot stronger," says Summayah Keller, once a devout Catholic. "Maybe the new Pope will be; he has a responsibility. Instead of going on about gay priests, it should be . . . telling people to think of why they're Christian. What's getting a new bathroom or how many parties you're going to got to do with the birth of Jesus?"