Ramadan Don'ts

What Not to Do During Ramadan

The month of Ramadan is a month of difficult fasting (especially now), spiritual reflection, personal renewal, and ritual practice. There are many things that one should do during this month of immense blessing: fast from dawn until dusk (of course), read and recite the Qur'an, improve upon bad habits, pray the night vigil, among many others. Yet, there are some things that one should not do while fasting, a list culled after years of experience of fasting in the United States.

Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor, writer, and Belienet blogger. He is author, most recently, of Noble Brother: The Story of the Prophet Muhammad in Poetry (Faithful Word Press). Follow him at his blog Common Word Common Lord.

Don't Shop for Food While Fasting

Ideally, one should make all of his or her food shopping before the start of Ramadan. The reason being...if you enter into a food store or, worse, a wholesale club like Sam's or Costco, while fasting, it may be an excruciating experience. Everything in the store, suddenly, becomes appetizing. Even if you have a specific shopping list, which I HIGHLY recommend, there are so many other things that you simply must purchase: ooooh, chocolate covered caramel nut clusters; ooooh, wavy sour cream and onion Lays; ooooh, pink frosted donuts; ooooh...ooooh...ooooh...

Pretty soon, you will have hundreds of dollars of food in your cart, most of which you will not eat at all. So, if you can avoid it, don't go food shopping while fasting. If you can have a non-Muslim friend or neighbor do it for you, even better.

Don't Go to Office Lunch Parties

You try your best to get them rescheduled for either before or after Ramadan, but to no avail. So, the sales representative comes in and brings a yummy, delicious lunch. In fact, it's your absolute favorite lunch of all time! You try to stay at your desk, saying "I'm not hungry..." but everyone says, "C'mon, its pizza!" And so, not wanting to get into a whole lecture about Ramadan and fasting, you come and "make an appearance." And you watch as everyone else eats, drinks, and is merry. You try to smile through the hunger and thirst pangs. And so, you take a "few pieces for later." By the time sunset comes along, the pieces of pizza you took are...nasty.

Don't do that to yourself. Just stay at your desk.

Don't Go to Office Dinner Parties

You also tried your best to get the dinner party rescheduled a little later...like, 7:30? But, again, you were not successful. And...a really important client will be there, and so you don't want to miss it. So, you try to mingle with your colleagues and make them think that you are still not fasting. But then the time comes to sit down for the meal...and sunset is still an hour away. You forgo the appetizer...the salad...the rolls...the main dish...and when the dessert comes, you are finally chowing down, because it is after sunset.

"Umm," you tell the confused server, "can I have the appetizer, the rolls, the salad, and the main entree in a box, please?" Don't do that to yourself, either. Sit this dinner party out.

Don't Eat Gyros As Your "Pre-Dawn Snack"

I was working an overnight shift in the ER during my residency, and it was Ramadan. The attending physician offered to buy us all Greek food, and I obliged. My intention was to have a little and save the rest for dinner the next night (after sunset). But, when I got the food and beheld the luscious smell of the gyros platter...I could not resist. I had the whole thing (before dawn, of course). It was awesome; it tasted fantastic; I really enjoyed eating it...

Until the heartburn set in a few hours later...after I had to stop eating. And so, I had to round in the hospital the next day, sleepy from the previous ER shift, and suffering from heart burn up to my ears, with no ability to relieve it. I still remember that feeling all these years later. Don't do that to yourself.

Nothing against gyros...it's one of my favorite foods of all time. But, no one should "snack" on a gyros platter before fasting. It is a very, very bad idea.

Update: there is one other food item that should not be a pre-dawn snack: a large order of Schezwan Beef...