What all is involved with Ramadan? I’m a Christian so the only thing I’ve ever really done is lent but it was a super flexible one since I’m Baptist lol. Just asking cause I would love to be more educated on the subject!
:O i appreciate your curiosity and wanting to learn more, thank you! there’s a lot of stuff involved in ramadan, but basically it’s our holiest month and we fast during it! the dates change every year, so every year it shifts back by about ten days and lasts about thirty (it depends on the moon, but i’m not an expert, there’s people that look for the start and end specifically)! from sunrise to sunset we don’t eat or drink; you can’t have anything that goes into your system, so no pills and no smoking, no gum, all that stuff. we break fast at sunset with water and then we can eat and drink whatever we want from then on until sunrise. also included is nsfw stuff, so no kissing, no having sex, and no masturbating during the fast—if you do any of that, it also breaks your fast and doesn’t count for the day (unless it’s after sunset, like with eating/drinking). it’s also required to donate to charity during ramadan! of course, that’s also within reason depending on your own situations; basically just give as much as you can.
of course there’s also exceptions; if you medically have to take certain pills or are sick, or you throw up during, you’re allowed to not fast. for example someone in my family has to take pills for a heart condition and therefore they’re not allowed to fast and it’s completely excusable (by god). when i had surgery, it was on the third day of ramadan and i had to take pain medication for about a month and needed to stay hydrated since i was going to physical therapy afterwards, so i was also excused from fasting that year (but had to make it up later). it’s not completely unreasonable, if you have a reason that you can’t!
there’s a bunch of reasons why we do it! first and foremost, because god asked us to. second, because it gives our digestive system a break from constantly having to work to digest food and drink, and also helps flush out toxins (if you don’t pig out after sunset). third, it helps us learn self control and teach us how to avoid temptations; if you can fast for a whole day and make it through the month, other stuff seems trivial and you can get a better grasp of your impulses in other areas. fourth, it teaches us the struggles that people living in poverty face and helps us be more compassionate and empathetic because of it; we get a taste of how a lot of people live, unable to eat and/or drink whenever they want like many of us are lucky enough to be able to do. we learn what it’s like not having access to food and drink whenever we want some and (hopefully) we become more compassionate to those in need.
i hope that helped explain akhdsjahds there’s a lot more information out there on other stuff that i may not know or may have forgotten to mention! sorry this ended up being so long akhdsjahds
