Ramadan - Roza 2005

The days of fasting have started for all muslims across the globe . I thought i would write a few lines on the subject , it is true that this holy period is not really known outside muslim communities and outside of Mauritius (here we know everything about everyone's religion).

So what is roza all about you will say? Roza is about fasting and making muslims realise the pain and hunger people striken with poverty face in their everyday life. Its also about donating a percentage of one's income to the poor.As you may see there's a lot about trying to bring a balance between the poor and the rich. Well that was my short introduction to my beginner's guide to Roza.

Now how roza affects our everyday life is kind of surprising. You have to wake up before sunrise , have breakfast , do prayers and are not allowed to eat or drink anything until sunset. Muslims all over the world don't spend the some amount of time fasting (that is period where you dont eat and drink). For example in countries like Mauritius fasting starts at 4:35am and ends around 6:30pm as we are in summer and our days are longer than those in winter countries where the fasting is definitively less.

Roza lasts one full moon cycle which is more or less a month time. You would think that people lose weight when fasting although in some cases thats indeed what happens however many people actually gain in weight or dont lose wieght at all!!! Unbelieveable but true , there's 2 reasons for that :

1. At the end of the day , in most families we make lots of cakes , delicous food and the famous alouda (which is milk and sirop) to drink. This is like a reward to the fast keeper .. but there is an overdose at times with all these goodies.

2. The time at which you would normally have breakfast and dinner changes not to forget that the time where you would normally have lunch DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE! So this creates a stomach clock disbalance(dont look up in the dictionary .. i just made it up).

But roza is cool :P , people tend to be more calm , patient and comprehensive. Roza ends normally when the new moon is seen and the next day we celebrate Eid-Ul-Fitr . Then we eat briani but thats another blog entry and we are still on the 2nd day of fasting ..hehehe.

Category: Muslim,Mauritius,Fasting,Roza,Ramadan,Eid