ramadan kareem

I arrived in Kuwait on the first day of ramadan. then, I didn’t really have an idea how that would shape the experience, that the sentence “that’s because it’s ramadan” would end up being one of the most common answers throughout my entire stay.

the fasting is attended very widely in kuwait – spanning generations, classes, religious differences, even the typical middle eastern nationalism/tribalism. the young jordanian professional at the desk next to me, the syrian driver, the indonesian cleaning lady, achille’s aristocrat kuweiti friends, the pakistani security guard – they are united in their fasting.


achille with seikaly sisters razan and abeer

fares always peaks into the snack corner to see what the christians are eating (see pic). as if through exposure to temptation, he’ll obtain extra points from god. but it’s not about extra points or temptation, he says, but about the welcome change of routine. one month a year he eats differently, and more importantly lives differently. ramadan makes him a more conscious human being.

a change of routine it definitely is. also abeer, being jordanian but christian, usually looks forward to ramadan. in her case ramadan is almost synonymous with iftar, the breaking of the fast, every day at sunset. then families and friends get together for endless banquets, excessive gossiping, card games and other homy activities (usually she gains weight during ramadan).


with taufiq, fares and mahmoud

so around two thirty, everybody rushes home for iftar, which starts at sunset, around five. this collective routine makes rush hour traffic jams much more brutal. everyone is on the way to and from work at the same time. feels like I spent half of the time I was in kuwait inside a car surrounded by other cars...
also, drivers are more hungry and tired than usual, which results in spectacular accidents all over the city ("that's because it's ramadan"). the kuwaiti police puts wrecked cars in the middle of roundabouts as gentle reminders, yet to little effect...

something more structurally than traffic jams that bothered me about ramadan is the institutionalized intolerance. in public, fasting is enforced to muslims but also to non muslims, by law. munching some pringles on the parking lot of the grocery store could get me into serious trouble, I was told. a non believer is not granted the freedom to behave respectfully in front of fasting believers. he simply ‘joins’. in kuwait, unlike in saudi, chewing gum during ramadan is a crime.

I read up a little on the enforcement part. kuwaiti courts are not de facto using the the sharia, the muslim law. unlike big brother saudi arabia, kuwait officially maintains a separation between mosque and court, while a growing number of members of the assembly is trying to introduce sharia, with the pathetic political means they are granted from the emir. without success so far.
also the Kuwait Pocket Guide 2005 is ambiguous on the topic. a short paragraph on kuwait’s legal system outlines a very western ‘style’ court system (courts of appeal and cassation and everything), yet pages and pages are dedicated to the rules of sharia, albeit under the topic ‘traditions and culture’.

“Islam lays down rules governing all aspects of human behavior. These are known as the Sharia, which is considered by Muslims to be a Revealed Code of Law that is eternal in place and time and to which all human beings are subject, and which provides for all the conduct needed for an orderly society.”

in the traffic jams, I read (fought myself through) salman rushdie’s satanic verses. not initially intended as my middle east reading – it was rushdie freak pieter who’d passed it on for my trip back from japan. kind of revealing though, the intolerance of the mainstream muslim community towards the (temporal) temptation of the prophet.

I left kuwait on the last day of ramadan.
the exact end of ramadan, and the beginning of eid, the post ramadan festivities, is not known until the very end though. most muslims follow a certain mufti in saudi arabia, who announces eid as soon as he spots the new moon. so I left when the fun started. quoting achille - "you've been in the worst place on earth, during exactly the worst time of year..." - the day after I left, he went sailing (bastardo).