High-Tech Fasting for Ramadan
Turkish Muslims plan to resort to appetite suppressing diet patches to help them get through the daily fast during the Ramadan holy month, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday. One of the most popular questions asked on a help line run by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate is “whether diet patches are suitable for fasting” and “whether the use of diet patches will amount to foul play,” the report said.
Theologians have reassured them they have nothing to worry about.
“Fasting is a way of disciplining the body. Those who use diet patches try to achieve the same. That’s why diet patches are not objectionable,” said Mehmet Baris, the muftu, or highest Muslim authority, in the southern province of Adana.
The patches, which release appetite-suppressing ingredients into the body through the skin, cannot be considered to corrupt the fast because their usage amounts to “showering or applying a pomade on the skin” rather than eating, theology professor Kerim Yavuz said.
During Ramadan, which starts Sept. 1, observant Muslims eat a light pre-dawn meal and fast until sunset, a practice aimed at fostering self-discipline, sacrifice and empathy for the poor. (click here)
By the same token, then, taking a time-release appetite suppressant orally before the fast begins and smokers’ wearing nicotine patches should be OK. This is what happens when you scare people out of their wits about not fasting — of course they will seek ways to cheat and the ‘authorities’ will seek ways to legitimize the cheating. Afterall the point of the fast is going through the motions and satisfying the religious establishment and it has nothing to do with developing an appreciation of the bounty. The poor and the hungry most certainly do have high-tech means at their disposal to not feel any discomfort so it works fine in the empathy department too. I wonder what else will be deemed acceptable when Ramadan coincides with the longest days in the year.
In other news, the standard Ramadan problems are beginning to get covreage in the press: http://www.radikal.com.tr/Default.aspx?aType=HaberDetay&ArticleID=896189