Greetings, and Ramadan Mubarak (I believe). I have a several students who are currently observing Ramadan. There are snacks around in class because I don’t want them in general to go hungry.

This may be obscenely stupid, but are there any things I can do (within normal religious expectations) to assist? A nice beverage or some gum or something?

I can’t physically do without food anymore for more than a brief period due to illness, so I may be over sensitive regarding food.

  • RedMari@reddthat.comEnglish
    3·
    26 days ago

    The students observing Ramadan would not eat or drink anything. The best thing you can do is validate their practice and show that you understand it.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    26 days ago

    I’m not Islamic, so probably verify with someone who is before acting on this advice, but…

    My understanding is that the food/drink restrictions are based on the sunrise and sunset - basically if the sun is visible, they can’t eat or drink.

    So, if yours is an evening class or early morning where your students are present when it’s still dark out, having snacks available should be fine. But when the sun is up, keeping the snacks available would be a temptation that they’d probably rather have out of sight / out of mind.

    I had an Islamic classmate in nursing school - evening classes, about half of which was post sunset. She had mentioned (when the sun was still up) that she was hardcore craving a Coke, but couldn’t have anything because she was observing Ramadan. There was a little Mexican grocery store near campus that sold those legit glass-bottle Cokes with real sugar - went there on our first break and bought one, put it in a bag of ice, and just kept it in my backpack. The following break was after sunset, so I just asked her then: “Sun’s down, so you can eat and drink now, right?” She said yes, so I whipped out that bottle and dude, she was ecstatic! But the key there was working with the rules of her religion - the setup was all behind the scenes without her knowing, so there was zero temptation coming from me to make her fall short of the standard she was adhering to.

    So… sun’s down: snacks good! Sun’s up, keep the snacks out of sight.