The holy month of Ramadan has just over a week to run. Tom McKinlay catches up with those observing the fast.
Dunedin's Clyde St Al Huda mosque is not purpose-built. What gives it away is the oblique angle of those at prayer.
As they bend forward to perform their obeisance their rows create a diagonal pattern across the floor, facing the door they just came in. Beyond that door, at some distance, is Mecca.
Behind a curtain partition the "sisters" of the Abrahamic faith, it can be presumed, have their prayer mats lined up in a similar fashion. The only observable evidence of this, from the men's side, hardly settles the question. One young child, a girl of 2 or 3 has broken ranks and has shuffled forward to prop the curtain on her head, perhaps in an effort to spot dad.
No-one takes any notice and indeed this youngster is years from taking a full part in the day's proceedings, as the occasion that has gathered the Muslim faithful is Ramadan. Specifically it is the fourth prayer of the day in the holy month, the early-evening "maghrib" prayers that immediately follow the breaking of the Ramadan fast.
All those past adolescence have observed the fast since before daybreak. It is now after 6pm. The dates and pastries consumed moments before the prayer must have tasted terrific.
For the month of Ramadan, that this year runs from August 22 to September 21 (it changes with the lunar calendar), Muslims eat and drink nothing during daylight hours. There can be no sexual relations during the day and for smokers the month must be a test indeed.
Still, it is easier this year for all those fasting in New Zealand, and will be easier again in 2010, as former Afghan government minister and now University of Otago political studies lecturer Dr Najibullah Lafraie explains during an interview in his office.
"It is much easier because when I first came in 2000 I think Ramadan was some time in December and I remember there were days when we fasted for more than 17 hours," he says.
"At those times, dawn break would be before 3 or quarter to 3 and dusk would be about 9.30pm or past 9.30pm.
"Now it is probably 13, 12 to 13 hours so it makes it much easier and also the weather is much nicer. When it is hot, although it doesn't get that hot here in New Zealand, in the hot weather we feel much more thirsty.
"My youngest daughter - when we came here it was the first year she had to fast the whole month and it was the 17 hours. So for the poor girl it was very difficult."
While the month is known, even in the West, as a time of fasting, that is really just the mechanics of what is a deeply spiritual event for those who proclaim "there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet".
Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, as revealed by Muhammad, that shape the lives of the faithful.
Dr Lafraie puts it succinctly: "Muslims believe that God Almighty sent messengers to all the nations to guide them and Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last messenger. And all the messengers brought guidance about how people should live their lives to achieve success and prosperity in this world and the hereafter".
It is not enough simply to believe, a Muslim must demonstrate his or her faith through action, and Ramadan is part of this.
So as the sun sets, the mostly student-age regulars gather at Dunedin's Al Huda Mosque, shaking hands and wishing each other "as-salaamu alaikum", peace be with you. They don't look like they are running on empty. There is rather, a festive celebratory atmosphere.
Among the reasons for this may be that women from the Afghan community have prepared the meal, or iftar, that will follow the maghrib prayers. This is regarded as a good thing, for which the cooking smells wafting through the mosque provide further evidence.
It emerges during the conversation that accompanies the iftar, that those on cooking duties need not do so blind, as tasting the food as it cooks is fine. You just can't swallow.
There is plenty of swallowing now, as the good work of the Afghan women is appreciated by long rows of the hungry seated on the floor in the mosque's main hall. Chairman of the Otago Muslim Association Steve Johnston, a one-time member of the Kings High School second XV, is explaining that following the meal they will adjourn for a reading from the Koran.
During the month they will, in this way, read it all.
How long is the Koran, I ask, which brings some good-natured guffaws. It's probably a bit like asking how large is the ineffable, or what is the sum of all wisdom.
Fortunately, Mr Johnston is able to supply an answer. It will take about 45 hours, spread across the 30 evenings of the month, he says.
Earlier, Dr Lafraie answered an equally clumsy question about whether he feels better for the experience of Ramadan.
"Certainly you do," he says.
"You pray five times a day but you feel much more aligned to your creator when you are fasting and praying or when you are standing in the late evening praying, compared to most other times.
"Human beings have different needs at different times. Ramadan puts you in this spiritual mode.
"If you finish Ramadan and at the end of Ramadan you aren't a better Muslim than you were before Ramadan, then you missed the point of your fast."
The benefits of such concentrated focus then carry the believer through the rest of the year.
"Certainly during Ramadan this refocusing of yourself must impact long after you have finished Ramadan. In a way you recharge yourself."
As much as the month's rituals recharge the soul, they carry an equally important message to consider those who have no choice but to go without.
"The prophet says if a person lives with a full stomach while the neighbour is hungry that person is not a Muslim, but more so during the month of Ramadan," Dr Lafraie says.
At the end of Ramadan a Muslim gives a certain amount to the poor or a good cause, in cash or kind.
Indeed Dr Lafraie says the benefits of the month are multidimensional.
"The acts of worship you do, you do because God Almighty has instructed us to do them. But you also know that God does not need anything from us. So whatever he has told us to do it is good for us," he says.
Psychologically there is the act of willpower involved, getting up early in the morning and the self-discipline involved in negotiating the day. Those participating in Ramadan in a non-Muslim country have an edge here, Dr Lafraie says.
"It is more beneficial for that, living here, because you have to exercise your willpower, your self-discipline to resist temptation around you."
Though, again, there is no hint that Dr Lafraie is suffering unduly for his faith. It is late afternoon when we talk in his modestly decorated office at the university and the sun streams in, creating a warm environment for someone who has not had so much as a glass of water for more than 10 hours.
It is easy to believe the former member of the Afghan resistance - back when it was the Russians invading his country, in the early 1980s - takes his fast in his stride, while avoiding unnecessary trials.
"We had a visitor who gave a seminar to the department of politics," he explains. "After that the whole department, everyone who participated, was invited for lunch. Certainly I avoided that. I didn't join them.
"I could go and sit there if there was a need but they mightn't feel comfortable about that because I am fasting.
"It was for their sake. It would not bother me much."
The political scientist has done it tougher.
During his time with the resistance, based in Peshawar, in Pakistan, temperatures during Ramadan would climb to 50degC "and to my amazement I could fast", he says, though conceding under those circumstances it was difficult.
"God Almighty has given you a lot of potential and you don't realise that potential until you get into a certain situation.
"It makes you realise what potential you have. That made me realise because I could fast during those long hours."
The experience of Ramadan in a Muslim country, such as his home of Afghanistan, is different, he says.
Everyone, everywhere you go is fasting.
"You don't see people eating, drinking or smoking," he says, chuckling at the extra struggle the smokers face.
"You feel it all around you. Here you find it only in the mosque, you find the atmosphere only in the mosque. So it is different but in a way it is not a negative thing."
Many others at the mosque will recognise the sentiment, drawn as they are from the Muslim countries of the world, Sunni and Shia, and from the various schools of the two branches. Dr Lafraie says the differences are minor.
At the iftar he indicates the men seated next door.
"The brothers sitting beside you are from Iran," he says.
It is clear that the key word here is "brothers".
They have a couple of small boys with them, who don't seem as hungry.
Not everyone must observe Ramadan, those yet to reach adolescence, the ill and infirm, those travelling more than 50km a day, and those who are pregnant or breastfeeding can choose not to, though those of age must do the fast at another time of the year, to make up, if they are able. Women who have just given birth or are having their monthly period get a pass.
"My son, I think, started last year or the year before," Dr Lafraie says. "He was 15 or 16. Before that we encouraged him to fast probably for three to four days during Ramadan. And if he wanted to do more we said no, your time will come.
"But after that it becomes an obligation, there is no choice, you must fast."
Fasting is, of course, not a discipline peculiar to the Islamic world. The Christian and Jewish faiths both have their periods of fasting - in the Christian tradition, it is Lent, the period leading up to Easter.
Dr Lafraie says the Koran acknowledges other traditions, calling on Muslims to fast as it "was ordained for those before you".
He launches, with a wry smile, into a discussion of the universal benefits of fasting that he sometimes uses in his university lectures.
There is, apparently, a well known experiment in which a group of rodents is required to "fast", and their progress plotted against two control groups.
"They found the third [fasting] group was the healthiest and lived the longest compared to those two others," Dr Lafraie says, chuckling.
A call to prayer interrupts our interview, an alluring stream of song cascading from Dr Lafraie's computer. It turns out he has downloaded software that prompts him to pray at the required times.
"Of course back home when there's a time of prayer you hear it all around, from all the mosques. That is why I have it here," he explains.
The call he is using is from the Al Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem. Dr Lafraie plays a couple of other calls on his computer, from different Muslim lands, each of which carries a similarly magical quality, inflected with a local style.
They all praise God, talk of his greatness, then call the faithful to prayer, to come to success and salvation.
The day of my visit to the Al Huda Mosque a young Somali man gives the call, subtly infusing the tradition with the memory of his country.
When the computer kicked in at Dr Lafraie's office I immediately offered to leave him to his prayers - the third of the day - but he said there was no requirement for undue haste.
"Islam gives us options so that it won't become overbearing on you. I could pray from this minute up until half an hour or so before sunset. Any time I pray in between is fine."
It is another lesson that is easy to grasp, easy to understand, concerning a religion so often held up in the West as other and alien - a religion of exotic traditions, distant lands, Mecca and Medina.
Has Dr Lafraie been to Mecca, completing the Hajj pilgrimage that is the duty of all Muslims who are able?
Yes, he says, two or three times he has joined the millions-strong throng circling the Kaaba in the holiest of Muslim cities, in what is now Saudi Arabia.
"The first time it was probably 25-30 years ago," he says.
But apparently more than this is not so easily explained, broken down into bite-sized chunks for the gentile.
"It is unbelievable and indescribable," he says. "It is something you must experience. You cannot describe it."
FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM
1. Belief that there is one deity worthy of worship, one God, and that Muhammad is God's messenger.
2. Prayer five times a day.
3. Concern for the poor, expressed as almsgiving.
4. Fasting during the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the year, for 29 or 30 days. Ramadan changes every year because it sits within a lunar calendar - which is 10 days shorter than the solar calendar. You start when you see the relevant new moon and stop when you see the next new moon. The Koran was received by the Prophet Muhammad over 23 years but the first revelation was during the month of Ramadan. It is said that a night during Ramadan is better than 1000 months.
5. The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The largest annual pilgrimage in the world, the Hajj must be completed by every Muslim at least once in their lifetime if they are able.
