Just as the Christian Lent produced the custom of Mardi gras, so the Moslem fast of Ramadan, ninth and holiest month of the lunar calendar,* has long led to peculiar accommodations in Islamic countries. For 29 or 30 days every year, the devout, who must abstain from food, drink, tobacco and sex from dawn to sundown, make up for it by overindulging and undersleeping during the hours of darkness. When Ramadan, on its 32-year migration through the solar calendar, happens to fall in summer, many a weary Moslem gives up, sleeps the...
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