What’s it like to fast for Ramadan? A non-Muslim goes 13 hours without food or water to find out, and ponders the health and spiritual benefits

Lise Poulsen Floris joins her neighbours in Malaysia in fasting from sunrise to sunset, and overcomes weakness and discomfort to make it to the iftar meal

She finds going without water daunting but a neighbour says dry fasting gives her more energy, and there are suggestions it can lower your ‘bad cholesterol’

Reading Time:4 minutes

The writer’s neighbour in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sajida Aziz Omar, breaks her daily Ramadan fast at an Iftar buffet. Omar says dry fasting - consuming no food or water for 13-plus hours - gives her more energy. Photo: Lise Floris

Published: 5:45am, 28 Apr 2022

The sun rises at 5.59am in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is day 10 of the holy month of Ramadan in which practising Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

Today, I – a non-Muslim – decide to fast to show solidarity with Muslim friends and learn how I react after having no food or water for 13 waking hours.

For suhoor, the meal ahead of sunrise, I sit down at 5.30am and have two bread rolls, some smoked salmon, oats with blueberries, cheese, a fried egg, a litre of water and a glass of chocolate milk.

As the call for dawn prayer sounds from the local mosque, I take my last sip of water, hoping that I have consumed enough to last through sunset.

The writer’s suhoor meal before 13 hours of no food or drink. Photo: Lise Floris

Next door, the Omar family have also finished their suhoor. During Ramadan, Sajida Aziz Omar, her finance specialist husband Mohammed Fahim and their older children, aged 10 and 15, get up before dawn; another son aged seven sleeps in. They eat lightly early in the morning, usually some yogurt and fruit.