Religious Duty Research Articles

Remembering the Hacienda: Religion, Authority, and Social Change in Highland Ecuador

Remembering the Hacienda: Religion, Authority, and Social Change in Highland Ecuador

Exploring our Erroneous Zones: Developments in Jurisprudence on Determining Error Since 1983

* Professor of Canon Law, School of Canon Law, Catholic University of America 1 Canon 1099 of the1983 code, the principal focus of this essay, addresses the juridic relevance of errors about the unity, indissolubility, and sacramental dignity of marriage. In the interest of avoiding verbosity and complicated syntax, the focus here will be on errors about the unity and indissolubility of marriage. However, the principles developed here are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to errors about its sacramental dignity. 516 The Jurist 69 (2009) 516–561 EXPLORING OUR ERRONEOUS ZONES: DEVELOPMENTS IN JURISPRUDENCE ON DETERMINING ERROR SINCE 1983 John P. Beal I. From “Simple Error” to “Error Determining the Will” Ever since Jesus challenged the Mosaic allowance of divorce as a concession to human hardness of heart and at odds with the creator’s original intention, the Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage has been “counter-cultural.” It has insisted against its cultured detractors that marriage is not merely a product of cultural evolution which can be shaped to conform with passing human desires and fashions, but a divinely given institution with its own ontological structure which includes as essential properties unity and indissolubility.1 Throughout the first millennium of Christian history, the Church could maintain its prophetic stance with regard to marriage without worrying unduly about the status of marriages entered by those outside its boundaries. This uneasy co-existence between Church and world ended in the twelfthcenturywhentheChurchuseditsnewlyacquiredjurisdictionover matters matrimonial to define marriage in accord with Roman law as a relationship arising from consent alone and to analogize this consensual relationship to a contract.As a result of these developments, marriages, like all other contracts, could now be judged valid or invalid, legally binding or not; and the Roman law of contracts provided the conceptual tools for making these judgments. However, these developments left a nagging question in their wake: how could someone who firmly believed that marriage could be dissolved by divorce or that polygamy was not only permissible but perhaps even a religious duty consent to and thereby bring about a marriage characterized by unity and indissolubility? 2 Innocent III, decretal Gaudemus, X.4.19.8. 3 John T. Noonan, The Power to Dissolve: Lawyers and Marriages in the Courts of the Roman Curia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1972) 264. 4 Ibid. 5 Holy Office, decree of July 17, 1669, cited in Noonan, 272. exploring our erroneous zones 517 A. The Status Quo Ante: The “Simple Error” of Canon 1084 of the 1917 Code The question could not be avoided for long. In 1202, Innocent III was confronted by a question from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which touched on the status of the marriages of Muslims and Jews who, it was reported, accepted both divorce and polygamy. Noting somewhat anachronistically that the Apostle Paul had accepted the validity of the marriages of unbelievers, Innocent held that, when such unbelievers converted to Christianity, they were to be treated as already married to one wife;2 but he made no effort to “explain how, in a society where polygamy and divorce went hand-in-hand, a man could intend to give individual fidelity to one woman and enter into an indissoluble union with her.”3 The decision was no doubt politically astute. The fate of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a strip of the Palestinian coast precariously held by the Crusaders, was of deep concern to Innocent III. Legislating for this state with its religiously mixed population, would it not have been madness to have declared all non-Christian unions nullities? If the choice had to be between saying that all were indissoluble and all were null, was not indissolubility the wiser policy?4 Nevertheless, Innocent’s decision was intellectually and pastorally disappointing , containing flaws that insured that it was a decision that would be frequently revisited. The flurry of missionary activity that accompanied theAge of Discovery occasioned a revisiting of the decretal Gaudemus in the sixteenth century . Missionaries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas were encountering peoples whose ancestral customs included divorce and polygamy and for whom prior marriages or even multiple still existing marriages were an obstacle to conversion. Prodded by the missionaries and their superiors in Rome...

History, mystery and chemistry of eroticism: Emphasis on sexual health and dysfunction

Byline: K. Jagannath Rao, T. Sathyanarayana Rao, M. Asha, G. Hithamani, R. Rashmi, K. Basavaraj Introduction concept of 'Mind' as the functional element of 'Self' (Soul) has found a mention in the 'Vedas', the earliest known scriptures of human civilization. In Rigveda, Yajurveda and Atharvana veda, various aspects of the mind, emotions and mental illness and prevention of mental disorders have been elegantly described. Upanishads give an account of various states of mind, theories of perception, thought and memory. 'The Bhagavadgita' is well known as the essence of wisdom contained in Vedas and Upanishads and Lord Krishna, the first psychotherapist, who modified and simplified the knowledge in a form easily understandable by common man. Vatsyayana's classic work Kamasutra (Aphorisms of love) includes the three pillars of the Hindu religion Dharma Artha and Kama representing religious duty, worldly welfare and sensual aspects of life respectively. main theme here appears to be the expression of Indian attitude toward sex as a central and natural component of Indian psyche and life.[sup] [1] Kalyanamalla, (the author of Ananga Ranga, a famous Sanskrit work) is said to have said that of you who read this book shall know how delicious an instrument is woman, who is capable of giving the divinist pleasures. In The Tao of Love and Sex: ancient Chinese way to ecstasy, specific concepts in the Taoist approach to eroticism have been described in detail. A strong emphasis on female satisfaction is a key feature of the Tao of loving, achieved only through a proper balance and harmony of the forces of Yin (female) and Yang (male), the opposites in the cosmic scheme of the universe. As expounded by Chang, the Tao of loving is an explanation of the advice extended by various authorities in classical works on Taoism, that considered love making as part of the natural order of life.[sup] [2] The Perfumed Garden, by Sheikh Nafzawi,[sup] [3] is the best known example of a classic Islamic sex manual. In this 16[sup] th century guide, what people of that time thought were the most satisfactory characteristics of lovers and love making, have been poetically and colorfully described. [INLINE:1] Shyness, friendship, melodious voice, intellect, brilliance of youth, enjoying the sensuality of women , equanimity within the species, absence of sorrow/misery, carnal pleasure, religion, scriptures, intelligence of Brihaspathi (the teacher of Gods/Devathas), hygiene, concern about good behavior - all these occur only when the creatures' stomach is full . This elegant Subhashitha from Vishnusharma's Panchathanthra clearly indicates the necessity of appropriate and adequate food/nutrition, a requisite for having the right mindset and power for optimum sexual performance. In modern times, Abraham Maslow's model of Hierarchy of Needs draws a parallel, emphasizing the key role played by nutrition in human sexuality. Ayurveda is an ancient system of health care, originating in India, providing precise guidelines to protect life. This includes healthy living along with preventive and therapeutic measures related to physical, mental, social and spiritual harmony. In Aurveda, there's a systematic description of medicine or therapy called Vajikarana or Virility Therapy by which the man becomes capable of copulating with the woman. It also aids in nourishing the body of the person. According to Charaka[sup] [4] (author of Samhitha, an ancient ayurvedic text on Internal Medicine), one of the principal contributors to the art and science of Ayurveda, these medicines are said to give one the strength and potency of a horse by increasing the quantity and quality of semen, sperm count and sperm motility. person who takes these aphrodisiacs is claimed to get erection for a longer duration. Charaka contends that the possible causes of decreased libido are (a) impotency by birth, (b) Veeryaavarodha - obstruction of semen as a consequence of controlling sexual urges for longer duration (c) Shukra kshaya - decrease in quantity of semen due to overindulgence in sexual activities. …

Debatable Issues in Fiqh Al-Zakat: A Jurisprudential Appraisal

Zakat in terms of socio-economic role is a mandatory religious duty on the well to do members of the Ummah, to part with a portion of their wealth for the well-being of have-nots and helping other eligible social causes. To practically implement this policy, the Prophet laid down a comprehensive legal framework for its collection and distribution befitting the condition of his time. The classical jurists supplemented it by framing other operational laws to realize efficacious implementation of zakat at their time. In our contemporary time, jurists were faced with the question of efficacy of classical elaboration of zakat jurisprudence to serve the socio-economic objectives of zakat in modern time. Among others the adequacy of classical definition of zakat terms became debatable. The result was the usual divergence of opinions among the contemporary thinkers both with Shari?ah and Islamic economics backgrounds. This study is primary designed to critically evaluate the opposing views from fiqh perspective.

The Church’s lay workforce: Employment in the French Catholic Church

Faced with an ongoing shortage of priests, bishops have assigned permanent religious duties to several thousand laypersons, most of them women. Many have employment contracts. Employment arrangements for this new type of permanent personnel tend to be unfavorable: limited-time assignments (limited to a few years), despite the fact that they have permanent open-ended contracts; part-time work; a wage near the minimum. Various factors account for this vulnerability: the dire financial straits of French dioceses; ecclesiastic authorities’ determination to present the clergy as the Church’s only fully legitimate permanent personnel; the attitude of the laypersons themselves, who seem satisfied with their situation. Efforts to institutionalize their employment situation run into difficulties with respect to both the French labor code and the unexpected effects produced internally by promotion of a culture of temporary commitment.

A Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness: Development and Evidence for Reliability and Validity

A 60-item Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) was developed in three stages: (a) Domains of Islam relevant to physical and mental health were identified via theory and semistructured interviews with 25 Muslims; (b) an initial version of PMIR was pilot tested with 64 Muslims from the United States and Israel; and (c) desirable psychometric qualities of the final measure were established based on an international, Internet-solicited sample of 340 Muslims, as follows. The PMIR yielded seven distinct, highly reliable factors: Islamic Beliefs; Islamic Ethical Principles & Universality; Islamic Religious Struggle; Islamic Religious Duty, Obligation & Exclusivism; Islamic Positive Religious Coping & Identification; Punishing Allah Reappraisal; and Islamic Religious Conversion. All scales demonstrated desirable variability and strong discriminant, convergent, predictive, and incremental validity using multiple mental and physical criterion variables. The findings indicate that Islam is central to the well-being of Muslims and the PMIR provides a scientifically based, multidimensional understanding of Islam needed to advance the nearly nonexistent psychological theory, practice, and research focused on Muslims.

Religiosity, Marital Satisfaction and Child Rearing

The following research sought to examine the relationship between an individual’s performance of religious duties and its impact upon his or her level of marital satisfaction and children supervision. Findings in this connection can help strengthen families. Six hundred and sixty heterosexual couples from Tehran were studied using multistage cluster sampling. Information regarding religious duties and marital satisfaction was collected using the researcher’s prepared questionnaire, and ENRICH marital satisfaction scale. The results showed that heterosexual couples who observe religious beliefs and perform religious duties (like participation in religious rituals and ceremonies) have a higher rate of marital satisfaction, and have suitable children supervision. Thus, there is a significant correlation between performing religious duties and marital satisfaction. Considering the relation between performing religious duties and nine subscales of marital satisfaction and children supervision questionnaire, Communication Parenting and Religious Orientation account for the highest rate of performing religious duties, and Sexual Relationship accounts for the lowest rate of performing religious duties. Thus, with the increase in religiosity and performance of religious duties, marital satisfaction rate will increase, and vice versa. However, those who perform religious duties have suitable children supervision, so they have good relationship with their family. It can be concluded that religiosity develops the grounds for marital commitment and child-rearing.

State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings: Public Worship in Britain 1830-1897

Among the more remarkable activities of the mid nineteenth-century British state was its practice of ordering special acts of national worship — either new prayers to be read in all churches for particular dates or periods, or whole days set aside for religious duties, with complete church services composed for the occasion. These ‘prayers’ and ‘holy days’ were appointed at momentous occasions in national life, either to implore God's forgiveness and assistance at times of threat or anxiety, or to thank God at times of relief or celebration. The practice dates from the mid sixteenth century and had been much elaborated during the next two centuries,1 but it was certainly not just a historical relic. Into the Victorian period these observances remained striking instances of government acknowledgement of divine superintendence over the nation, and presentation of official religious interpretations of particular events, from epidemics, famine, war and imperial rebellion, to harvests, public discontent and royal births. The state orders were genuinely national, reaching into every parish in Scotland and Ireland as well as England and Wales.2 They were prominent expressions of the state–church relationship, while applying not just to the established churches alone but notionally to all religious denominations, and continuing beyond the ending in 1828–9 of the ‘confessional state’. They not only prescribed alterations in religious services but also affected everyday secular activity: ‘holy days’ — either fast days, renamed ‘days of humiliation’ in the 1850s, or thanksgiving days — were often appointed not for Sundays but for weekdays, with expected suspension of all secular work. Both ‘prayers’ and ‘holy days’ were ordered by authority of the royal supremacy, and were an important attribute of the monarchy. As the sovereign nevertheless acted on government advice, the decisions were political in the sense of always involving the prime …

Religious Aspects of Organ Transplantation

No religion formally forbids donation or receipt of organs or is against transplantation from living or deceased donors. Only some orthodox jews may have religious objections to “opting in.” However, transplantation from deceased donors may be discouraged by Native Americans, Roma Gypsies, Confucians, Shintoists, and some Orthodox rabbis. Some South Asia Muslim ulemas (scholars) and muftis (jurists) oppose donation from human living and deceased donors because the human body is an “amanat” (trusteeship) from God and must not be desecrated following death, but they encourage xenotransplantation research. No religion formally obliges one to donate or refuse organs. No religion formally obliges one to consider cadaveric organs “a societal resource” or considers organ donation “a religious duty” (except some rabbis and isolated Muslim and Christian scholars) No religion has a formal position on “bonus points,” which is priority on the waiting list. Living organ donation is strongly encouraged only between jesus christians (15 of 28 jesus christians worldwide have donated a kidney). No religion forbids this practice. Directed organ donation to people of the same religion has been proposed only by some Orthodox Jews and some Islamic Ulemas/Muftis. Only some Muslim Ulemas/Muftis and some Asian religions may prefer living donation over cadaveric donation. No religion prefers cadaveric over living donation. No religion formally forbids non–heart-beating donors (nhbd) cadaveric donation or cross-over donation. Due to the sacrad of human life, the Catholic Church is against donation from anencephalic donors or after active euthanasia. No religion formally forbids xenotransplantation. Addressing the participants of the First International Congress of the Society for Organ Sharing in 1991, Pope John Paul II said “There are many questions of an ethical, legal and social nature which need to be more deeply investigated. There are even shameful abuses which call for determined action on the part of medical association and donor societies, and especially of competent legislative bodies” and later on “In effect, the human body is always a personal body, the body of a person. The body cannot be treated as a merely physical or biological entity, nor can its organs and tissues ever be used as item for sale or exchange”. Addressing the participants at the XVIII International Congress of the Transplantation Society in 2000, Pope John Paul II said “Accordingly, any procedure which tends to commercialize human organs or to consider them as items of exchange or trade must be considered morally unacceptable, because to use the body as an object is to violate the dignity of the human person” and later on added “The criteria for assigning donated organs should in no way be discriminatory (i.e. based on age, sex, race, religion, social standing, etc.) or utilitarian (i.e. based on work capacity, social usefulness, etc.).” To conclude, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Compendium signed by Pope Benedict XVI on june 28, 2005, 476. Are allowed transplantation and organ donation, before and after death? Organ transplantation is morally acceptable with the consent of the donor and without excessive risks for him/her. For the noble act of organ donation after death, the real death of the donor must be fully ascertained.

Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England

Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England, David Colclough, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 314.The rhetorical lynchpin of this fascinating book's central argument is the concept of parrhesia, which is a Greek term that began life as a catch-all expression for the quality of speech belonging to citizens of the polis (6). Colclough implies that the tradition of parrhesia took a circular route via the freedom of expression inherent in the group rights of Greek citizens to the need for frank expression of unpleasant truths by courtiers to their rulers. This transition required that “frankness” be elevated to the status of a virtue once it became apparent that rulers did not always make decisions in the best interest of the state. After the Reformation in northern Europe this virtue evolved into a religious imperative in the face of sectarian persecution and in England, especially, this imperative naturally extended itself to the admonition of monarchs who encroached on their citizens' religious freedoms. Religious conflict led to war, war required economic investment and soon the religious imperative to oppose the wrong-headed heretic blended with a protestant parliament's right to admonish the monarch on purely secular matters. Thus, under the Stuarts, parrhesia eventually came to resume its original sense as the right and duty of a free subject to speak out in public without fear that his desire to preserve the common good would be prosecuted under laws aimed at the seditious and libelous. It is but a rising sense of the secular that enables us to recognize the change in values that led an onerous religious duty to become the unimpeachable liberal right we so casually assert today.

Religious Rights for Minorities in a Policy of Recognition

AbstractReligion plays an important role in today's multicultural society, especially when it comes to religious rights for minorities. Granting these rights stems from an endeavour to transcend a politics of tolerance, even a politics of respect, and to treat them in terms of a politics of recognition. Assigning these rights implies that some principles need to be critically reflected upon: the individualistic interpretation of minority rights, the separationist interpretation of the separation between church and state, the secularist interpretation of religious freedom, and the uniformistic interpretation of the state's legal unity. In granting minorities religious rights, one comes across the importance of their personal law, including marriage law and family law. To incorporate such personal law into the legal systems of Western society, one could apply the distinction between the domains of status demarcation, that refers to entering and belonging to a community, and property distribution, that relates to the rights and duties implicit in these social bonds. The former may be provided for by religious law, the later, by secular law. However, the question is whether marriage under religious law, and rights and duties under secular law can solve the problems women suffer from, especially in the case of polygyny.

The Role of Religion in Public Life (2006)

'Ein Tzaddik Ela Memaheh' 'no-one can pretend to be a Tzaddik righteous unless one is ready and willing to intervene in the affairs of the world'. I open with this particular Talmudic phrase because I believe that in many respects this teaching is key to the role of religion in society. In the Talmud, in order to have the desire and expectation to be a righteous individual, one also has to have the courage to intervene in the affairs of the world and, therefore, in the public arena. From this very simple and yet central concept, it appears that religion does play a vital role in the public arena. In fact, if that role is not played, one can possibly wonder what the purpose and role of the religion then is. My understanding of religions and of Judaism in particular is that it is not just about 'me and myself' as in a self-centred spiritual search or not even about 'me and God'. Most of the mitzvoth (Commandments) of our tradition are in fact dealing with the relationship between individuals, what we call in Hebrew, ' mitzvoth bein adam lechavero' commandments between a man and his neighbour. As such, there is quite clearly a Jewish religious duty to be involved in the affairs of others and in the affairs of the world. I suppose we could deduce from this statement that religion is essentially about getting involved in politics because otherwise we tend to fall into a very selfish definition of religion, which I do not believe has its place in traditional Jewish thinking. In order to make that point stronger, let me turn to a few biblical examples. In the book of Genesis, when the story of the flood is told, we learn that 'Noah was righteous in his generation'. The words 'his generation' have generated many rabbinic interpretations, all of them attempting to address one simple question, namely 'was Noah really righteous?'. Clearly the view taken by certain rabbis is that 'in his generation', Noah was a righteous man, but compared to what a real righteous man should be, he was not. This argument is supported with a very good reason: throughout the many years it took to build the ark as God had commanded him, Noah did not try to intervene in order to save anyone else. In other words, during all the years Noah was building the Ark in the middle of the mountains, he did not save a soul, simply because he did not seem to be bothered by the catastrophe that was about to

Bhikkhuni Ordination Debate

This paper examines the recent events following the bhikkhuni revival in Sri Lanka, and looks at the position of the Burmese Sangha, which has traditionally seen itself as the custodian of an ‘authentic’ Buddhist legacy, thrown into a debate by the action of a Burmese bhikkhuni who was recently ordained in Sri Lanka. It introduces the early initiatives of revivalist monks in Burma as well as the viewpoints of Burmese Sangha and the nuns in regard to the bhikkhuni issue. Since most debate on the position of nuns take place without much reference to the local political contexts in which they stand, the state monastic organization in Burma is introduced to aid understanding of the framework in which the nuns operate today. At another level, the paper draws attention to the tension created between the international bhikkhunis who promote liberal ideologies of gender equality, individual rights and universalism into a faith based community, and local nuns who adhere to the traditional norms of religious duty, moral discipline and service to the community, and questions the ultimate aim in endorsing such secular ideals.

‘Remembering for Us’: The Transgenerational Transmission of Holocaust Memory and Commemoration

Commemoration has moved from the periphery to the centre of Australian Jewish consciousness, a trend that is also discernable amongst Jewish communities. Over the past six decades the voice of the Holocaust survivor has become increasingly audible, and has been instrumental in establishing a public memory of the Holocaust in Australia. Today, survivors are at the forefront of the commemorative activities and their individual stories, representing a myriad of different experiences, are central to Holocaust education. At present the issue that confronts the Sydney Jewish community is no different from the questions facing other communities. How is memory of the Holocaust to be kept alive and vibrant as survivors’ voices begin to recede and as the past passes from ‘living memory to history’? This article is based on group interviews conducted with Holocaust survivors living in Sydney, Australia and explores how these Holocaust survivors would like the Holocaust to be remembered in the future. From the discussion groups it was clear that most of these survivors are unsure if the next generation possesses the inclination and ability not only to remember the Holocaust, but to remember it well. There was a clear sentiment amongst all the groups that one of the only ways the memory of the Holocaust can survive is by being cast as a religious act, duty and obligation, to be codified in the Jewish religious calendar.

Hinduism as a Legal Tradition

The role of law in Hinduism and the value of law as a category of Hindu studies have been underestimated. After making an initial case for the connection of dharma and law in the treatises on religious and legal duty known as Dharmaśāstra, this essay examines the role of dharma as law in other Hindu texts in order to show the possible horizons of understanding yielded by an incorporation of law into Hindu studies. Dharmaśāstra, it is argued, should be viewed as a form of legal rhetoric and its formulations of dharma understood as paradigmatic for the Hindu tradition as a whole. Finally, through a comparison with Islam and Islamic studies, the mutual modulations of law and Hinduism are examined in order to see the consequences of juxtaposing these two categories.

Of saving children

Of saving children

Of saving children

Of saving children

Searching for Max Havelaar: Multatuli, Colonial History, and the Confusion of Empire

Must everything in modern Dutch literature begin and end with Multatuli?1 So much has been written on Multatuli and his work, and so many different things have been attributed to his influence, that his presence in modern Dutch literary history nearly overwhelms both his contemporaries and those who have followed after. Only a decade or so after his death, Multatuli’s novel on Dutch colonial rule in the Netherlands Indies, Max Havelaar, had become nearly required reading and something like a badge of identification for both radical and mainstream political groups in the Netherlands.2 Gerard Brom, writing in 1931 about the influence of the Indies on Dutch culture, could only wax poetic about Multatuli and his work: “so great was the influence of Max Havelaar for life in the Indies, and so great was its significance for Dutch culture,” that the book’s presence had become “a fact that no writer could hope to avoid.”3 Even Queen Wilhelmina (r. 1898–1948) found inspiration in the writings of Multatuli when she began to entertain the idea of writing the story of her own life as part of the moral and material rebuilding of the Netherlands in the postwar years.4 Other writers speak of Multatuli as the “true Prometheus” of Dutch literature, the observance of whose literary “cult” is nearly a matter of “religious duty” for Dutch literati.5 Multatuli’s influence has indeed been immense, both in Dutch literature and in the literature of empire, but one wonders at times if the stories of the life and work of Multatuli had perhaps taken on a life of their own and become a

The Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Hemoglobin, Hematocrit and Blood Biochemical Parameters

Background: Physicians in Islamic countries believe that fasting in Ramadan is equal to ingestion of thirty pills regularly ingested every year for clearing the blood and fortifying the tissues. The effects of Islamic fasting on physiologic functions in normal conditions have been considered in different studies and different topics. This study was to determine the quantitative changes of hemoglobin, hematocrit and certain serum biochemical parameters during Ramadan fasting in apparently healthy Muslim college students. Methods: Sixty-two students were followed in five stages: one week before, 3 rd , 15 th and 28 th day of Ramadan and ten days after Ramadan, by proper blood sampling in suitable time of day. Results: The findings showed a significant decrease in hemoglobin, glucose and uric acid on days 3 and 15 of Ramadan ( P P Conclusion: Changes in biochemical and hematological parameters of blood during Ramadan fasting are very important and the Islamic countries physicians should be informed about these beneficial effects of fasting. It seems that more researches are required for evaluating these effects in various physiologic and pathologic conditions and there are yet many unanswered questions in this relation. We believe that one of the physician responsibilities about patients is guiding and helping them for doing the religious duties in disease conditions because this has a great effect on recovery of patient. This consideration makes strong the physician-patient relationship.

Impact of Ramadan Fasting on Renal Allograft Function

Fasting during the holy month of Ramadan is a religious duty for all healthy adult Muslims. They are only allowed to eat and drink between sunset and dawn. This study was designed to find the effect of Ramadan fasting on allograft function. We prospectively studied 19 kidney transplant recipients who voluntarily chose to fast during Ramadan versus 20 matched recipients, who had not fasted for 3 consecutive years. Data were recorded before, during, and after the fasting month. The mean posttransplant periods in the fasting and control groups were 52.6 ± 30.3 and 56.6 ± 30.0 months, respectively. A statistical analysis showed no significant changes in serum creatinine concentrations before and after Ramadan 1.07 ± 0.24 versus 1.08 ± 0.22 mg/dL ( P > .05) and 1.00 ± 0.24 versus 1.03 ± 0.28 mg/dL ( P > .05) in fasting and control groups, respectively. The results did not show any adverse effects of fasting in recipients with stable renal function. In conclusion, our study suggests that fasting during the month of Ramadan is safe and has no significant harmful effects on kidney transplant recipients with normal renal function.