I respectfully direct the attention of His Excellency the Minister of Civil Service to the condition that most working women find themselves in during Ramadan. With the change in working hours during the month — starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 4 p.m. — very little time is left for women when they return home from work.
Coming home late gives a woman only a few minutes before iftar. She finds herself torn between attending to herself, her husband and children, entering the kitchen to prepare the iftar meal or sitting down to recite a few verses from the Holy Qur’an. Priorities are confused because several things cry out to be done simultaneously.
A change in our daily routine at this time of the year is needed if we are to renew our spirituality during the blessed month. What I cannot understand is the logic behind such a radical change in the working hours. We are grateful to the ministry for reducing the number of working hours in Ramadan but the problem lies with the start of working hours — instead of 8 a.m. or even earlier, we now go at 10 a.m. I see no pressing reason to justify this change.
If somebody tells us that the change is necessary to ease the hardships and troubles of fasting workers, the answer is that a person who fasts is rewarded because of the hardships he or she endures. Muslims fast in order to seek rewards, forgiveness and blessings from God. If there is no hardship, much of the purpose of Ramadan is lost.
Asking people to come early and leave early means they still have a full half-day to attend to their business with enough time left for worship, which is the main reason behind fasting. This would also lead to reducing the long night hours spent watching television which in itself runs contrary to the purpose and idea of fasting.
Some public establishments have successfully applied a system of early working hours. For example, Saudi Aramco gives its employees the choice of working in Ramadan from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. or from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The overwhelming majority chose the first, saying they prefer to return home as early as possible. Other Gulf countries also make use of the early working hours. The ministry should seriously consider this possibility and begin applying it in the coming years. It would surely be a useful and helpful experiment.
10 November 2002
