Your coworker just turned down the birthday cake, and someone at the table whispered "not even water?" The sunset they're waiting for is not a metaphor: it's a specific minute that shifts with the date and the place, and by month's end their whole schedule will have quietly rotated with the sky. Here's what the month actually is, what you can keep doing (eating your lunch, for one), and the greeting Muslim organizations themselves recommend.
Everything prescriptive here is attributed (Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, the Fiqh Council of North America, ING, and university inclusion offices among them), and practice genuinely varies: the fasting, greeting, and workplace sections below each carry the range, not one rule.
From dawn (not sunrise, the earlier first light) until sunset, a fasting Muslim takes no food and no water. Nothing, including water. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, the fast runs 29 or 30 days, and it is one of the five core practices of Islam. Because it is a lunar month, its start is declared by communities using their accepted methods rather than fixed on your wall calendar; more on that below.
Before dawn, many eat a small meal called suhoor. At dawn, eating and drinking stop. The workday proceeds normally (meetings, deadlines, school runs), though some people shift hours or step out for prayers. At sunset comes iftar, the fast-breaking: commonly dates and water first, often a pause for the sunset prayer, then the real meal. In ING's careful phrasing, 'some may attend additional prayers' at the mosque in the evening. Then it all restarts before dawn.
The University of British Columbia's guidance to colleagues says it flatly: 'Do not be apologetic for eating in front of your friend/colleague.' Southern Methodist University's guidance agrees that 'Most Muslims do not mind if others eat or drink in front of them', and recommends asking about preferences all the same. What institutional guidance does flag: don't schedule the team's mandatory pizza party at 1pm, and if the setting is unusually food-centered, just ask your colleague what they'd prefer. Ordinary desk lunches need no apology tour.
'Ramadan Mubarak' (blessed Ramadan) is the standard greeting, and ING (a national Muslim education organization) recommends it for non-Muslims without hesitation. 'Happy Ramadan' is also a documented greeting. What to skip: 'not even water?' as an opener, and any audit of who is or isn't fasting; the NHS Muslim Network's guidance is direct: 'Do not make assumptions about who may or may not be observing Ramadan.'
Islamic law carries dispensations, each with its conditions. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta rules that someone with a recoverable illness, or a traveler, may refrain when unable to fast and make the days up later; that a woman unable to fast due to pregnancy or nursing may refrain, with make-up fasting after; that menstruating women do not fast; and that where fasting is medically detrimental, refraining becomes obligatory. ING adds that not all Muslim students fast, younger children among them. So the Muslim coworker drinking coffee in March may be exempt, making days up later, or simply not observing. All three are their business; the polite move is to notice nothing.
Communities determine the month's start differently, on principle: the Fiqh Council of North America accepts astronomical calculation, Egypt's Dar al-Ifta holds that each country follows its own moon sighting, and Twelver Shia methodology looks for a naked-eye-visible crescent. Different methods can produce different dates without either community being careless; and FCNA, despite preferring calculation, encourages Muslims to 'follow their local masjids.' Your city's mosques announce their own dates.
The month closes with Eid al-Fitr (the festival of fast-breaking), a morning of communal prayer followed by days of visiting, food, new clothes, and gifts for kids. 'Eid Mubarak' is the greeting. If you're invited to an iftar during the month or an Eid celebration after it, both invitations are real and both have their own guide below.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, during which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, no food or drink, including water, for 29 or 30 days. Fasting it is one of the five pillars of Islam. Evenings bring the iftar meal breaking the fast, and the month ends with the holiday Eid al-Fitr.
Yes, university and Muslim-organization guidance is explicit that you needn't apologize for eating your ordinary lunch, and Southern Methodist University's guidance says most Muslims do not mind if others eat or drink in front of them. The considerate exceptions: avoid making food the centerpiece of mandatory events, and in close quarters or unusual settings, simply ask your colleague's preference.
'Ramadan Mubarak' (blessed Ramadan) is the standard greeting, and Muslim organizations recommend it from non-Muslims too; 'Happy Ramadan' also works. Near the month's end, 'Eid Mubarak' congratulates the closing holiday.
No. Islamic rulings carry conditioned dispensations: Egypt's Dar al-Ifta permits the ill and travelers to refrain when unable to fast and make it up later, and a woman unable to fast due to pregnancy or nursing may refrain; menstruating women are ruled not to fast, and young children are not required to. Observance also varies person to person. Muslim guidance for workplaces asks exactly this: don't make assumptions about who is or isn't fasting, and don't ask someone to account for eating.
It runs from dawn, the first light, well before sunrise, to sunset, per the standard institutional definitions. The exact minutes shift daily and depend on your location; every mosque and city page on Qadir carries verified local prayer times, where Maghrib marks the fast-breaking minute.
Because communities use different accepted methods to declare the lunar month: astronomical calculation (the Fiqh Council of North America's method), local moon sighting (Egypt's Dar al-Ifta's position), and naked-eye crescent methodology in Twelver Shia practice. Neighboring mosques can therefore begin a day apart, a recognized difference of method, not an error.