Ramadan and Heat Exhaustion
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi

Kh. Muhammad Asif Minister for Water and Power informed the house that more than 70 per cent of the dead in Karachi were laborers who had died of heat exhaustion and not because of load shedding. 

This is exactly what I have been pondering over for long. How could it be possible for a laborer to observe 16-17-hour fast for 30 consecutive days while he toils outdoors in scorching sun during the summer months of June and July in places like Thar, Cholistan, Saraiki belt, Libyan desert, or for that matter, the Saudi Arab desert? Most of them eke out their livelihood on daily wages; unless they work during the day they, their families and their children shall have nothing to eat in the evening.  I am fully aware of the taqwa, sabr, imtehan, training to endure hardship, etc.,  but please, I beseech you, kindly think it over dispassionately and rationally and then answer. Is it not a hardship that could fall in the realm of being unbearable and which Islam promises to be not there in practicing it?  Please think what that weak, emaciated, old and poor to the extent of being a destitute laborer should do – do the daily outdoor labor with fast and get heat exhausted and die or what?  To answer this question honestly and realistically just walk – only walk – at noon or during the afternoon for an hour without an umbrella on a dusty road with no trees in a city like Multan or Bahawalpur, leave aside Sibi, Jacobabad or Mithi in Thar.