I saw someone eating in Ramadan. Should I say something?
It depends far more on how you say it than on whether you may. Gently reminding a Muslim who is eating openly is fine, and often they have simply forgotten. But many people have a dispensation they do not wear on their face — illness, travel, menstruation, pregnancy — so the correct assumption is that they have a reason.
The four schools concur on this.
Two things intersect here: the duty to counsel what is good, and the duty not to expose or humiliate anyone.
The first is stated thus: “And let there be arising from you a nation inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and those will be the successful.” (Qur’an 3:104)
The second is why the first almost never applies the way people think.
Before saying anything, consider how many people have a perfectly valid dispensation and no obligation to announce it:
- Someone ill or under treatment.
- Someone travelling.
- A woman on her period, who moreover owes nobody an explanation.
- A woman pregnant or nursing.
- Someone who has simply forgotten, which is the most common of all.
If you are still going to say something:
- In private, never in front of others.
- Assuming the best: “are you fasting?” works far better than a correction.
- Once. Repeating it stops being counsel.
- Never to a stranger in public, and never by asking a woman why she is not fasting.
And on someone eating out of forgetfulness: they have not broken their fast, and reminding them really is a favour, because from the moment they remember they must stop.
A closing note. In Ramadan it is easy to mistake zeal for piety. Shaming someone in public is a concrete harm to a concrete person; the good you thought you were doing almost never outweighs it.
- Qur’anQur’an 3:104