Ramadan conduct: eating, drinking, smoking in public

The rule

For one month a year, the UAE asks everyone in the country to keep eating, drinking and smoking out of public view between dawn and sunset. The government's own guidance to visitors is direct about it. People who are not fasting are prohibited from eating, drinking and smoking in public during fasting hours, and chewing gum counts. So does your car. It is a public place for this purpose.

Why this rule exists

Fasting from dawn to dusk is one of the five pillars of Islam. In the UAE, a large share of the people around you are holding that fast through a full working day. The rule is less about belief than about not eating in front of someone who cannot. The Iftar cannon still marks the moment the fast breaks, and it carries eight to ten kilometres.

Ramadan also moves. The Islamic calendar runs 354 days, so it arrives about eleven days earlier each Gregorian year. The UAE's start date comes from the moon-sighting committee under the UAE Council for Fatwa, not from a printed calendar. Check the dates close to your travel, not months ahead.

What happens if you don't follow it

Neither the UAE's visitor guidance nor the UK foreign office publishes a fine for this. The honest answer is that it is a rule you comply with rather than price. The cost that is certain is the one nobody bills you for. You have made a stranger's long afternoon harder for no reason at all.

The rest of the month is gentler than most visitors expect. Malls, restaurants, parks and tourist sites stay open through the day. Food courts set aside areas away from people who are fasting, and hotels may screen a dining room off. Some restaurants cut their daytime hours, then open fully at Iftar.

Quick reference

• Eat, drink and smoke indoors or in a screened area. Water included, gum included, and the car is not a loophole.
• The working day is two hours shorter under UAE labour law, for Muslim and non-Muslim staff alike, with no deduction from pay.
• Book taxis ahead in the hour before sunset. Drivers are heading home to break their fast and cars get scarce.
• Expect quicker, more impatient driving around dusk, and leave it room.
• Music and dancing stay out of public space. Headphones are fine.
• Dress a notch more carefully than usual. The everyday standard applies with less slack in it.
• If someone offers you a gift or invites you to Iftar, accept. UAE guidance names refusing as the discourtesy, and the Iftar tents near mosques and malls feed anyone who sits down.

Learn the sunset time for the week you are there and the month organises itself around it. That is the whole civic upgrade. Not a list of things you cannot do, but a clock you have agreed to share.