The Chaste Kiss

"It is made lawful for you," says the Koran, "to go in unto your wives on the night of the fast [and] hold intercourse with them and eat and drink until the white thread becomes distinct to you from the black thread of the dawn." But all through the long daylight hours of Ramadan, the holy month in which the Koran was revealed to Mohammed, good Moslems must abstain from food and sex according to the most rigorous rules. Strict devotion to Ramadan lays a heavy burden on modern urban living: people became irritable and ineffectual on the job. Tunisia's up-to-date President Habib Bourguiba recently clamped down on the all-night nightclubs where celebrants make up for daylight denials, and boldly persuaded considerable numbers of his urban coreligionists to break their Ramadan fast this year and get on with their normal daily work (TIME, Feb. 22). Last week Cairo's Sheik Hassan Mamoun, mufti of the United Arab Republic's southern region, handed down new interpretations that relaxed a few of the rigors of Egypt's observance during Ramadan, which this year ends March 27.

The mufti is a personage who draws cabinet minister's pay and ranks in the Egyptian scheme of things right after the commander in chief of Egypt's armed forces. Answering citizens' questions about what things may be done without breaking the fast, the mufti announced that Moslems may kiss their wives during the fasting hours, even on the lips, so long as the kiss is only "friendly" and does not "excite sexual desire." The mufti also ruled that the traditional full Arab habit has nothing to do with fasting, that it is all right for women to wear sleeveless dresses in offices during fasting hours.

There would also be no objection to using lipstick, unless the ingredients of the lipstick were dissolved and "entered the belly." Finally, a Moslem may brush his teeth while fasting--so long as he does not swallow the toothpaste.

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