Guest post: Withholding food and water from children for 15 hours a day

Originally a comment by Theo Bromine on Mubarak dehydration month.

I was wondering about the rules for kids, and found the following:

1. Children before the age of seven should be encouraged to fast (without fasting the full day) and to love these acts of worship. They can pretend what it is like to fast for an hour, for example.

2. After seven, it is recommended for the child to fast, but not necessarily for the full day nor everyday. The emphasis on fasting should be increased until the child reaches ten.

3. At ten, the child should be expected to fast.

Other sites quoted scholars saying that a child over 10 “should be made to fast and told to do so. And he should be smacked if he does not do it, so as to train him and make him get used to it, just as he should be made to pray and told to do it.” (Though some of them were quick to point out that the prescribed hitting was just for discipline and not supposed to actually hurt the child.)

Here in Ottawa, it’s 15 hours from sunrise to sunset (and will get longer). If I found that my next-door neighbour decided to withhold food and water from their 10-year-old for 15 hours every day for a month, I think that would properly be considered child abuse. But if they are doing it because their imaginary friend told them to? Somehow that changes everything…

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