HOLDING FAST TO A RAMADAN PRACTICE MUSLIMS IN SOUTHLAND ABSTAIN FROM EATING, DRINKING DURING DAYLIGHT.

Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG Staff Writer

Osman Khan paced the front of the classroom as he taught English to the seventh-graders at a Pasadena Islamic school.

Khan taught energetically, waving his arms, quickly changing direction and speaking passionately. Only occasionally was it noticeable that the 32-year-old Muslim from Winnetka was fasting for Ramadan.

``Aren't they all a little shellfish? Isn't everyone being shellfish?'' Khan said, to the class's laughter. ``Selfish. Selfish.''

Khan doesn't struggle with having to fast during daylight for the month of Ramadan, which began last Saturday and ends Oct. 23. It's the inability to drink anything -- even water -- that gets to him.

``I want to get a drink of water right now. I want it,'' Khan, who teaches seventh and eighth grades at New Horizon School, said through a dry mouth. ``But you've just got to deal with it.''

Most of the estimated 6 million Muslim Americans have to deal with this test of discipline, too.

For workingmen and women, the fasting can cause hunger pangs, lethargy and dizziness. But generally, Muslims say they forget they haven't eaten since before dawn. If their hearts are right, their stomachs don't feel empty.

``On regular days I have to have lunch by 12 o'clock. Otherwise, by 1, I have a big headache,'' said Aref Abedi, a civil engineer who is president of the Islamic Center of Reseda. ``But based on the intention you have to serve Allah, the desire to eat is not there anymore.

``The commitment is much stronger than the personal desire to eat.''

Ramadan is the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, and fasting during it is the fourth of Islam's five pillars. Observance is mandated of all who are healthy and past the age of puberty. But Muslims say they also take joy in the discipline it instills and the patience it rewards.

As Khan explains it to his students, celebrating Ramadan is like coming upon a bottomless pot of gold. The more good deeds you do, the more gold you can take and the more credit you build with God.

``It strengthens my faith in God and helps me be closer to him,'' said Adel Kamal of South Pasadena, who is in Khan's eighth-grade class.

During Ramadan, Muslims are called to fast during daylight hours. Not just from food and drink, but from cursing, lying, anger and any other unholy behavior.

They also need to care for the weak, show grace to the exasperating and be kind to all -- ``even your boss,'' said Zahid Bukhari, director of American Muslim Studies program at Georgetown University.

``Physically, it is hard,'' Bukhari added. ``Your whole normal lifestyle will definitely be affected. You will feel hungry, you will feel thirsty. But there are millions of people who are hungry so it is good to feel that hunger because you will feel close to millions of humans throughout the world.''

In some ways, the Muslim Americans' task is harder than it is for their brethren in Muslim countries.

There, work schedules are shifted to begin later. Bazaars remain open into the early morning. Restaurants sit shuttered until the sun sets.

And businesses expect a decrease in work productivity, said Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University.

``There is an allowance of slacking off because they are tired from fasting,'' said Haddad, adding that employers in the U.S. ``generally don't understand.''

But fasting in the United States is in another way easier than in the Muslim world: a generally cooler climate.

Because the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar cycle, the start of Ramadan moves up 10 days every year. Some years it runs through the dog days of summer -- the longest and hottest days of the year.

The San Fernando Valley has some oppressive summer heat, but it's not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Iran.

Scurrying in and out of the kitchen in her Winnetka home, Osman Khan's wife, Khalida, made the final preparations for iftar, the meal that ends the day's fast.

Khalida Khan had just returned home from her job 50 miles away in Buena Park. She had adjusted her schedule at Islamic Relief so she would get off by 3:30 p.m., and be home in time to prepare dinner.

``Juggling work with making dinner, and then taking care of these guys,'' she said, pointing to her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, who clearly had not been fasting, ``it really gets to you.''

Iftar begins with a drink of water or the eating of a date, a tradition passed on by the Prophet Muhammad.

Osman and Khalida Khan bit into the date, then prayed silently for a moment. The two usually aren't hungry before sunrise, so all they'd had in the previous 20 hours was a glass of water.

``This is the time when you have to have your patience,'' she said. ``You have to take the time to pray.''

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Osman Khan discusses a Steinbeck book in Pasadena on Monday. The Winnetka resident is observing Ramadan.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer