Interesting.
I've spent a lot of professional time in the islamic world in various
capacities and learned the psychological and practical workings of the
Islamic day quite well (I think!). I know there are large measurable
dataflow effects every year in majority-muslim countries during holy
months, regionally and nationally, especially during Ramadan. Also bear
in mind the pandemic could dramatically affect your current data in either
direction, possibly with permanent/repeitive effect (Zoom et al)
I'd posit a good test for the UK Iftar Effect hypothesis would be to see if
there's a geographical difference between London and Birmingham - sunset in
Birmingham is about 10 or 11 minutes behind London at the moment.
You may also observe a slight corresponding inrease in data in the hours
after dark as a Ramadan effect too, following on from the Isha and
Tarawih standing during Ramadan - likewise many people will stand readings
after the Fajr prayers in the hour or two before dawn - many people will
not return to sleep afterwards so maybe be data-active then more so than
non-muslim users. Some adherents will read extra passages from Fajr to
sunrise during the holy months, whereas they would not at other times. A
phrase used is "prayer is better than sleep" for the Fajr prayer, so many
read an extra verse or two as a minimum after their Fajr prayer - the more
adherent the longer this will be, some will omit it all together and roll
back into kip though many make an extra effort in Ramadan
In addition, due to the habit of resting more during the days in Ramadan,
fasters are a little less active during the daylight hours, especially in
the afternoons, unless working. During the pandemic with more limited work
activity nationally this might possibly be a measurable effect, though at
5% of the population and only a subset snoozing I'd think it would be very
hard to detect.
Also bear in mind that the fast breaking, traditionally, starts when one
cannot tell the difference between a white thread and a black thread, not
the calculated astronomical sunset time. Also he different schools of
jurisprudence (fiqh) have differerent customs for timings that especailly
affect the afternoon prayer time for example.
We all have different ideas of "when it is dark": contrast definitions of
Astronomical Sunset, Astronomical Twilight, Nautical Twilight, "Lighting Up
Time" (no I'm not quite that old !)
Off the top of my head, other confounders could be:-
One family has larger family in another city - they may personally
choose to breakfast at the same time as their main family group even though
they are located further west and do so geographically early if joining a
streaming group.
Personal preference, some will spend more time praying than others before
iftar
Some will have a short prayers, a short meal (for example dates and
milk), then longer prayers, then continue the meal proper, while others
will have long dua then one long meal
Some will have a very informal approach while other more strict observance
Non muslims and even many muslims will be surprised to learn that there
are many "rules of thumb" for various circumstances regarding the timings
of prayers and events in different parts of the world.
These affect timings on resolutions of days (starting of a month in
cloudy or clear skies) down to seconds (calculation of daily prayer
timings). Not all are dependant on latitude and longitude, more on local
practices and fiqh.
Humans are humans and individual practices il vary
Ramadan, in practice, varies in it's timing. Some countries "declare" it
based on sightings of the new moon, some stick to predicted dates and
times, some use a mix of the two to account for cloudy, haze, sun
illumination (the new moon starts in daylight much of the time, so visual
observation is obviously hard) This can lead to Ramadan starting at
different days (not just times based on sunrise/sunset and longitude. This
means some UK muslims may follow Bangladesh declarations while others will
follow Maghrebi ones and be up to 2 days apart. This is all done with good
humour and mutual acceptance but can be immensely confusing for
non-muslims. In general, areas with a high muslim diaspora populations will
follow thier local main grand mosque. Of course, that suggests their will
also be significant levels of individual fiqh adherents that may choose
their own timings (dates, more correctly) in any given area. In more
remote/less urban areas the dates will probably be more varied.
This one is harder to explain unless you've experienced it and probably
does not apply to UK timings:
In many muslim countries the national TV will broadcast the prayer
adhans from the capital, or sometimes the religious leader's primary or
current residence, or a holy city. In the absense of other local
congregations, followers will sometimes follow these timings for full or
part observance. If they know these timings are wrong due to geographical
difference, they will usually also observe at their appropriate local time
too. If they have observing early or late due to their geograpohical
location, they will follow the appropriate procedure for that time period
they are in * . The closest I can explain this is to maintan a sense of
togetherness in a religious sense. This happens more in some countries than
others.
* the Islamic day is split into time *zones* for prayer- and not exact*
times* to pray in a strict sense.
For examples:-
The iftar (break-fast) meal is a tradition of being at or after a time
when you can't tell the difference between a black and white thread but it
is quite in order to break the fast an hour or two later if you wish or
circumstances dictate. Journeys will often dictate timing differences
(later, never earlier for strict adherents) as well as actual observance
methods.
The al-Zhur midday prayer is practiced from the highest observed time
(samt al-ras) of the sun until the mid-afternoon prayer time (which is
complicated in itself depending on fiqh and possibly the observers latitude)
The congregation time for communal prayer usually occurs some time after
the astronomically predicted or observed time. Non-muslims tend to think of
the call to prayer as the prayer itself, or the strict time that all
muslims pray. In fact, it is just that - a call to prayer, so the prayer
usually takes place at some time after. Some communities arrange a formal
Jama'at (congregation, gathering) time and publish it, others start
congregation as and when people turn up or are ready. This takes place down
to family or social group level.
Listening to a broadcast (loudspeaker) adhans you may hear the initial call
(adhan) the call repeated somewhat later (adhan again) immediately prior to
the prayer itself, follwed by readings that may vary in length. Not sure
if this happens in the UK though.
Many of the above confounders would even each other out - especially in the
UK.
The different practices vary quite wildy across different parts of the
ummah (world communitly of Islam), down to country or regional level, so
what is the norm for one culture will not be the norm for another.
In the UK the main followers have family roots in Pakistan, Bangladesh and
India, though the exact proportions of muslims for each in the UK I'm
unsure of. Even within those arbitrarty sub-groups I'd expect a wide
variation in timings of any peaks or dips.
Eid effects might also be worth looking into at the end of Ramadan, as
might be the Laylat-al-Qadr on our about the 18th May this year (plus or
minus a day or so due to cultures affecting the exact dates) During
this night many devout muslims will read the quran all night.
Of course, It could also be you have a netflow glitch due to something else
:-)
Gord
On Tue, 12 May 2020 at 11:38, Denesh Bhabuta <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have many Muslim friends and their dinner times are just like anyone
> else’s.. some eat formally, some don’t.. some have rules where no phones /
> devices allowed at dinner (like at my non-Muslim in-laws’ house) whereas
> others have no rules at all.
>
> Additionally, some Muslims are having Iftar during the current
> restrictions by congregating with other households.. friends, family,
> community .. online over things like Zoom… which would raise the traffic
> usage.
>
> It would certainly be interesting to see what the cause of this blip is..
> and once it has been worked out, it might make an interesting UKNOF
> presentation. ;-)
>
> Regards
> Denesh
>
> > On 12 May 2020, at 11:30, Giles Coochey <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > It would be interesting to see whether the peak moves out later and
> later as the month progresses (as sunset gets later and later).
> >
> > Also the peak/dip may be more accentuated, because (as a non-Islamic
> follower), my understanding is that Maghrib, the call to prayer, which
> happens before Iftar (the breaking of the fast), so because of lockdown,
> Maghrib might be live streamed from the Mosque (causing a rise in traffic),
> and the Iftar meal will be a more formal meal than usual (phones, tablets,
> TVs off during the meal.)
> >
> > Apologies if my understanding of the faith is wrong.
> >
> > Just a guess, there may be other compounding factors, certainly would be
> interesting to see graphs.
> >
> > On 12/05/2020 11:16, Neil J. McRae wrote:
> >> All things being equal Clive I agree give or take a small plus or
> minus, but the operators have different market shares and not all of the
> population is a mobile phone subscriber or a smartphone user. I'm going to
> get a more detailed view of 9pm as the views I'm looking at are over 24
> hour period and possible to miss something. Understanding the size of the
> gradient change of the dip would be helpful.
> >>
> >> Neil.
> >>
> >> On 12/05/2020, 11:10, "Clive D.W. Feather" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Neil J. McRae said:
> >> > Giles, interesting correlation ??? would be very interesting to
> find out if this was the cause. I???d find that quite surprising if it was
> the case but very interesting. 5% of the population might fit into this
> bracket but I???d expect them to be shared between all the operators
> perhaps making the size of the population on each operator quite small, and
> not sure large enough to make such something noticeable.
> >>
> >> Actually, it should be about 5% of the population on each operator,
> >> assuming there's nothing (such as geographical distribution) to
> disturb the
> >> relationship. Yes, they have to be shared out, but so does the
> population!
> >>
> >> --
> >> Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler,
> >> Email: [email protected] | it will get its revenge.
> >> Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer
> >> Mobile: +44 7973 377646
> >>
> > --
> > Giles Coochey
> >
> >
>
>
>
--
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