Faithful Muslims will abstain from food, drink,...

Faithful Muslims will abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex during the daylight hours for a lunar month starting Wednesday.

But Islam’s month of fasting, Ramadan, should not be thought of as a period of repentance or sorrow, said Muzammil H. Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County.

It is a period of self-discipline, but also piety and thanksgiving because it commemorates the tradition that the Prophet Mohammed received the revelations of the Koran, the holy book of Islam, during this month.

“Mosque attendance grows during this month,” said Siddiqi, the imam, or spiritual leader, for the society based in Garden Grove.

“Many mosques have communal, potluck meals at sunset where every meal becomes an international feast” because of the different national origins of American Muslims, Siddiqi said. Following dinner, many people stay for special Ramadan prayers and Koran readings, he said.

If Muslims eat the equivalent of breakfast before starting their days, it must be done not simply before the official time of sunrise, when it is already daylight, but before dawn, about an hour and 45 minutes before sunrise, according to Siddiqi.

Siddiqi estimated that about 5 million Muslims live in the United States, some of them native Americans who accepted Islam over the last two dozen years.

The end of Ramadan is celebrated in Muslim communities with the feast called Idul-Fitr, which is expected this year to occur May 28. The word “expected” is often used about the start and end of Ramadan because by tradition only the actual sighting of the sun-lit sliver of the crescent moon signals the changes of the months.

DATES

Noted biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan of DePaul University will lecture on an early stage of the Passion narrative found in the New Testament’s four Gospels in the annual Colwell Lecture at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the School of Theology at Claremont. His research concerns the role of the so-called Gospel of Peter, a fragmentary apocryphal Gospel discovered 100 years ago.

The use of Scripture in taking or defending stances on contemporary moral issues--namely church sanctuary for refugees, nuclear disarmament and feminism--will be discussed in a conference sponsored by the Long Beach chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews from 2 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Sunday at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. The keynote speaker will be Rabbi Alfred Wolf, director of the Skirball Institute on American Values of the American Jewish Committee, said conference registrar Judy Schmidt of Los Altos Methodist Church in Long Beach.

HOLIDAY

An early, pan-Buddhist celebration of Wesak--a day simultaneously commemorating Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and passing--will be held today starting at 10 a.m. at the new location of Kwan Um Sa Korean Temple. The building at 4265 West 3rd St. in Los Angeles was purchased from a Mennonite church. The sponsoring Buddhist Sangha Council said that except for Japanese Buddhist temples, which celebrated Buddha’s birthday in early April, most Buddhist temples will have individual Wesak ceremonies in mid-May.

PEOPLE

Senior Pastor William Boggs of the Wilshire United Methodist Church, arrested during a Good Friday protest at the Nuclear Test Site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said he will spend time in jail, if necessary. Boggs was one of 51 people arrested April 17 during the protest organized by a group called the Lenten Desert Experience. Boggs said he was booked and released for creating a disturbance while praying on an access road. Boggs said he will mail in his not guilty plea for his May 5 arraignment in Beatty, Nev., and, if convicted, will refuse to pay a fine. He was told by protest organizers to expect a six-day jail sentence in that case. Pastor of the 1,300-member Los Angeles church, Boggs is believed to be one of the few pastors of large churches arrested in the series of religious protests against nuclear testing at the Nevada site. Boggs was able to return to Los Angeles last weekend and keep his date as one of the speakers in the Hollywood Bowl Easter sunrise service.

Father Stephen Fitzgerald, 54, rector of the Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, will be consecrated May 30 in San Francisco as Bishop Tikhon, the new Western regional bishop for the Orthodox Church in America. Raised a Lutheran, Bishop-elect Tikhon entered the Orthodox church in 1960 at about the same time he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. He has served as a priest at the Los Angeles cathedral, said to be the oldest Russian Orthodox church in Los Angeles, since 1972 and has been rector since 1979. Named a bishop at the denomination’s recent synod, he will succeed Bishop Basil, who retired about two years ago, and have jurisdiction over 35 parishes from the church’s regional headquarters in San Francisco.