"Every day, millions of sweltering Pakistanis struggled to forgo food and water from sunrise to sunset, then roused themselves before dawn to wash, pray, cook and eat."

"The Ramadan ordeal has brought into sharp relief the chronic water and power shortages plaguing this arid, Muslim-majority country of 180 million. In cities, families had to fill jugs and bottles from public taps at 3 a.m. In villages, long daily electrical outages stopped fans from whirring and tube wells from pumping water to irrigate parched fields."

Temperatures during this ordeal were as high as 128°. It was like Death Valley during the day — long summer days — and they could not drink water. At night, it was still very hard to get water, with pumps not working.

The story — at The Washington Post — doesn't mention whether anyone died. If you had described those conditions to me as a hypothetical and asked me to predict how many would die — out of 180 million — my guess would be in the millions.

And what is the rule, really, about not drinking any water in the daytime during Ramadan? There is some kind of allowance to keep people from succumbing to heat stroke and dehydration, isn't there?

"And a leading religious scholar in Karachi clarified... that Islam allows the elderly, sick or weak to interrupt fasting in extreme situations. People shouldn't risk their lives for a religious duty," said a cleric named Mufti Naeem, quoted in "Ramadan leads to dehydration in Pakistani heat wave." That's from 2 years ago, when the temperature got as high as 113° (15° cooler than this year). That article says "More than 1,100 people have already died." And the problem isn't simply dehydration from too little water. There's also damage from drinking too much water once it is permitted:

"It's possible that the body cannot cope with this, depending on its overall condition"... Drinking too much at once... dilutes the body's electrolytes too much, causing water to be drawn out of cells through their membranes.... [T]his can lead to cerebral or pulmonary edema in people with existing health conditions."

Here's a lengthy discussion of the religious issue, by Dr. Kashif N. Chaudhry (at CNN):

Prophet Mohammed is... known to have discouraged fasting for the sick, and for pregnant women and nursing mothers. At another place, he equated those who fasted during times of hardship to those who did not fast during normal conditions -- both disobeying God...

Until the Pakistani government does its job of providing round-the-clock power and air-conditioned public shelters, those exposed to the current heat wave -- especially the children, elderly and sick -- must ensure proper hydration for themselves. And once these harsh weather conditions change for the better, they can repay the missed number of days at a later time.

This approach is in line with the requirements of wisdom -- and the teachings of Islam.