Jakarta  - With the holy month of Ramadan now underway, millions of Indonesian Muslims, health permitting, are abstaining from food, drink and sex from dawn to dusk.

Be it a businessman or a worker, a teacher or a student, male or female, everyone including children awaits Ramadan. When it arrives, Muslims behave differently than during the other months of the year.

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, which requires that Muslims perform central duties in order to strengthen their faith. Muslims aim to realize these five pillars in their lifetime.

But Muslim preachers have issued firm reminders that Ramadan is also a time for self-reflection and resisting the less positive distractions in life such as lying, gossiping and displaying anger.

"More than not eating or smoking or drinking water, during Ramadan, you have to try to your best to control your tongue, stopping yourself from anything unethical - telling a lie, from cheating," cleric Abdul Azis told Muslims on the eve of Ramadan.

Indonesians welcomed the fasting month with great joy, not only because it is religious duty, but because Muslims see that Ramadan is a special opportunity to enhance both the quantity and the quality of religious worship and services - to come closer to their God.

This is the reason why during the month of Ramadan many Muslims spend more time reading the Holy Koran, trying to finish all the 114 chapters, and more than 6,000 verses.

"Like the previous Ramadan, I will spend as much time as possible in prayers and by reading the Koran this holy month," said Mohamad Sanusi, 67, a retired civil servant.

In the capital Jakarta, home to more than 12 million people, some foodstalls and restaurants - with curtain windows or behind closed doors - are open at the daylight hours to serve non-Muslim communities.

Entertainment centres, such as nightclubs, discotheques, massage parlours, saunas, slot machines and bars were closed down throughout Ramadan, while karaoke parlours and live music venues were still allowed to remain open but only between 8:30 pm and 1.30 am.

Beginning at around 4 pm, street vendors were come out in force. Roadside stalls appear, selling sweets, such as kolak - the combination of brown sugar and coconut milk - fruit juices, or fried snacks like stuffed tofu and martabak - pancake filled with sugars and pieces of peanuts - to be packages up and taken away to eaten later, before the evening meal.

In the minutes leading to the time when the fast is broken, Iftar, it is difficult to find a space at a foodstall or restaurant due to the crowds.

About an hour after breaking their fast, Muslims perform a special evening Ramadan prayer called Taraweeh. Although this prayer is not mandatory, it is highly encouraged, and men, women and children - converge at mosques in a large numbers.

"I love Ramadan, the month is full of blessings. I would do my best and go to the mosque every night to perform Taraweeh," said Amir Hamzah, a devout Muslim in eastern Jakarta suburb of Cipinang Besar.

During Ramadan, most private companies, government offices and school activities across Indonesia have reduced working hours, an adjustment welcomed by employees and students.

"Ramadan is a golden opportunity to bring the family together, especially when the parents work and are hardly at home," said Abidin, a private company worker. "All of a sudden, everyone hurries to be back home by six to eat the breakfast meal."

Like in the previous Ramadan, mosques were serving fast breaking meals for free for Muslim travellers, pedestrians and employees who have to stop over on their way home from works.

"Every month of Ramadan, we're always serving Iftar meals for Muslims whose stop over here," Ahmad Mubarok, a man in charge at al- Muhajirin mosque, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Mubarok said serving Iftar meals for Muslim travellers is an obligation, with the aim of getting rewards and blessings from Allah.

Ramadan falls during the ninth month of the lunar calendar, when the Islamic holy book, the Koran, was first revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. The dates of the month-long fasting period vary from country to country. More than 85 per cent of Indonesia's 230 million people are Muslim.

However, observers expressed disappointment because Ramadan has become a part of popular culture, saying that Muslims then consume too much - which is against the spirit of fasting itself. Many of them were unaware or ignorant of other Muslims who may still be struggling in poverty.

Ramadan will continue until September 20 or 21, ending with the Eid al-Fitr celebration. (dpa)