"there is going to be at least 10 minutes for us to break the fast."

Outside Fez, Morocco at dawn.

On a trip through Morocco, we once spent a couple of days with a driver named Mohammad, who conveyed to me the most elaborate thing I’ve ever been made to understand with my schoolboy French. He told us how just this past year he’d left Morocco for the first time - to the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. He was awed by it all and spoke of the whole experience with awe and obvious warmth.

I asked if he worked, himself, during the holy month of Ramadan, when th...