BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: As Muslims in the U.S. and around the world observe the holy month of Ramadan until mid-November, we wondered what it is like to fast during daylight hours for a month -- eating and drinking nothing, not even water. So we spent a day with Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University in Washington and also the leader of the Islamic Society of Frederick, Maryland.

Imam YAHYA HENDI (Muslim Chaplain, Georgetown University): Every Muslim has to fast. Fasting is to abstain from food and drink or any intimate relationship with your spouse from dawn to sunset.

I leave home around 4:30 a.m. to be on time for the morning sahoor or breakfast, the meal with which Muslims start their fasting. After that, people immediately go into meditation and into prayer.

When I was seven years old, I fasted for two weeks. They were so difficult; I remember them. But again, everyone around me was fasting, so it was easy to fast because everyone was doing it. The year after that, when I was eight years old, I fasted three weeks. The year after that, I fasted the entire month. Since then, I have always fasted the month of Ramadan.

I start my day with a special personal prayer in which I sit down and reflect on my relationship with God. I fight the temptations of life with conviction, and with the belief that if there is a will, there is a way -- to keep me on the path of righteousness.

I finish my meditation. I sit down to do some work. Then I say, "Whom am I going to visit today?" I need to visit someone who is not a Muslim. My fellow human beings are not all Muslims. I reach out to a Jewish friend, visiting with a rabbi whom I have known for some time. But he's very busy in his congregation; I'm very busy. The month of Ramadan says, "Go give him a hug. Be good brothers, partners on the path to God."