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Ramadan in Middle East is for Fasting and Facebook, Data Shows

In this May 8, 2019 file photo, a Palestinian reads verses of the Quran during the month of Ramadan at Al Emari Mosque in Gaza City. (AP)
In this May 8, 2019 file photo, a Palestinian reads verses of the Quran during the month of Ramadan at Al Emari Mosque in Gaza City. (AP)
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Ramadan in Middle East is for Fasting and Facebook, Data Shows

In this May 8, 2019 file photo, a Palestinian reads verses of the Quran during the month of Ramadan at Al Emari Mosque in Gaza City. (AP)
In this May 8, 2019 file photo, a Palestinian reads verses of the Quran during the month of Ramadan at Al Emari Mosque in Gaza City. (AP)

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with its long days of fasting and prayer meant to draw worshipers closer to God and away from worldly distractions, is being reshaped by technology, reported The Associated Press.

People in the Middle East spend close to 58 million more hours on Facebook during Ramadan and watch more YouTube videos — everything from beauty tips and recipes to sports and TV dramas — than any other time of the year, making the holy month not only the most important one for Muslims, but also the prime time of the year for advertisers.

For Facebook, which also owns Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, Ramadan brings a welcome boost of business in the region.

"Consumption and time spent on our platforms does indeed increase," said Ramez Shehadi, Facebook's managing director for Mideast and North Africa.

People stay up a lot more at night during Ramadan and have more downtime — especially before iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daylong fast, and the "suhoor," when people gather to eat before another day of fasting. Many also work shorter hours during the day.

All that translates to 5% more time spent on Facebook's platforms, or what is nearly 58 million more hours, Shehadi said. Put another way, there are almost 2 million hours of additional time spent daily on Facebook in the Middle East during Ramadan.

Ramadan is also the peak season for advertising in the region, as TV dramas and soap operas get a 151% increase in viewership on YouTube during the holy month, according to Google.

"Our revenue is a function of people's engagement," Shehadi said. "The more that they engage on our platforms, the more that advertisers want to be able to reach those that are engaging. That's what drives our revenue."

So much ad revenue is spent during Ramadan that Google launched "The Lantern Award" to celebrate the most creative and engaging ads of the month.

Yet Ramadan is not just about abstaining from food and drink, including water, during the day. It's also about disconnecting from vacuous distractions and focusing on contemplation, introspection, acts of good, charity and connecting with God. It can appear then as a contradiction that this is also when companies ramp up their efforts to get people to buy more, view more and engage in excess consumerism.

Google does not disclose total watch time for YouTube during Ramadan, but says that in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for example, viewing of sports videos jumps by 22%, travel videos by 30%, and action games, simulation and video games by 10-20% during the holy month, said the AP.

People also spend 27% more time watching religious content on YouTube in Ramadan.

"To us, YouTube brings people together. We see a lot of people wanting to watch things together," said Joyce Baz, Google's head of communications in Mideast and North Africa.

She added that Google products, like its search engine, are there "to simplify people's lives so that they can focus on things that matter like being with their loved ones and family." Google's "Qibla Finder," for example, helps Muslims find the direction of Makkah to pray toward, wherever they happen to be.

Google says this year's top trending search queries during the first week of Ramadan in Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia included a surprising mix of Game of Thrones, prayer times, Ramadan TV shows, movie timings and English Premier League results.

Meanwhile, some of the most popular downloaded apps in the Mideast on the Google Play store during Ramadan include games like Stack Ball, streaming apps like Vu and Shahid and online retailers Noon and Jolly Chic.

Iftar evening meals are a major social affair during Ramadan, ranging from lavish spreads at home to decadent five-star hotel buffets. This translates into a 16% spike in beauty product searches and an 18% spike in searches for beauty tips on YouTube, compared to the rest of the year. Also, according to Google maps, trips to the malls increase by more than 20% in the last weeks of Ramadan in preparation for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends the holy month.

Fatima el-Barbar, an Egyptian mother living in Dubai, said she searches more for recipes and watches her favorite TV dramas online during Ramadan. But she said that between her job, taking care of the children, preparing iftar each night, her daily prayers and reading the Quran, the Muslim holy book, there's little time for the internet.

"I actually have less time for the internet in Ramadan than in other days of the year," she said, according to the AP.

To help companies better understand consumer habits in Ramadan, Google identified six categories of audiences: dedicated watchers, devoted fasters, foodies, groomers, travelers and shoppers.

"YouTube is a companion during Ramadan, a platform where viewers can watch what they want, whenever they want throughout the day," Google says in its own pitch to advertisers.

To more authentically connect with roughly 180 million users in the Middle East, Facebook and Instagram launch special Ramadan icons to give people more customized ways of expressing themselves online. Instagram also has a campaign to promote acts of kindness during the month.

"We're trying to be magnifiers and propagators of goodness as opposed to what might seem on the surface like an extension of consumerism," Shehadi said. "It resonates with the ethos of Ramadan and certainly the ethos of Facebook, which is around bringing people together around things that matter to them."

Haitham el-Ghoneim, a Jordanian resident in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, said he uses Facebook to connect with friends during Ramadan, sharing traditional greetings for the holy month and checking on his family in Jordan.

Still, he doesn't think the rest of it — all that time spent online, on games, scrolling and ads — is a good thing. "It's not being spent in a useful way. It's mostly fake news, or jokes and things that have no benefit," he said.

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Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
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Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)

A US intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after US strikes and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House rejected the DIA assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.” On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X that “New intelligence confirms” what Trump has stated: “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordo, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

Gabbard’s office declined to respond to questions about the details of the new intelligence, or whether it would be declassified and released publicly.

The office of the director of national intelligence coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries.

The DIA did not respond to requests for comment.

The US has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the US strikes and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon.

The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the US strikes and survived, and it found that Iran’s centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where US B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo.

The White House pushes back Trump defended his characterization of the strike's impact.

“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump told reporters while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He said the intelligence was “very inconclusive” and described media outlets as “scum” for reporting on it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO summit, said there would be an investigation into how the intelligence assessment leaked and dismissed it as “preliminary” and “low confidence.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “These leakers are professional stabbers.”

The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the US and Israeli strikes have “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” It did not give evidence to back up its claim.

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said he has read damage assessment reports from US intelligence and other nations, reiterated Tuesday that the strikes had deprived Iran of the ability to develop a weapon and called it outrageous that the US assessment was shared with reporters.

“It’s treasonous so it ought to be investigated,” Witkoff said on Fox News Channel.

Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu said Tuesday in a televised statement: “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program." He said the US joining Israel was “historic” and thanked Trump.

Outside experts had suspected Iran had likely already hidden the core components of its nuclear program as it stared down the possibility that American bunker-buster bombs could be used on its nuclear sites.

Bulldozers and trucks visible in satellite imagery taken just days before the strikes have fueled speculation among experts that Iran may have transferred its half-ton stockpile of enriched uranium to an unknown location. And the incomplete destruction of the nuclear sites could still leave the country with the capacity to spin up weapons-grade uranium and develop a bomb.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use. The US and others assessed prior to the US strikes that Iran’s theocratic leadership had not yet ordered the country to pursue an operational nuclear weapon, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so.

Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday interview on Fox News Channel that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, the US has cut off Iran's ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon.

“If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90%, and, further, they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term,” Vance said.

Approximately 42 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb if enriched further to 90%, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.

What experts say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on June 13 — the day Israel launched its military campaign against Iran — that Tehran would “adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials.”

American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies said its satellites photographed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning on June 19, three days before the Americans struck.

Subsequent imagery “revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the US airstrikes,” said Stephen Wood, senior director at Maxar. “We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation.”

Some experts say those trucks could also have been used to move out Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

“It is plausible that Iran moved the material enriched to 60% out of Fordo and loaded it on a truck,” said Eric Brewer, a former US intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Iran could also have moved other equipment, including centrifuges, he said, noting that while enriched uranium, which is stored in fortified canisters, is relatively easy to transport, delicate centrifuges are more challenging to move without inflicting damage.

Apart from its enriched uranium stockpile, over the past four years Iran has produced the centrifuges key to enrichment without oversight from the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran also announced on June 12 that it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. IAEA chief Grossi said the facility was located in Isfahan, a place where Iran has several other nuclear sites. After being bombarded by both the Israelis and the Americans, it is unclear if, or how quickly, Isfahan’s facilities, including tunnels, could become operational.

But given all of the equipment and material likely still under Iran’s control, this offers Tehran “a pretty solid foundation for a reconstituted covert program and for getting a bomb,” Brewer said.

Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan policy center, said that “if Iran had already diverted its centrifuges,” it can “build a covert enrichment facility with a small footprint and inject the 60% gas into those centrifuges and quickly enrich to weapons grade levels.”

But Brewer also underlined that if Iran launched a covert nuclear program, it would do so at a disadvantage, having lost to Israeli and American strikes vital equipment and personnel that are crucial for turning the enriched uranium into a functional nuclear weapon.