03 October 2007
Ramadan Fosters Community Interaction on U.S. College Campuses
Muslim students observe month together and include non-Muslim classmates
Washington -- Although Muslim students are a minority on U.S. college campuses, some are finding that their observance of Ramadan not only is a special time for their community to interact, but also an opportunity to reach out to their non-Muslim friends and classmates in the spirit of interfaith dialogue.
Students from Georgetown University in Washington told America.gov they were pleasantly surprised to find an energetic Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) on campus that actively seeks their participation in campus activities and prayers during the holy month.
Before she came to Georgetown from her native Karachi, Pakistan, Nimrah Karim initially worried she would be observing Ramadan “in my dorm room alone eating a bagel or cereal” to break her fast each evening.
But Asra Ashfaq, who is Georgetown’s current MSA president, said the organization makes it a point to identify incoming Muslim students to encourage their involvement in its activities, including its evening iftars to break the day’s fast. Currently, there are about 450 Muslims enrolled at Georgetown out of more than 14,000 students.
“I didn’t realize there would be many Muslims around me who would be fasting or wanting to eat with me. … I was completely wrong when it came to my impressions of what it would be like,” Karim said, reflecting that Ramadan on campus became an occasion where “we got to see each other so often that I never felt alone and I never felt that I was experiencing the experience on my own as I had feared.”
While the class schedules do not change during Ramadan, the students adjust their own daily schedules, especially by getting up early in the morning so they can eat before sunrise. Ashfaq said many then “stay up instead of going back to sleep … so they can get some of their work done,” preferring to find time later in the day to sleep.
Upperclassman Reaz Mehdi said many Muslims also change their gym workout schedule to either early morning or later at night. “It just has to shift with when you have energy,” he said.
He said he finds it difficult to concentrate on class work until later at night “when I start to get more sugar in my blood,” but added, “It takes a lot of discipline but we do it as a community, so that really helps. … [I]t keeps us motivated.”
STUDENTS SHOULD AVOID BEING IN A “MUSLIM BUBBLE”
Many of the students’ non-Muslim friends and classmates knew very little about Islam or Ramadan when they first came to the university. Karim related that when Ramadan began during her first year on campus, many of her friends expressed dismay that they no longer could eat lunch together as usual.
“It seemed like something hard for them to put up with, not only with me as a friend fasting but also just to be able to conceptualize just what Ramadan was or fasting was to them,” she said.
Fellow student Saad Omar found that the observance of Ramadan was “very intriguing” to his classmates, and was encouraged by their response when he told them that many Muslims fast in order to share the experience of the very poor, who often must go without food.
“I think it’s something that is popular amongst the community and I think there’s a dynamic relationship when you hear from people from different faiths. The way they talk about Ramadan and the way they understand it … increases your own understanding,” he said.
He encourages other Muslim students to be open about their faith, saying that when living on a college campus where the majority of the people are not Muslim “you can’t go into a little Muslim bubble” during Ramadan and not interact with other groups.
“[B]ecause you’re fasting and because people know you’re not eating, they ask a lot of questions and you get these beautiful [interfaith] conversations,” he said.
Omar pointed to the example of the Prophet Muhammad who lived his life in Mecca and Medina when both Saudi Arabian cities had significant non-Muslim populations.
“It’s actually closer to the prophet’s life, the way we’re doing it in America, where there are people of different faiths. … So that’s something really good,” he said, and credits his overall university experience as having “facilitated my growth as a Muslim, which is something I did not expect at all.”
Some Muslim students also invite their non-Muslim friends to the evening iftar dinners. “It was nice to see that there weren’t just Muslims at the iftars,” Ashfaq said.
Others participate in the campus Fast-A-Thon, which invites non-Muslim students to fast for a day with their Muslim classmates to raise money for charity. (See “Non-Muslim, Muslim Students Fast Together To End Hunger.”)
Karim, who organized Georgetown’s 2006 Fast-A-Thon, said she liked the fact that the entire campus community comes together in solidarity to help a charity organization. “It’s no longer an event for one faith group, but an event for all faith groups. … It really promotes this pluralism in society as well,” she said.
Muslim and non-Muslim Fast-A-Thon participants end their day breaking the fast together at the evening iftar.
“People were all exchanging experiences about how their fast was and relating to their Muslim friends all of a sudden,” Karim recounted. “I think the general feeling amongst all the fasters who don’t generally fast was that this was a really powerful experience,” she said, adding that many said they were looking forward to repeating the event in the coming year.
See Diversity-At Worship.
Ramadan: Reflections From an American Campus