As the sun sets, Nadia Khan (COL ’08) looks at her full plate of falafel, salad and chicken-rice pilaf with bright eyes.
It is the beginning of the Iftar, or evening meal, and Khan joins a table-full of her friends in McShain Lounge, along with dozens of other Georgetown students, to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and break the fast which she has kept all day.
“Your body adjusts to it,” she says, referring to the fast, which lasts from sunrise to sunset every day. “By the end of Ramadan it’s a breeze.”
The Iftar is both a spiritually and physically renewing time for uslim students at Georgetown.
Saad Omar (COL ’07) said that he sees Ramadan as an opportunity to rededicate his life to his community, “but more importantly to God.”
“It’s a very individual thing in terms of your fasting – no one else knows you’re fasting,” he said. “It’s also a very communal thing because we’re getting together to break our fast.”
Some students also see the holy month as an opportunity for self-reflection.
“You get to question how far you’ve come since the last Ramadan and how far you have to go,” Khan said. “It’s a lot of self-analysis.”
A typical day for Georgetown Muslims during Ramadan involves waking up before sunrise for prayer and Suhur, the morning meal, fasting throughout the day and gathering in McShain Lounge to pray and break the fast after the sun sets.
Hafsa Kanjwal (SFS ’08), secretary of the Muslim Student Association, said that she goes through most of the day’s rituals with her friends.
“We wake up together; we eat Suhur together; we go through the whole day together,” she said. “You get closer to a lot of people.”
Kanjwal said she spends a lot of personal time in the Muslim prayer room in Copley basement. She is also part of a group reading a portion of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, every night.
“By the end of the month we hope to have read the whole Qur’an,” she said.
The actual physical fast during Ramadan can be a challenge for uslim students on campus who attend classes every day, as they normally would.
“Ramadan isn’t easy. There are times – usually between 5 and 6 p.m. – when it’s really difficult,” Muriam Davis (GRD ’06) said to a group of students last Tuesday during a large Iftar sponsored by the Graduate Muslim Students Association and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Nevertheless, students find meaning and connection in the daily hunger they experience.
“Every time you feel hungry you remember that you’re fasting and you should be thinking about God,” said Fatema Khimji (SFS ’07), an Iftar coordinator for MSA. “Hunger kind of acts as a reminder. When you don’t have that reminder it’s easy to forget.”
Omar, who has been participating in the fast since he was 12, said that Muslims not only abstain from food during Ramadan but also from “losing your temper and slandering.”
“There is a narration from the Prophet that some people fast and all they get out of it is hunger and thirst,” he says. “So that’s the very base value, but you’re supposed to go much further than that during Ramadan.”
Omar said that Muslims around the world are praying for the victims of the massive earthquake in the Kashmir region of Pakistan, which killed approximately 35,000 people earlier this month.
“It’s much more real to us. When we’re fasting, we know there are millions of refugees now in South Asia. It’s a very real experience.”
Omar said that Ramadan is an important connection for him not only to the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world, but also to the family he has left at his home in Indiana.
“For me Ramadan is always with family. That’s what it’s about. In the beginning it did feel weird, but what it does is it forces you to build that same sense of family here,” he said.
Khimji said she did not know what to expect when she first celebrated Ramadan at Georgetown.
“I was really apprehensive because I didn’t have my mom’s cooking, but it’s been wonderful to find this huge Georgetown family here,” she said.
Celebrating the holy month away from home is still very different, Khimji said.
“You’re forced to think differently about your spirituality . because when you’re home, your mom’s going to make you pray five times a day, get up for Suhur, but here it really gains new meaning because you’re self-motivating.”
Fatima Asvat (SFS ’08) said that even though she misses home, the Iftars at college have helped her reinforce her friendships.
“There are people I normally see once a week maybe twice a week. . Ramadan is one of the few times we all have dinner together, because we all have different schedules.”
Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar, and it falls 11 days earlier on the Gregorian calendar every year.
Altar Husain, former president of the National Muslim Students Association, who spoke at the Iftar last Tuesday, said the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan.
Husain called fasting an intimate spiritual connection with God.
“You cannot tell from the outside whether I am eating or not eating,” he said. “It is between myself and God.”
Husain told the Muslim students and faculty attending the Iftar that during Ramadan one should ask forgiveness “from people you’ve wronged then ask forgiveness from God.”
“Islam is a comprehensive religion, universal in its teaching, eternal in outlook,” he said.
The Iftars seem to be bigger this Ramadan than in years past, Kanjwal said.
“I feel like the community’s definitely growing,” she said. “Especially this year a lot more people come to a lot of our events.”
“Luckily we’re not running out of food, but I’m really glad that we’re getting new people to come,” Khimji added.
Iftars are funded through Campus Ministry and donations from parents and sponsors like the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Food is ordered from local restaurants.
Khan takes a bite of food and chats with her friends after the evening’s speeches.
“Everyone is really charged up for the next 11 months,” she says. “Usually you’ll find people making plans for the next Ramadan right after, because you’re so geared up.”