From Whole Foods
By Arsalan Iftikhar, July 9, 2013
Arsalan Iftikhar is founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, senior editor for The Islamic Monthly magazine and author of the book Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era. Arsalan is also a regular commentator on National Public Radio (NPR).
Imagine for a moment that for 30 days every year- from sunrise to sunset each day- you were not allowed to eat any food or drink any liquids, including water or your must-have jolt of caffeine via your daily espresso.
That’s all part of celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is also a time filled with reflection, yummy food and tons of awesome gifts for our little girls and boys around the world.
For Muslims, the month of Ramadan helps to serve as a time for self-reflection, gratitude and atonement. The religious concept of fasting in Islam symbolizes many often-overlooked things in life. The act of “fasting” allows us to truly appreciate the great bounties (food, water, etc.) that we usually take for granted. For me, abstaining from food and other comforts during Ramadan reminds me to appreciate the blessings that many hungry people around the world do not enjoy on a daily basis. So do we fast non-stop for 30 days? Of course not. Here’s what a typical day might look like for those observing Ramadan.
First, the process usually begins when Muslims around the world wake up before dawn (many times as early as 4 o’clock in the morning) to eat a pre-dawn breakfast meal (known as Suhoor in Arabic) with our families. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 1980s, I remember that my mom was like our own version of a short-order cook during the pre-dawn meals. My siblings and I would request random dishes (like omelets or spaghetti or whatever) and we would basically have a four-course meal at four o’clock in the morning every day during Ramadan.
But many people around the world barely get anything to eat even during the month of Ramadan. I remember my beloved grandfather — when he used to have his pre-dawn meal in Pakistan — he was actually away from his family helping to build a women’s hospital in the middle of the desert there. In nearly 126-degree weather, he would just have one piece of fruit and a glass of water to last him the entire 16-hour day at the age of 84. Thinking about people in the developing world really makes me appreciate Ramadan even more and everything we take for granted here in the United States.
After spending all day thinking about food and water, we then begin to count down the minutes to sunset when we can once again eat our yummy food again during our evening meals (known as Iftaar in Arabic). As the sun begins to set, Muslim households around the country begin to cut fresh produce for their fruit salads, start frying their crunchy samosas and falafels and prepare tasty dishes like chicken biryani or Moroccan lamb stew.
