The culture and spiritual significance of fasting

STORY BY MIKEY JANE MORAN

The day Western alumna Nasara Mohamud moved from Seattle to Chicago for graduate school, she was wearing a raincoat. In 80-degree weather. She hadn’t eaten since the sun rose and she couldn’t even drink a sip of water until sundown. She was on the verge of passing out in piles of cardboard boxes and humidity.

“The first week is always the hardest ever. That’s when your body is like, oh my god, I need sugar, I need water,” Mohamud says.

Mohamud is a Muslim observing Ramadan, a 30-day period of fasting. From sunrise to sunset she is not allowed to eat or drink anything — she can’t even chew gum. The last meal she had was toast and watermelon at 4 a.m. during Suhr, the morning prayer. She won’t eat again until the evening prayer, Iscar, at 9 p.m.

“The thing I love about Ramadan is that after sunset, everyone comes together. You all come home at the same time because you all want to pitch in and cook something,” Mohamud says. “For us, it’s samosas. You have to make samosas, otherwise it’s not Ramadan.”

In Saudi Arabia where Western exchange student Aziz Alajlan grew up, restaurants and stores stay open for Ramadan after sunset and the sky is enlivened by fireworks. Alajlan is attending Western to complete his graduate degree in communication, but he misses the celebration and joy of Ramadan back home. The month is a time for nightlife, walking under the stars and connecting with family and friends.

But Ramadan is about more than food and fireworks.

“…That’s the beauty of reflecting and the beauty of Ramadan — looking inward.”

“You are supposed to reflect on your life and what you have while at the same time experiencing what the less fortunate have — or lack,” Mohamud says.

Because Mohamud is moving, she is exempt from fasting if she feels too weak. Diabetics, pregnant or menstruating women, and children are not required to fast. Mohamud says refraining from eating is a way to reflect, but Muslims also need to protect the bodies God gave them.

During Ramadan, Muslims give donations of food or money to their mosque. Offerings and fasting are two of the five pillars, or core beliefs, of Islam.

For Alajlan, fasting is second-nature.

“I know when the sun sets I will have food to eat,” says Alajlan. But he also knows there are countless people without food security. Fasting brings him a global sense of sympathy. To be Muslim is to fast during Ramadan, he says.

This year, China has banned fasting for students, professors and civil workers in the Xinjiang province. These bans are nothing new — tensions in the area began long ago, says Kristen Parris, associate professor of political science at Western.

The Xinjiang province in Northwest China is an autonomous region with a large population of Turkic Muslims known as the Uyghur. Secessionist movements and terrorist-style revolts are becoming common in the area as the Uyghur fight for autonomy from the People’s Republic of China, Parris says.

Learn how to make traditional Punjabi Samosas

The government claims this law is to protect the health of students and workers, who need to keep up their strength throughout the day.

“Muslims have been carrying on fasting forever,” Parris says. “It’s not like people just lay around on cots all day and wait to eat because they are too weak. The idea that this is to protect the health of the adorable, vulnerable student is silly.”

Parris thinks China is targeting schools and civil servants simply because they can. The schools are public and easy to control.

“China is not ‘1984,’” Parris says. “They don’t have the capacity to go into everyone’s home.”

Restricting fasting is a way of controlling an identity that is in opposition to the dominant culture in China, where religious freedoms are not as protected as in the U.S.

For Mohamud, fasting during Ramadan is an essential part of her spirituality.

“It’s like a house. You have your four corners and your foundation,” she says. “One of the pillars that’s holding up your roof is fasting.”

This year, Mohamud has been following the situation in China. The things she takes for granted are the things she remembers during Ramadan: family support, religious freedoms and access to food and clean water.

“When they are told they cannot fast, they can still reflect. At the end of the day, the government is not in your head,” Mohamud says. “And that’s the beauty of reflecting and the beauty of Ramadan — looking inward.”

Gratitude. Reflection. Compassion. For Mohamud and many other Muslims, that is Ramadan. And don’t forget the samosas.