Friday, October 07, 2005

Ramadan.

Frankly, I never even HEARD of Ramadan until I moved to metro Detroit. For years, though, I still didn't really know what it was--I was aware that it was a Muslim holiday, but that was about it.

Now that I'm teaching in Dearborn--which has the highest Arab-American population in the United States; in fact, it may have the highest population, outside of the Middle East, of anywhere in the world--I'm becoming extremely familiar with it. Most notably, during the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown. They don't eat or drink at ALL. I feel really bad for our students, but I guess they're used to it. From what I hear, they get up early, before sunrise, to eat a really big breakfast and that tides them over until sunset.

Can you imagine, though, how hard this must be when Ramadan falls during the SUMMER? First of all, the days are especially long. Secondly, imagine not being able to drink ANYTHING during daylight hours during those hot summer days.

Mrs. R says that she usually picks one day out of the month to fast with her students. Now, I can do the no-eating part (stop laughing, Nikki and Mom, I COULD), but I can't imagine not drinking all day. I ALWAYS have pop or water or SOMETHING with me. My mouth gets pretty dry, especially talking all day (teaching, I mean). I guess, though, that if Ramadan had the same kind of meaning to me that it does to them (it's a time for inner reflection, devotion to God, and self-control. Muslims think of it as a kind of tune-up for their spiritual lives), it would be a lot easier.

According to my web research, "...As a secondary goal, fasting is a way of experiencing hunger and developing sympathy for the less fortunate, and learning to thankfulness and appreciation for all of God's bounties. "

(In hindsight, then, offering a cinnamon roll to my Arab-American, Ramadan-observing principal was probably NOT the most tactful thing I've ever done. But I forgot.)

Happy Ramadan!

5 comments:

Jen said...

I just updated my post, Renee, with that info. =-)

Nik said...

Jen, you never cease to amaze me! That's too funny about the whole cinnamon roll thing, but given that you don't necessarily observe the holiday, it's understanadble.
Also, if you guys think about it, sunrise is what about 7am and sunset is about 8pm, that's 13 hours, not really all that long. So, Jen I didn't even giggle a little bit at your not eating comment. I'm with you Jen, I don't know if I could not drink anything for that long, I gotta have some water or tea or something.

Nik said...

Geez, that should be understandable!

Nik said...

Okay, so curiosity got to me and here's the actual sunrise and sunset times for today in the Detroit area:Sunrise: 7:36 am
Sunset: 7:03 pm
SO, that's just shy of 12 hours, not too bad at all really.

Fred said...

Since I teach world history, I do a full two days on the Islamic traditions and faith. We then cover it in bits and pieces during the Crusades and the development of countries in that region.

We have about twenty students on campus who are Muslim; I have two of them come in and talk with my students about their religion and the discrimination they sometimes face because of the scarves they wear.