Ramadan through the eyes of Muslim students

By Liz Wright | Staff writer

Not many AU students are aware of the growing on-campus Muslim community, but President Samar Khan and fellow office members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) are working to further increase their outreach to students to build a more connected and inviting environment for all who wish to learn about the Islamic faith.

Ramadan ends today (May 1) at sundown. Now Muslims transfer to the two-day Eid al Fitr celebration.

This past month AU Muslim students have been celebrating Ramadan together, but what exactly is Ramadan and what does it entail? Most people who have heard that Ramadan involves fasting from dawn to dusk, but why?

“Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam,” Khan said. “We fast for 30 days and there are spiritual and physical benefits. We abstain not just from eating and drinking, but we are also to be abstinent from intimacy, smoking, swearing, watching vulgar things, being exposed to inappropriate things. It’s supposed to be a very pious time.”

According to the members of the MSA, Ramadan represents a time for working on oneself spiritually, both by trying to become closer with God and by breaking sinful habits. Ramadan occurs over the span of a lunar month because it is a well-known phrase that it takes 30 days to break a bad habit—and that encourages followers to stick to their more pious selves after Ramadan is over.

Ramadan occurs at a different season every year because it is determined by the lunar calendar and is the first day of the ninth month of this calendar, which is determined by the showing of the crescent moon.

“It’s our holiest month of the year, so during this time we’re abstaining from world pleasures and focusing on the spiritual aspects of our religion and focusing more inward in order to work on our spiritual health,” said sophomore Sana Nisar, secretary of the MSA. 

Some people may wonder, why exactly does the holiday involve the removal of food? Does religious enlightenment require fasting?

“So food takes a lot of time out of our day,” Nisar said. “You don’t really realize that till you actually fast, but so much of your schedule throughout the day is focusing on eating or thinking about your next meal. So instead of having to focus on that, you can spend more time reading our Holy book, praying, those types of things.”

Ramadan allows followers more time to focus on more spiritual activities, such as praying, and further working on abstaining from habitual sins.

“It’s also about knowing if we can abstain from food, which is so essential to us living, then we can abstain from something else [another bad habit] as well,” added Khan.

In addition to wondering about the fasting, some non-Muslim students may wonder: Are there exceptions? What happens if one cannot fast for a lengthy period of time?

“There are definitely exceptions,” Khan said. “So if you are pregnant, you have not hit puberty, you are an elder, have medical conditions, traveling, or even if a girl is on her menstrual cycle, they are all exempt from fasting.”

Members of the MSA expressed that social media and online information has made it easier for non-Muslims to understand the holiday and support friends and family who are celebrating the holiday.

“I think people [on campus] have been very understanding about [Ramadan and fasting], especially because there’s so much information out on social media and on the internet so more people have started to educate themselves a lot more, so it’s easier to explain if they’ve heard about it in some shape or form, said freshman Alisha Husain, another member of MSA. “But it’s easiest to explain to those who are open minded about it though, that’s the most important part, if one is not open minded about it. They are never gonna get it.”

While some people may not always understand or accept their faith, students of the MSA are always encouraged not only by each other, but also non-muslim friends who are open minded about learning and asking questions about the Muslim culture.

“I think that anyone who wants to learn and wants to have an open mind, finds [Ramadan and fasting] not only really accepting but they’ll also gain a certain level of respect for you, because we have to go through all that and, at the end of the day, can still hold onto our beliefs,” said sophomore Abdullah Chandasir, event coordinator and publicity officer of the MSA. “So I think we definitely gain a little bit of respect from certain people for that.”

Members and officers of the MSA have expressed that the hardest part about being Muslim in college is the stigma they often face due to how their religion is perceived in the news media.

“Sometimes, because of how Islam is portrayed in the media, we do face some stigma, but that’s what the MSA is for. Not only does it provide Muslim students a place of acceptance and companionship to each other, but it is also to try dispel those myths and teach, not only Muslims, but non-muslims about who we are and what we stand for, and that we are just like anybody else,” said Chandasir. “The more people come into contact with Muslims, the more people are able to see that we are not what the media portrays us as, and that we can further dispel that stigma and those myths.”

Female members of the MSA feel they face much more stigmatism, especially if they are very traditional in their faith, due to popular false portrayals and the media.

“I think that as women [of the Muslim faith] we are often portrayed as being oppressed in Islam a lot,” said Nisar, “especially if we wear the Hijab [traditional head covering] and are openly Muslim. Those of us who wear the Hijab in the western world are often treated differently and it’s a big myth that Muslim we women grow up with here, that we are oppressed because of how the media portrays it, but it’s not true- women’s role in Islam is not oppressive at all.”

Overall, the members of the MSA communicated their appreacitaiton for those who ask questions about the Muslim culture and show a desire to learn about their faith and what it entails, in order to fight the stigma and understand them as people.

“I really appreciate people just asking questions and understanding that Ramadan is a special time for us,” said Nasir. “It’s a really family oriented holiday, especially in the summertime, we get to spend time with our family, visit relatives, and go out to dinner parties. It’s a kind of togetherness centered around focusing on the spiritual world, and I think as you get older you appreciate that much more. People look forward to Ramadan. It’s a happy time for us.”

Many of them shared fond memories of Ramadan and being able to bond with family and develop those relationships through a very spiritual holiday, and wish other people understood more about their culture and faith.

The MSA will be meeting again in August and holding elections in November of the upcoming fall semester. They are always open to new members regardless of religion or background and hope to further grow as a community in the coming year.

Note: At the top of the page, members of the AU Muslim Students Association line up for iftar, the nightly dinner that breaks the fast. (photo by Liz Wright)

Contact Liz Wright at elizwright@augusta.edu.