What is Ramadan in the US? It meant waking up with the family, far, far earlier than I want for the pre-dawn breakfast. It meant going to high school and getting a library pass, just so I don’t have to sit in the cafeteria and oddly look at almost everyone else having their lunch.
It meant sitting at the dinner table with the family, eagerly counting the seconds before dusk, waiting for that cool glass of water, no fancy sherbet as you see on television commercials, intensely listening for the recorded azaan.
It’s having nighttime football practice for high schoolers at Dearborn, Michigan, where more than a third residents are Arab. This practice started in 2011, when the football coach moved the practice time so that players don’t have to play while fasting. He called it a safety issue, as the majority of the football players were fasting, and didn’t want them to do this in the summer heat without hydrating. This state has one of the largest concentrations of Muslim Americans, and the story was published by The New York Times.
I am among the estimated 3.85 million Muslims in the US, approximately 1.1% of the nation’s population, as cited by Pew Research Centre in 2020. A steady growth has been fueled by continued immigration and this group’s tendency to have more children. This growth is illustrated in the number of mosques here -- whereas there were approximately 1,200 masjids in 2000, this number more than doubled in two decades to nearly 2,800, as noted by Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership.
My hometown mosque in Texas, the Islamic Centre of Bryan/College Station, is among these religious institutions. I recall in 1990 when a rental apartment served as the mosque and we would be packed into the gender-segregated rooms, passing hot plates from one corner to another as we sat in rows on the carpeted floor during iftar.
Today, the Islamic Centre is a white exterior, two-story structure with prayer halls, a half-court basketball gym, and lounge rooms. The mosque stands alongside multiple churches in the Northgate District, a historic part of town that is a walking distance from Texas A&M University. The mosque has a higher level of attendance during Ramadan, when the collective spirit of community rises with communal meals and late-night prayers.
During this month, the Bangladeshi community contributes to one night of iftar, as a specific group is assigned to provide meals for 300 individuals. Quite glad to note that this time, the approximately 100-person strong Bangladeshi community raised more than $5,000 for the meals, leading to an excess amount that was donated to the mosque.
College Station is marked by the long-standing university established in 1876 that has created a town around it, so the Bangladeshi student group plays an active role in community affairs. Ramadan is one such occasion when the students and resident Bangladeshi population can interact as part of the iftar committee. Donation is a large element of this month; an estimated $2m went to charity from more than 1,700 North American Muslims, according to the 2020 study titled “Embracing Uncertainty.”
What is Ramadan for me? In addition to the attempted spiritual salvation, it means recognition of one’s necessities versus luxuries in life, be it with food or monetary resources. Understanding how important food security is to one’s health, and assisting those that don’t have this, be it in the US or abroad. In my thirty-plus years of living here, I realized that Ramadan in the US is what you make of it, taking a holiday from school/workplace and enjoying the day with friends and family at the end, seeing community members in their most colourful traditional outfits, and celebrating a milestone of another year spent fasting.
May this journey be full of enlightenment and joy for all.
Tamim Choudhury is a Texas-based public affairs specialist.