Ramadan Kareem!

Today is the second day of the month of Ramadan, and I wanted to tell you what I have learned in the last few days about this important month in the Islamic calendar.

First of all, what I knew before this week about Ramadan could probably fit in a thimble. I knew that Ramadan involved fasting for Muslims, and I thought it was later in autumn. Why is it in September then? As this holy time quickly approached I busied myself, as a good historian should, gathering information about what the month signified, and how people celebrated this month.

I probably learned the most about Ramadan in my interviews from our librarian, Miss Afaf. Miss Afaf is one of those lifetime librarians who loves books and children and tells a story in that magical way that only a librarian who has enchanted children for years can do.

Oh, by the way, my sister, that spectacular sibling named Elizabeth, suggested I explain why the custom in the schools here leans toward calling teachers in the manner of “Miss Afaf,” or “Mr. John,” or “Miss Elizabeth,” etc. Whoever decided this appellation was the proper address felt that it was a combination of respect and intimacy. Hmm…very nice actually, and I have found it a very sweet way to be addressed instead of the more conventional “Mr. Leistler.” Oh, one more digression before I am back on-task: at the end of my first year teaching ever, back at Gaston Day School, my father came to visit me. Well, not really just a visit, but to a supervise a “move,” one of his specialities. On maybe his second day visiting, a student walked by my classroom, waved at me, and offered a quintessential North Carolina “Hey, Mr. Leistler.” My dad said hello back. I looked at him, and said, “That was meant for me. I’m Mr. Leistler now!”

So, on my way into the library yesterday morning, Jaber, a boy from Kuwait, greeted me at 7:30 a.m. with a cheery “Ramadan Kareem, Mr. John!” Understanding what that meant was my first order of business! Miss Afaf explained that that greeting is very much like “Merry Christmas,” except that in this Ramadan wish, it raises some of the most important concepts of Ramadan. “Kareem,” she explained, means generosity, and in this popular greeting you wish upon a person the virtue of generosity.

By the end of the first day of Ramadan I had stitched together an interesting view of this holiday. But let’s go back two days to see how we got to this place.

In the school meeting on Tuesday, one of the deans announced she thought that Ramadan might begin on Thursday. Thought it would? It might or might not? Why didn’t she know? I elbowed a colleague, and asked what that was all about. She whispered that Ramadan had to be “noticed,” and that an Islamic judge had to notice the crescent moon in a certain way, on a certain night in a certain lunar month and you couldn’t pinpoint exactly the beginning of the holiday. Another colleague cracked, “Other people know when their holidays begin.” So the confusion as to whether it began on Tuesday, Wednesday, or some other day was unusual. (I also learned that the holiday migrates—the Islamic calendar is shorter than our calendar, so each year the holiday begins 10 days earlier. Oh, that’s why it’s not in November anymore, or well, not for a few years.)

But knowing when it begins matters. It matters a great deal. Not only is their fasting involved from sun-up to sun-down for Muslims, but every schedule in life is affected! Everybody’s work schedule changes, school schedules change, hours that the Mall is open change, and on and on. The work day and the school day are shortened for a month! So when exactly that crescent moon is sighted matters deeply as everyone moves into Ramadan mode.

I am not sure who this venerable judge is, but he did see the crescent moon as promised, so Ramadan kicked into high-gear yesterday. What that also means is that the night before things change. The dining hall staff brought over containers of food at night, for it is traditional to wake up about 3:00 a.m. and eat a meal called suhur in preparation for the fast at dawn. Those of us in the boarders’ halls wondered if anyone had considered how this all might play out in a teen-age boy’s dormitory!

There are several things that are traditional in this suhur as you prepare for the fast.
It is customary to have yogurt and cucumbers. The cucumbers are, what, 80% water, and are thought to help sustain you through the day. Fasting Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink anything, indeed they are cautioned not to swallow their spit, from sun-up to sun-down. So as they gorge on their cucumbers, yogurt, olive oil, cheese and bread in the middle of the night, most people eat fresh yellow dates as well. These dates are thought to provide the balance necessary to make it through the whole day of fasting.

I asked the Islamic theology teacher what I should tell my friends and family about the observance of Ramadan. Miss Zuhaira said simply, “Ramadan is like a “guest” in your home with responsibilities and needs. You should be attentive to Ramadan as you would a guest.”

As I have cobbled together my understanding in the last few days, this month is a combination of many virtues and hopes and tests. It was in this particular month in the lunar calendar when the prophet Mohammed (and I have learned that when you use his name, it is customary in English to always write “PBUH” after his name—Peace Be Upon Him) received the revelations that we call the Koran.

But this month is more than a celebration for our Muslim brethren of the receipt of these words. It is also meant to be a cultivation of empathy—when you fast every day (yes, every day for 30 days, not just one day or something, but every day for 30 days from sun-up to sun-down) you are to identify with the poor around you, and it is this moral element, even moral imperative, that distinguishes Ramadan. Obviously, the fast would remind the observers of the preciousness of food and blessings. Moreover, this fast should refine the spirits of the observers, preparing them for adversity.

It was interesting asking the boys in the dorm what their families did for Ramadan. All of them talked about the excitement of iftar. Iftar is the meal at sundown when you can break your fast after the hours of self-deprivation. You have 30 days of fasting, You have 30 evenings of Iftar! Sometimes the iftar would go on for half the night, the Saudi boys told me. It sounds very much like a Thanksgiving meal, especially with the festive anticipation, the gorging of food, the friends and family celebrating their bounty. Thirty days! Many of the boys told stories of how at iftar several nights they would take food in the family cars, and set up a stand on the highway and offer free food for anyone. One boy explicitly said, “You never serve anything that you aren’t eating with your own family. You take the same meal to the poor as you do to your own family.”

One boy seemed to guess that I likened this evening repast to our American Thanksgiving, and he said, “Mr. John, yes we eat a lot in the evenings, but Ramadan is not just about no food and then food. I think it is much more about making an intention to God, about our obligation to God.” That boy is one of those insightful students I learn from every day.

Another boy told me that during the hours of fasting, it is also urged that you give up anger, envy, gossiping and sexual intercourse. Okay one joke—maybe that’s why everyone’s schedule is shortened, so that you can go home, and stay away from each other so you might actually live up to those goals! No disrespect intended there. But when our KA schedule was announced that the school day would end at 3:30 many of the women faculty complained that that didn’t give them time to prepare the evening feasts, so the day ends now, with no sports, at 2:30. There is rest time, and meditation time, and for me, a lovely increase in time to e-mail friends and family.

I asked Khalil, my Arabic teacher about the origins of the word Ramadan. He sighed, for he said, “well, there are as many thoughts about that as…” and trailed off…grains of sand in the desert? He liked the thought that the word derives from a word that means the “dance in the desert” but he also allowed that it might have come from an Arabic word for intense heat, or scorched ground, and shortness of rations. He liked the more poetic “dance in the desert” definition, and that also carried a strong Bedouin connection too. Bedouins were the first in the Arab world to embrace Islam (the wealthier, Christian, Arab merchants had much disdain for this new faith way back in the 7th and 8th centuries) and so many of the nostalgic traditions of Ramadan call on the Bedouin past.

There are decorations for Ramadan as well! Many of the decorations call on that Bedouin past. On tables for iftar there are these lanterns, beautiful objects called a fannous, much like the Aladdin-ish lamps we all imagine in the 1001 Arabian Nights’ story—it is the lamp used by the Bedouins to wake people up around 3:00 a.m. to eat the suhur before the fast begins at sun-up. These decorations reminded me of how Americans might decorate a house to look a little like the first Thanksgiving, or at Christmas create a look of a Victorian advent season.

There does not seem to be a tradition of gift-giving. Sigh. Well. I take that back. One of the Arabic teachers told me that “Properly observing the fast is supposed to induce a comfortable feeling of peace and calm.” That does sound like a mighty nice gift.

Last night, as the weekend began, and the first iftar of the season set in, I joined a group of colleagues to have Chinese food in Amman. And I saw lights on so many houses! There are Ramadan lights! Almost every house had these lights—a brightly lit crescent moon and star, signifying the month of meditation, fast, and gleeful celebration with loved ones.

So many stories, so many customs, so many nights of celebrating to go!