Tis the Season
October 11, 2010not that season! it was recently ramadan – that’s commonly known as the month of fasting in islam. it’s a lot of other things too. for muslims, the month commemorates the beginning of the time when the qur’an was revealed to muhammad in a cave near mecca about the year 610. and there is a very significant purpose to the dawn-to-sundown fasting. during the fast, muslims seek god for forgiveness, trying to purify themselves through good deeds and self-discipline.
some of my somali friends at the iftar
another important part of ramadan is iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast at sundown. this meal is often like a community celebration and my friend S and i had the chance to organize an iftar for our muslim friends who live in our neighborhood. we wanted to show them that we love and honor them as our neighbors.
iftar begins with the ritual eating of a date and drinking milk, followed by the maghrib (sunset) prayer. after that, we shared an expansive and wonderful meal of kebab, rice, fatoush, biryani, piaju, pagunia, hummus and fresh baked bread – more food than we knew what to do with. my friend O made the best somali tea ever. oh and did i mention that i cooked three somali desserts: qumbe, aana baraawe and sabayah. i’ve been learning to cook somali food because many of my muslim friends are from somalia. our friends at the iftar were from bangladesh, south africa, india, ethiopia, algeria, somalia and maybe a few other places as well – a totally fun international event.
if you’re not muslim, it seems like you might have to get a little outside of yourself to even know about things like ramadan and iftar (personally the muslim holidays are the ones i have on the calendar in my iphone but i’m a little weird like that). relationships with people who are not like us probably take a lot of intentionality….and hopefully some really good food too.
