November 09, 2005

Back to the table of Contents Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

First Person: How Muslim Ramadan evokes thoughts of Christmas -- and being human

by Saqib Rahim

The recently completed Muslim holiday Ramadan -- a 30-day observance that ended last week -- has a special edge for me, thanks to Christmas and my American-ness.

When I was a kid growing up in the East San Jose hills, two of my closest friends were a pair of brothers who lived next door. Each December, we three would rejoice as school ended and we could look forward to overcast, rainy days spent inside with cocoa and video games.

All would be well for the first week. Then the call would come.

"Can Saqib come over?" one of my pals would ask my mom. It was Christmas Day, and she knew I had nothing to do -- because our family is Muslim. When mom said I'd be right over, I felt like I was at the doctor's office awaiting the needle: nervous, but grudgingly aware that it had to be done.

So each year, I made the 50-foot walk to my neighbor's door. My next-door mom would open the door with a smile, and I would enter into a wondrous world: warm lights, holiday decor and the smell of cookies. My friends were somewhere in the mountains of wrapping paper and spanking-new toys surrounding a magnificent tree.

I usually accepted my special Christmas gift from them and headed home. I didn't want to half-participate in all of the season's cheer -- 24 hours of Christmas television sounded easier.

My confusion about Christmas is a good example of the disorientation I felt growing up in the Bay Area as the son of Bangladeshi -- and Muslim -- immigrants. As a youth, being Muslim always made me feel very different, very marked. This feeling had less to do with religious discrimination than with my wish to appear "normal."

Built into my daily life, it seemed, were messages that I was an alien. My schoolmates ate different foods, celebrated different holidays, and had different cultural rules for entertainment, dating and driving.

There was more to this struggle than the exclusion from parts of "American" culture. I also had to deal with the parts of my parents' culture that they wanted me to follow: learning their language; reading the Qur'an, Islam's holy book; and each year keeping fast for 30 days during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

This last practice always seemed particularly strange to my friends. They puzzled at my starvation exercise: No food? No water from dawn to dusk? Fasting sounded to them an impossible physical barrier, foreign, maybe even pagan.

I would have loved to give them a better explanation, but my family -- like many of my Muslim friends' families -- rarely discussed Islam openly. I certainly wasn't encouraged to raise the critical voice of someone who wants to figure out if religion is for him.

My mom and dad had concerns of their own: feeding the family and ensuring that my education succeeded. They certainly weren't moved by my integration troubles. Like many immigrants from their part of the world -- Bangladesh -- they kept mostly to themselves. Our Islam was never a public one. Nor was it ever fully explained to me; I fasted in my youth without really knowing why.

Strangely, my experience at a Catholic high school was what helped me discover Ramadan and my own sense of faith. I met wonderfully selfless, kind people who believed in taking their religion to San Jose's shelters, soup kitchens and schools. They even arranged service-learning trips to Appalachia, El Salvador and Tijuana, Mexico.

Participating in these allowed me to discover that Ramadan was a path to some things that meant a lot to me. Fasting meant solidarity with the poor and hungry, temperance and discipline in lifestyle, and promoting peace.

Others value Ramadan differently. My cousin treasures the sense of community that comes with iftar, the sunset meal that ends a day's fast. Typically -- whether the group is a family or an entire congregation, friends or strangers -- all will drink at once.

"That first sip of lemonade, that is Ramadan to me," she says.

Another friend's favorite Ramadan memory has to do with track practice. He was fasting on the day his coach assigned a six-mile run. He kept up during that run, he beams, and while teammates gulped water at the end, he went without. For him, fasting that day was a spiritual and physical triumph. (I tried to do the same during my brief wrestling career, but to no avail.)

Like me, these two have found ways to make Ramadan speak to them. My fasting, too, is an adaptation to my American world and my American self. So it should be said that this isn't by-the-book Islam -- scripture and prayer play comparatively small roles for me.

Part of that is because the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 by self-proclaimed Muslims showed me the danger of closed minds. Demagogues east and west have everything to gain from declaring a clash of civilizations. The antidote? Not dogmatism and secrecy among Americans, but openness, communication and respect.

So why do I fast? It reminds me of everything that matters: the poor of New Orleans, how much I love my family, the struggle to end war and know peace, and the sense that I am, finally, a human just like everybody else.

Saqib Rahim is a journalism intern at the Weekly. He graduated in December from the University of California, Los Angeles, as an English major. He can be e-mailed at saqibtm@gmail.com.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.