Day 75 - Ramadhan Kareem

The piece below was written as my devotion at a Wednesday evening supper at my church in Arlington, Virginia. The event was at the beginning of Ramadan that year.

Image by jotunbani, via Flickr

Let me begin by explaining why I think sharing a bit of an Islamic tradition is appropriate for this Lutheran congregation at this time and in this place.  And I’ll begin with the traditional greeting for the first day of Ramadhan:  Ramadhan Kareem.  Generous Ramadhan.  

First, some background.  I grew up in the Midwest at a time when it was pretty much filled by people of northern European backgrounds.  The difference between Lutherans and Catholics was the greatest theological division I knew of, although I knew, without understanding, that there were also differences between Norwegian Lutherans, Swedish Lutherans, and German Lutherans.  Both Judaism and Islam were just subjects in world religions courses.  I didn’t know any Jews or Muslims and didn’t really expect I ever would.

Ten years ago, I was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi.  This wasn’t the first time I had lived in a Muslim country; it was the third time.  I had experienced Ramadhan – the month of fasting that is one of the five pillars of Islam  – in both Iran and Qatar.  And I found it to be a frankly incomprehensible holiday that was more easily described as an inconvenience to non-Muslims and an opportunity for Muslims to make excuses for not working.  That is, until one Yemeni woman introduced me to the other side of Ramadhan.  Her name is Huda and she is the wife of one of my employees in Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Mackawee.  

One Ramadhan afternoon, Huda called to tell me that I was not to cook anything for my family that evening.  She planned to share the breaking of the fast meal that she had prepared with us.  Just before sunset that day, she arrived with a half dozen bowls of Yemeni special foods and laid them out on our table for the evening meal.  She explained that Ramadhan is a time to give thanks, to give gifts to the people most important in one’s life, to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive.  And because I had spent an evening talking with her about her concern for her husband’s health and her apprehensions about her upcoming immigration to the United States with her husband, she felt it was important to share a Ramadhan thanksgiving meal with us.  

There was something very special about Huda’s bringing the meal to us instead of just inviting us to join her and Mohammed in their home.  We weren’t invalids, so we didn’t need to have food brought to us.  We were certainly not financially strapped.  And we had often been invited to the homes of other contacts of the Embassy during Ramadhan, so invitations to meals were not special in and of themselves.  But there was a greater generosity involved in delivering the meal to our home.  It was more of a gift without any strings attached.  We didn’t have to get dressed up to go out.  We didn’t have to stand around talking to strangers, trying to think of interesting topics.  And we didn’t have to wait until the most important guest had gone before we could say our own good-byes.  The evening was still ours.

This was the first of many gifts that Huda’s delivery of a Ramadhan iftar meal brought me.

That year I began to see the family gatherings at restaurants for iftar meals in a new light.  The concept of Thanksgiving was more apparent.  And I compared the wonder of our single Thanksgiving holiday meal – a time when families gather together, share a meal consisting of traditional food items, combinations of foods that are eaten only on that day each year -- to the 28 days of family gatherings and special meals for Muslims during Ramadhan.  I began to understand that Muslims look forward to Ramadhan with joy, in contrast to the moody and begrudging attitude that many non-Muslims in the Muslim world approach that time of each year.  Where in the past I had dreaded the arrival of Ramadhan, I began instead to look forward to it, to seeing the connections that families and larger communities made with one another not just one day a year, but every day for a month.

The following year, because Huda’s gift had been so striking, I suggested to a group of other employees that we host an iftar meal for all the employees of the embassy and their families.  A group of 8 women, representing nearly as many countries and traditions – both Muslims and Christians – planned and cooked what we could agree on as a “traditional” iftar.  We began by serving dates, nuts, fruit juices and water, the light items full of energy that allow the fast to be broken slowly.  The meal continued with lentil soup, lamb, rice, vegetables, salads, stuffed vegetables, savory vegetable- and meat-filled pastries, and concluded with typical desserts, including ‘oum ‘ali, the richest bread pudding in the world.  And while we all wondered as we laid the table with food whether there would be enough, in the end we were able to serve all the employees and their family members.  We then brought food to the Ambassador and other American employees who were still working in the chancery, those who couldn’t get away from work at sundown to join us.  And there was still enough food for us to bring meals to the Marines on duty as well as to the Emirati police guards outside the Embassy. 

Through the experience of sharing a meal in a multi-national, interdenominational group, I began to see my surroundings – and all the people in them – with new eyes.  While most Christians understand much about Judaism since Christianity is a continuation of the Jewish tradition, we understand little about Islam.  Most Muslims understand much more about Christianity than most Christians understand about Islam for the same reason.  The three Abrahamic monotheistic religions are a continuous tradition.  We each understand a great deal about the tradition on which ours is based.

Huda’s gift continued.  As a result of the experience of sharing a meal, we began discussions that no longer just skimmed the surface of our cultural differences and the religious devotion we each felt to our own traditions.  The same group of 8 women who hosted the first iftar meal at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi continued meeting weekly and held discussions for the next year in a “Cultural Forum.”  We discussed not just our differences, but also explained to one another the basis for the differences.  Because we had shared in the preparation of an iftar meal, we were able to ask one another the questions we had all been too reticent to ask before.  

Through those discussions, many of the stereotypical opinions I had held about Islam faded away, replaced by explanations.  Through the experience of sharing a meal and the open discussions that followed, I came to admire the devotion and conviction of my Muslim colleagues and found myself seeking the same sense of community for myself.  It was seeking that community that brought me to Faith Lutheran Church.

It is my hope that, by sharing the story of what one generous Muslim woman’s decision to share a Ramadhan meal with me has meant to me, I may encourage others to consider opening a dialog by extending a greeting to a Muslim during this special month.  “Ramadhan kareem” is the typical greeting exchanged during the first few days of Ramadhan.  I encourage you to extend this greeting, “Ramadhan kareem,” during the next week if you see a Muslim woman working in Home Depot or Harris Teeter, places I more often see women wearing hijab to cover their heads than not.  Consider extending the greeting in the next week if you find yourself in line behind a Muslim family at Hechts or Target or Shoppers Food Warehouse, other places I often see Muslim families shopping.