The UTD Mercury

Media Credit: Albert Ramirez Muslim students pray after breaking a day's fast Sept. 15. Afterward, MSA served food to hundreds of Fastathon participants. Students signed up for Fastathon in the Student Union or online, and donors contributed a predetermined amount per participant to benefit Islamic Relief USA's orphan sponsorship drive.

The sun has just disappeared from the horizon, but outside Waterview Park's Phase IV clubhouse, it is still light. The two foosball tables have been pushed into one corner, and the pool table is laden with food: aluminum platters of biryani and samosas, watermelons and cans of Sprite.

Atif Sohel, a MBA student, closes his eyes, tilts his head upwards and begins to chant in lilting Arabic. Scattered behind him are 50-or-so people, mostly UTD students, all but one of them male, waiting for the end of the invocation to eat for the first time since sunrise.

This is Iftar, the meal that, for Muslims, ends each day's fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

"You eat something small at first," said Ayham Nahhas, president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), as samosas - small, triangular, beef-filled pastries - were passed around the room. "Usually you have dates to break the fast, but today we have these."

After the obligatory prayer toward Mecca, one of five prayers required of Muslims during the course of a day, everyone files by the table, piling paper plates high with food. Within minutes, everyone is eating and all but a few slices of watermelon have disappeared from the table.

For many gathered, this meal is a nightly affair. Each weeknight during the month of Ramadan, which lasts from Sept. 1 to the closing celebration of Eid al-Fitr - which is expected to fall on Oct. 1 depending on the lunar Islamic calendar - the MSA hosts a fast-ending dinner for UTD students.

"A lot of times we have Arabic food, sometimes we have pizza," Nahhas said. "Once we even had barbecue. It just depends on what people donate."

He estimates it costs around $400 for each night's food. Most of the food comes from donations from restaurants or members of the local Muslim community.

On Sept. 15, the MSA sponsored its annual Fastathon, part of a nationwide program to raise money and awareness about Islam, in which non-Muslims are encouraged to observe a day of fasting. Nearly 300 signed up for the event, one of the largest of its kind in North Texas, said Ahmed Abughazeleh, electrical engineering senior and MSA treasurer.

Money raised by the event will go to Islamic Relief USA, a religious charity, for their orphan sponsorship drive, Abughazelah said. The night's dinner was catered by Plano-based Falafel & More. The food was paid for by donations from local mosques and was prepared in part by MSA volunteers.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, but for Muslims it is much more significant than, say, September is in the Western calendar. According to tradition, it was during this period that the Qu'ran was divinely revealed to the prophet Mohammed.

Observance of the Ramadan fast is one of the five main tenets required of all followers of Islam, said Mohammed Hamid Haque, a graduate student in materials science. They must also profess belief in Allah, pray five times daily, tithe 2.5% of wealth, and, if possible, undertake the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ramadan is a time of atonement and reflection and a time to prove one's dedication to God, Haque said.

"There's no food, no water, no sex, no staring at girls. Everything you do, you do more than usual," he said. "If I tolerate you for five minutes normally, during Ramadan I have to tolerate you for more than that."

"It purifies you," he added. "It's like washing yourself out for a month."

Ramadan is typically celebrated with family, but for many students at school far from home, this is impossible, Nahhas, himself from Houston, said.

"Obviously, the experience is very different being away from home," said Marzia Murshed, a graduate student in electrical engineering originally from Bangladesh. She has been in the United States for less than a year, and this is her first Ramadan in America. "It's not easy, but when I come here I feel like I'm a part of a family."

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