A mom reflects on this special time of year.
By: ASTRID VINJE
(SEATTLES CHILD) Beef sausages sizzle on the stovetop skillet as I slice apples and avocados for breakfast. It’s 5 a.m. and still pitch-black outside. But in a few moments, I’ll wake up my husband and kids to join me for our morning meal.
It’s a typical day for our family during Ramadan, a month where Muslims around the world observe a daily fast from sunrise to sunset. Although I am the only one in my interfaith family who is actually Muslim, my husband and kids join me in solidarity most mornings for sahur, the breakfast meal that kicks off the day’s fast. We sit together around the table, partaking in a tradition that Muslim families have practiced for centuries.
A special time of year
Ramadan has always been a special time of year for me. The ninth month of the lunar-based Islamic calendar, Ramadan signifies the month that the Quran, Islam’s sacred book, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims fast for the duration of the month, starting from the new moon at the beginning of Ramadan to the next new moon at the start of the month of Shawwal.
For Muslims, fasting involves abstaining from food and drink all day. Since the Islamic calendar is roughly eleven days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, Ramadan falls at a different time each year. For 2021, Ramadan lasts from sunset on April 12 to sunset on May 12.
As a child, I remember early mornings stumbling into the kitchen sleepy-eyed to eat breakfast with my family. Despite the hardship of fasting from dawn to dusk, I still enjoyed sharing this experience with them. My mom rarely made anything special for sahur. But the act of sitting together in those wee hours of the morning still felt special to me.
For iftar, the meal to break the fast, my mother would make sweet tea for us. Sometimes she would make kolak, an Indonesian dessert made of sweet potatoes and bananas stewed in coconut milk. Other times, she would make bubur kacang hijau, another Indonesian dessert of stewed mung beans in coconut milk, sweetened with brown sugar.
Before the month’s end, my family would donate money to a food bank as part of our zakat, the alms-giving obligation that all Muslims must do during Ramadan. Participating in the fast helped me empathize with those who experience hunger as their daily reality.
Discovering diversity in traditions
I didn’t grow up within a Muslim community. Instead, like my kids, I was raised in an interfaith family. We celebrated Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. But we also celebrated Ramadan and learned about Islam.
