Ramadan falls on the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. During this holy month, Muslims honor the revelation of the Qur’an by fasting during the daylight hours, gathering for prayers, and sharing meals as a community. This year, for the most part, COVID-19 has put a halt on these spiritual communal gatherings.
“So, Eid is a big celebration right after Ramadan ends where everyone gets together, but I don’t think that will happen, where we have at least 1,000 people in the mosque.” Says Saba Nafees, a doctoral candidate at Texas Tech. Nafees, along with many other Muslims, is coming to terms with the restrictions of large gatherings to observe the religious rituals of the holy month.
Nafees adds. “This must be really hard, especially for international students who are alone, I feel like it’s a little bit tougher since they don’t have family here and they would sort of look forward to the mosque. It’s our time breaking fast together with their friends or whatever, but that’s really hard.”
Moamen El-Massry is a doctoral candidate at Texas Tech and is originally from Egypt. He remembers the holy months he has experienced throughout his life, and how he never imagined a Ramadan like this. “So the communal part is very important to be honest and I guess for me for me who’s being very critical because I’m 29 so for all my years when I was in Egypt it has been doing always standardized every year we do the same things and the communal part the mosques in the mosque that was happening that’s something I guess taken for granted.”
Although the community aspect is missing during this Ramadan, El-Massry and Nafees feel that there is a lot to learn from during this holy month specifically.
Nafees added “I think it’s definitely made us all be more reflective, and we can all kind of try to revere things more and really be mindful of our time with each other. I think that’s something in general that people are feeling right now.”
