Photo by Ali Meizels ‘23
This year, Ramadan will take place entirely during the school year. The holiday begins on April 1.
By Katie Goss ’23
Business Manager & News Editor
The full length of Ramadan will be celebrated during the academic school year this spring for the first time in many years. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and use this time to focus on and explore themselves both within and outside their religion for 30 days.
“[Ramadan] is the practice of abstaining from food and drink, but it’s also the practice of concentrating on your spiritual being, on your relationship with the creator and on your journey as a Muslim,” Liza Lozovaya, Chaplain to the College and Advisor to the Muslim Community, said.
“Muslims follow the Lunar calendar, so that’s why Ramadan does not have a fixed date. It’s moving every year,” Lozovaya said. This year, Ramadan will begin on April 2 and end on May 1.
According to Lozovaya, during Ramadan, Muslims will not engage in activities that are disrespectful or that may cause anger. They will focus on activities that are related to additional worship, prayer and charity. Additionally, Muslim students’ classes and extracurricular activities may be affected. These students may decide not to engage in activities that involve food, may decide not to go to some events or activities in order to break their fast on time and may take time when they are in their classes to perform their prayers.
“It’s a learning experience for campus on the whole because we know that being solely immersed in your spiritual activity … is quite demanding, physically and spiritually,” Lozovaya said. “It really requires a lot of understanding from those around you.”
Lozovaya also noted that, as students are fasting for a period of time everyday for 30 days, the community should practice awareness and understanding of these students’ circumstances.
“Students who don’t celebrate [Ramadan] should be more patient with their Muslim counterparts because of how tiresome fasting can get, especially since we are all in different stages in our path of faith,” Mariama Diallo ’25 said.
With this year being the first time in a few decades that Ramadan will be celebrated on campus in its entirety, students may experience differences to what they do when at home.
“To many students, it will be [a] time they will definitely miss their families and friends because it’s very important, that social aspect of Ramdan, where you are not alone or isolated, but you are in the community,” Lozovaya said.
Diallo expressed that, although she will be away from home for the first time during this holiday, she feels that this year she can connect to God on her own.
“This is one of the first times I feel like I am experiencing true adulthood because I have to hold myself accountable for everything and not rely on someone in my family to hold me down in some way,” Diallo said. “This year I feel like I can connect to God in my own way; in the sense that since I was born into Islam and a Muslim family, I always felt like this part of my identity was forced on to me rather than me choosing it for myself. But this year I am walking into Ramadan with the idea that Islam and Muslim womanhood [were] not given to me in vain but to be my backbone.”
The Ramadan Committee at the College has been working with Dining Services in order to support students before and after their fasting time, as well as provide certain foods that will help nourish students throughout the month. A special refrigerator and to-go containers will be set up in the dining hall during this time in order to aid students celebrating Ramadan. Additionally, the dining hours for this section will be extended slightly in order to allow students to get their food on time, according to Lozovaya.
“The selection of food is very important,” Lozovaya said. “Dining [Services] has helped the Muslim community for quite a while because there were some parts of Ramadan that did happen during the official academic year [in the past].”
There are spaces on campus that will be designated for Muslim students to gather together to pray or break their fast. Lozovaya emphasized that “everything is for Muslim students to feel that [Ramadan] is a significant [and] fulfilling experience while they are away from home and in their last month of the school year.”