Putting Faith in Fast : Muslims Do Without to Enrich Selves Within

The Earth rotated the final degree, hiding the sun. The moment heralded iftar, the end of the day’s fast for about 800 Muslims gathered at the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove.

The soft glow of dusk illuminated an international melange of garb--traditional Middle Eastern, Pakistani and Indian, and modern American jeans and business dress. The men stood apart from the women, talking in groups or praying. The women and girls, heads draped with shawls or scarfs, greeted one another in the patio. Boys played ball and hung out by the elegant cars in the parking lot.

Almost no one had eaten since sunrise. At sunset, the women brought out small plates of dates and oranges, cups of juice. There was good-natured confusion as some lined up, some helped themselves and others passed plates about. Somehow, in the confusion, everyone was fed.

Welcome to Ramadan, Orange County style.

Around the world, nearly 970 million Muslims--including 3.2 million in the United States--are now observing Ramadan, the high holy month of Islam. The lunar month, which began April 17, marks the period in the year 611 when the prophet Mohammed is said to have received the revelations of the Koran, Islam’s holy scriptures, from the angel Gabriel.

More important, believers say, it is the time to earn blessings by observing one of the faith’s five pillars: the abstention from food, drink, tobacco and sex from dawn to sunset, about 13 1/2 hours, every day for a month. Muslims believe the accumulated blessings of a lifetime will be reckoned on Judgment Day, when the soul will be sent either to heaven or hell.

The other pillars are the belief in Allah and Mohammed as his messenger; in the five daily prayers; tithing 2% of one’s savings to charity, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca if one is financially and physically able.

“There’s a spiritual uplift during this period of time,” said Mohammed Abid Daud, 40, a convert to Islam who works at the Islamic Society’s Garden Grove headquarters. Fasting teaches self-restraint and gives him the strength to resist other temptations the rest of the year, he said. “Some think it’s a great sacrifice. I look forward to it.”

Siakna Mohammed, 23, an immigrant from India, said: “It’s fun and you feel good. God said, ‘Do it,’ and we do it.”

Islam, second only to Christianity in the number of adherents worldwide, is the fastest-growing religion in the United States because of immigration, high birthrates and conversion, according to Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. According to her figures, the number of Muslims will exceed Jews by the year 2015 to make Islam the second largest religion in the United States.

It is believed there are 300,000 Muslims in Southern California, said Dudley Woodberry, assistant professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

Experts on Islam have found that, in the United States, differences which have divided Muslim sects--in some cases contributing to wars, such as that between Iraq and Iran--tend to diminish in importance.

“Different types of Muslims tend to congregate much more than would be the case if they were the majority and had the luxury of emphasizing their differences,” Woodberry said.

In Orange County, an estimated 20,000 Muslims support four mosques and a burgeoning 150-student elementary school on the 2-acre Garden Grove site. A large number have immigrated from the Middle East, but others have come from 24 other countries, including Vietnam and Brazil. The 5-year-old private, accredited Orange Crescent School has grown so fast that a new, $2-million building will open in September, principal Quaiser Imam said.

Many Orange County Muslims are American converts, such as Daud, formerly David Smith, a Baptist from Indiana.

He said he renounced an unhappy life fueled by drugs and alcohol six years ago when he learned about Islam from a Muslim in Istanbul. He now wears Middle Eastern garb, sports a full beard and sandals and eats with his hands in the tradition of the prophets. As decreed by the faith, he says prayers five times a day in Arabic. He married a Muslim, another convert, whom he had never dated.

Another convert, Deirdre Biltaqi, 26, is a former Catholic nun who spent 18 years in a convent. She accepted Islam after meeting her future husband, a Muslim from Jordan. “We had so much in common,” she said. “Islam is logical, not like Catholicism.”

Yet another, Anita Bond, 25, who attended a Christian high school, said she had been seeking a “cleaner way of life.”

Islam provides that, and Ramadan, she said, is “the most spiritual, cleanest time of year.”

In Orange County, Muslim groups get together each night to break their daily fast with the traditional dates, prayer, some traditional spicy dishes, soft drinks (Islam forbids alcohol) and an extra, sixth Ramadan prayer, which includes reciting a portion of the Koran. By the end of Ramadan--either May 16 or May 17, depending on the sighting of the new moon--the entire Koran will have been read.

Prayers are led by the community’s most pious men, the iman , (in Iran, the ayatollah ). The hafiz (an Indian term for someone who has memorized the entire Koran) recites the Koran during Ramadan prayers. There are four hafiz in Orange County who have memorized the Koran, a book slightly longer than the New Testament.

Attending the Ramadan prayer, the tarawih, is not obligatory but is highly recommended. “There are so much high rewards, people don’t want to miss it,” principal Imam said.

“It’s especially good during Ramadan to read the Koran as much as you can,” said Rehana Wahab, 35, formerly Christian Newton, who married a Pakistani Muslim, an importer she met when they were both students at Illinois State University. They send their three children to Orange Crescent School. During the summers, the family attends Muslim camp.

During Ramadan, the Wahab family rises before dawn for a snack of water and juice, reads the Koran, then returns to bed.

‘Avoid Doing Bad Things’

“Also, we try our best to avoid doing bad things. We try not to look at things that are not good, such as indecently dressed women on television commercials,” said Wahab, who wore a long denim skirt and a white scarf folded over her head and tied with a ring under her neck to hide her appearance from men other than her husband.

“We try to control our tempers,” she added.

They often have guests for Ramadan evening feasts. “You get more blessings if you invite people over.”

“Fasting is an act of devotion,” explained Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the county Islamic society. “To learn self-control and discipline brings a person closer to God. We remember the very beautiful words of Jesus: ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ ”

Muslims believe in Moses and Jesus--as well as Mohammed--as prophets, and they support ecumenism, he said. Siddiqi is vice president of the Academy of Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies in Anaheim.

Only healthy Muslims are required to fast. Exceptions are made for women who are pregnant, nursing or menstruating, and for people who are traveling.

Mustafa Ghafour of Anaheim said that one year he was driving from Orange County to New York during Ramadan. He was permitted to postpone his prayers and fasting, but did not because “I enjoy fasting,” he said.

“I crossed the desert of Arizona and I was fasting. It was 120 degrees and there was no water.” To help himself, he turned on his air conditioner and put on a tape of the Koran. “I stopped in the shade and asked God to help me.” Ghafour said he made it across the country in six days.

Children are not required to fast until they reach puberty. But Imam was proud when several first-graders said they were trying to fast during Ramadan. “When you fast, you do lots more good things, you don’t hit your sister and brother,” said Fatima Wahab, 6.

“It’s good for me,” said Hassan Siddiqi, 10, a fifth-grader whose parents came from India. “Even though I don’t have to fast, I do it so I get more reward.” Like many others, he gets up at 4 a.m. to eat a little before sunrise.

Another fifth-grader, O’Sama Khouraki, whose parents came from Syria, hopes to start fasting regularly next year when he is 11 but is trying it for a few days this year. “I told my mother I have to get used to it, otherwise it’s too hard for me.”

Most students at the school are children of doctors, professors, businessmen or other professionals, Imam said. Children are instructed in academics by non-Muslims. They receive special training in Arabic, the language of the Koran, and the history of Islam by Muslim teachers in hopes of achieving the goals of Islamic education: to understand their relation to God and to realize they are accountable for all their actions.

While only 30 students speak Arabic at home, most can communicate in Arabic by the second grade, Imam said.

By the fifth grade, girls start wearing hijabs --shawls to cover their hair--and are separated from boys in class, as a means of protecting their modesty and ensuring respect between the sexes. Separating the sexes is not allowed in public California classrooms and is one of the most difficult Islamic concepts to put across to non-Muslim Americans, Imam said. In American schools, Muslim children may mix but not date, dress seductively or look at the opposite sex in a romantic way.

No one seems to mind.

“It keeps the girl out of trouble,” said Fatimah Ho, 22, a Vietnamese immigrant who lives in Anaheim and manages an office. “In our religion, this is a way to protect us. They (boys) don’t pay attention to you. I love it.”

Being surrounded by a different culture is “a challenge between me and Allah to see how faithful I am, how strong my iman (faith) is,” she said.

Many Orange County Muslims said they are unhappy about American stereotypes of them as hostage-taking terrorists.

“People think this is a normal thing Muslims do,” Siddiqi said. “They don’t represent one in 100,000.” There are also Jews and Christians who don’t abide by the rules of their faiths, he noted.

The word Islam, he observed, is derived from the word salam , meaning peace.