Area Muslims Begin Ramadan --Holy Month of Self-Denial

Azma Khan carefully ladled dollops of thick batter into the hot oil sputtering in her frying pan. Soon, her highly seasoned ground beef triangles, called samosas, and her chive-laden dumplings, called pakoras, were sizzling.

Her daughter, 10-year-old Shahana, set the table and glanced at the retreating sun. “It’s almost time,” she said, as she inhaled the fragrance of the Pakistani delicacies.

As many Christians in the San Gabriel Valley observed the beginning of the Lenten season last week, the Khans, of Glendora, began Ramadan, a month when Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk, according to regulations set out in the Koran.

“All Muslims must fast, unless they have health excuses,” said Ahmad H. Sakr, managing director of the Islamic Education Center in Walnut and the author of several books about Islam.

“Keeping the fast of Ramadan is one of the pillars of Islam, along with pledging allegiance to the faith, praying five times a day, paying charity to the needy and making a pilgrimage to Mecca,” Sakr said.

For the fifth of the world’s population who follow the teachings of the 6th-Century prophet Muhammad, Ramadan is the holiest month of the year. This year, Ramadan started Feb. 22, when the crescent moon was first sighted in Mecca and the ninth month of the lunar calendar officially began.

Because the lunar calendar falls 12 to 14 days short of the solar calendar each year, the month of Ramadan always begins on a different date. During February, Muslims fast about 13 hours a day. When Ramadan occurs during the summer, they may have to fast up to 17 hours a day.

Along with shunning food and drink during sunlight hours, Muslims also give up sex, anger, worry, cursing, backbiting and gossip and perform special daily prayers during Ramadan. They must read all 114 chapters of the Koran during the month, usually going to a mosque to hear it read aloud in Arabic each night for 1 1/2 to two hours.

“During Ramadan, we feel how it is to be hungry and we can sympathize with people who go hungry every day. It encourages us to give,” said Saeed Urrehman Horani, secretary of the Islamic Center of the San Gabriel Valley in Rowland Heights.

Another purpose of Ramadan is to teach self-control, Sakr said. “Self-discipline, obedience, self-restraint are all learned during Ramadan. We cannot have a drop of water, not even a sip. It is unlawful, like committing a crime.”

Last week the Khan family watched for the sunset, using a sheet printed by their Walnut mosque that lists sunrise and sunset times for each day of Ramadan this year. At 5:49 p.m., Asad Khan, a senior partner in an international architectural firm, called his three youngest children to the table. His eldest son is a freshman living in the dorms at UC San Diego.

The family--Asad and Azma, along with Shahzad, 14, Shahana and Shad, 6--gathered around the table to “open” their fast, eating dates along with Azma’s pakoras and samosas , and drinking sips of zamzam, holy water from Mecca, and rooh afza, a sweet red syrup from Pakistan that is mixed with milk and ice cream.

They had not eaten since about 4 a.m., when they rose before dawn for a special Ramadan prayer, and had a breakfast of cereal, sandwiches and fruit with sweet Pakistani tea.

After a few bites, the whole family abandoned the table for their prayer rugs, laid out nearby to face in the direction of Mecca. With his sons behind him and his wife and daughter at the rear, Asad led the family in reciting a special Ramadan prayer, during which they knelt and prostrated themselves.

Azma is proud that her 6-year-old, Shad, has memorized the Muslim call to prayer and can recite it himself now. Eventually, like his older siblings, he will learn to recite the entire Koran from memory in Arabic.

Children from the time of puberty are required to fast during Ramadan. Shahana began fasting at age 6, when she refused to take her lunch to school during Ramadan, Azma said. This year, Shad is skipping between-meal snacks in preparation for fasting during a future Ramadan. He eats breakfast and lunch, however, and is allowed to sleep while the rest of the family gets up at 3:30 a.m. for prayer.

Azma worries about her oldest son, 18-year-old Ziad, fasting at the dormitory. She calls him during the early-morning meal and the late meal to make sure he is eating. “He gets food from the dorm at lunchtime and keeps it in his room to eat before dawn, after he prays,” she said.

Shahzad, a ninth-grader at Glendora High School, goes into the library to pray and study during lunchtime. “My friends understand what I’m doing because there’s a few other Muslims at school who do the same thing,” he said. “I’ve been fasting since I was 10, so it’s become pretty routine.”

Last year, a physical education teacher balked when Shahzad asked to be excused from strenuous exercise during Ramadan. “I talked to him and explained what I was doing and why, and he eventually understood and respected it,” Shahzad said.

Estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States vary widely, from 8 million to less than 2 million. The Princeton Religious Research Center, affiliated with the Gallup polling organization, estimates that 0.2% of U.S. residents practice Islam, or about 5 million of the country’s 248 million population. The Census Bureau does not keep statistics on religion.

In Southern California, with its high numbers of immigrants, there is a flourishing population of Muslims from the Middle East, China, Indonesia and other parts of the world. There are 82 mosques between Bakersfield and San Diego, said Asad Khan, who is president of the Walnut mosque.

Some of the Chinese-Islamic restaurants in San Gabriel will close for a few days during Ramadan, but most have many non-Muslim patrons and will keep normal hours.

For the Khans, life in Pakistan revolved around Ramadan, with business hours restricted so families could get home in time to eat their evening meal together. But in his adopted country, where he has lived 23 years, Asad Khan is often caught in traffic while the sun goes down. He keeps sugar cubes or candy in the car to break his fast.

Last week, after prayers were finished, the Khan family returned to their dinner table to eat Azma’s specially prepared dinner of chicken, rice, vegetables, ground meat and Pakistani bread, which is similar to pita bread. For dessert, there was baklava and other pastry.

In the evening, they go to the mosque to hear the Koran being read. They restrict television watching and other pastimes during Ramadan.

At the end of the month, they will observe Eid ul Fitr, a celebration that marks the first day after Ramadan. Wearing traditional costumes from their homelands, Muslims gather at the mosque in the morning for prayer, sermons and a feast to signal that the fasting of Ramadan is over until the next year.