As the holy month of Ramadan comes to an end, many American Muslims are approaching the holiday with grief rather than joy.
Eid Al-Fitr, the celebratory feast at the end of Ramadan, is typically a time for families to come together in joy. This year, with the war in Gaza continuing, the holy month has been different for the metro Detroit faithful.
“With the events that are happening… the genocide that’s happening in Gaza, it brings a different feeling to many Muslim Americans, Arab Americans here in the United States in the sense that we’re hopeful and we were waiting for Ramadan to bring us a little bit of comfort from a holiness point of view,” said Ahmad Hassan, co-owner of Nice Price in Southwest Detroit.
The retail store sells home goods and, at this time of year, Ramadan and Eid decorations. This year, Hassan said, people are leaning inward and keeping things simple: looking for spiritual items like Qurans and prayer rugs rather than the usual lights and signs.
In Gaza, more than 31,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces following the October 7 attack in which Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took 200 hostages. The attack killed hundreds of civilians and resulted in immediate airstrikes on Gaza, destroying entire neighborhoods and infrastructure for medical care and food distribution in the 140-square-mile swath of land that has 2.3 million people between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, the war has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.
Hasan is one of eight siblings. His father immigrated from Palestine to Zarqa, Jordan in the 1950s following the 1948 war. Hasan was raised in Jordan until his family moved to Metro Detroit in 1997.
That’s why simply breaking his fast this year has been exceptionally hard, he said.
“Our first dinner on the first day of Ramadan (on March 11) was not an easy dinner. Having food on the table, trying to eat after fasting a long day, for the first time in the year, all you can think of is on the other side of the world, there are children that sit at that dinner table every night, but have nothing on it. So that’s really what goes through (our) minds right now,” Hasan said.
The United Nations says Palestinians do not have enough food or water leading them to the brink of famine. Some Muslims in Gaza are breaking their fast with animal fodder, grass, and boiling sea water to survive. Others are not able to break their fast at all, the UN reports.
Gratefulness, guilt
Raisa Faatimah is a law student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She, too, said she feels saddened over the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
“I feel immensely grateful and also a tremendous amount of guilt as I’m breaking my fast because no matter how challenging my day is, it’s not even comparable to what the people in Gaza are experiencing now. It’s very different when your hunger is intentional versus when it’s forced upon you by something like war and occupation,” Faatimah says.
She says this year’s gatherings have a different feel. She’s fasting with a smaller Muslim community this year. Usually, she’s at home with her family having iftar, the meal at sundown that breaks the fast, together and going to the mosque for prayers.
“A lot of times there’s a hint of celebration to Ramadan, and having Iftar parties and, you know, coming together as a community to enjoy,” she said. “A lot of the communal spaces this year are bonded in grief and not celebration.”
This year Faatimah has asked her non-Muslim peers to support her Ramadan experience by participating in a solidarity fast for Gaza on campus, cosponsored by several student organizations.
Faatimah says she hopes things get better after Ramadan, but things aren’t looking up now.
Like Faatimah, Detoiter Janae Wilson is looking for intentional ways to connect with the community.
Wilson says she feels a shift in how the Muslim community – about 300,000 people strong in Michigan – are observing Ramadan. She says more people are attending spiritual gatherings.
Wilson said she is also spending more time at the mosque.
“I used to be out late, but I was out late going to festivals or going to coffee shops. Now this year, I’m only going to the masjid or like a sister’s house for us to all connect,” Wilson said.
This year even the Ramadan Suhoor Festival, which attracts thousands of people in Dearborn, has been canceled. It’s one of the largest Ramadan gatherings in Michigan.
Wilson, who works for ProsperUs Detroit, is a convert to Islam. One of the reasons she says she was drawn to Islam was through watching how people overcome challenges with their faith. She says right now people are attempting to heal and bond with each other, especially due to the increase of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric and discrimination in the U.S. following the siege of Gaza.
“If we have broken bonds, (we must be) apologizing to each other, forgiving each other,” Wilson said. “See that this world is so short and how much can we get back in this world is so limited.”
Editor’s Note: Eid-al Fitr will most likely fall on Wednesday, April 10 depending on the moon sighting. The Islamic calendar is based on lunar months.