Dear Editor,
As Ramadan, a month of fasting, begins next week (Feb. 18), I wanted to share a few reflections, a small window into how this month lives with me here, alongside work, family and community. I offer this as part of being in community together, and I look forward to learning about how other traditions are lived by colleagues.
For me, Ramadan is a month of reflection, endurance, abstaining and sacrificing. It unfolds alongside the ongoing work of parenting, mentoring, teaching, collaborating, giving and empowering.
I often find myself even more productive during Ramadan. I usually name a few projects I hope to complete before Eid, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. I keep going. Work helps pass the time, gives shape to the hours, and anchors the day.
Ramadan often unfolds quietly. Colleagues and friends offer accommodation. The rhythm of meetings and deadlines continues, but I move through it differently, more mindful of time, more aware of what always sustains us beyond food and drink — relationships, empathy and care of everyone. Workdays are very easy. Weekends are harder. Being home makes the fast more present, and the waiting stretches differently. I spend part of the day reminding the kids to eat, reminding them that I cannot join them yet, even when they forget.
Fasting is also about restraint in speech. It is a good practice beyond Ramadan to mind one's language. For fasters, that also means not just abstaining from food, but also playing nice, no swearing, no negative gossip, etc. Gentle driving too, patience with traffic and people and flow of things. A small deviation, and one risks cancelling the day and having to make up the fast after Ramadan is over.
To be clear, fasting means nothing passes the throat — no food, no water, not even a sip — from dawn to dusk. There are exemptions for those who are sick, pregnant, breastfeeding, traveling, or otherwise unable, reflecting the mercy built into the practice.
Each day begins before dawn. We wake up early to eat, pray and quietly prepare for the day ahead. There is something deeply intimate about those moments. The house is still. I target only specific light switches to avoid disturbing others. Sometimes I drink water or a smoothie and go right back to bed, and sometimes I enjoy dipping bread in olive oil and honey. I also love buttermilk. When we all wake up as a family, everyone eats quietly at the table for suhur, the pre-dawn meal, too early to exchange many words, moving gently so as not to wake the rest of the world.
When I wake up for suhur, my mother comes to mind sometimes. I think we all feel this connection when honoring traditions held by our parents. She used to wake up at least two hours before the rest of us to prepare suhur. Before going to bed, she had prepared the ingredients, including the dough for pita bread. In the early morning, she would shape it, stack it neatly on a plate, and pour olive oil and honey on top. By the time the rest of us arrived at the table, barely awake — a third of us having decided to skip suhur and of course regretting that in the morning — everything was ready. That rhythm, that sacrifice, that quiet generosity, that motherly love stays with all of us.
My kids are not yet of age to fast, but sometimes they insist on us waking them up for suhur, and then change their mind when morning actually arrives. My daughter, for example, will ask me in the evening, while fully awake and full of resolve, to wake her for the pre-dawn meal. That determination fades quickly when early-morning sleep takes over. One day, she was convinced I had not tried hard enough, so I considered recording myself waking her up, gently, persistently, faithfully, just in case the evidence was needed.
At dusk, the day slows in a different way. We gather for iftar, breaking the fast, with the kids and wait, sometimes by the minute, sometimes by the second, in front of a table filled with delicious food. Eating is only permitted after the adhan, the call to prayer. I break my fast simply, with a date and milk or water, pray, then come back for the feast. This year, that moment begins at 5:58 p.m., and we add a minute each day. Those few minutes matter. We have a handout on the fridge that tells us when to eat and when to stop eating.
When I was growing up, my father would ask one of us to go outside closer to dusk, to listen for the adhan from the minaret before iftar. We would stand quietly, waiting to hear it, and then rush back inside to announce the news: adhan called, adhan called! Things are different now. Many people simply program the adhan on their phones. The rhythm has changed, but the meaning remains.
I will miss holding tea in my hands during the day for the next 30 days. That small comfort matters more than one might think. And yet, I truly find real joy in seeing others eat and in feeding them. It brings me happiness. You can ask my kids. When I insistently offer something delicious and they refuse it, it drives me a little crazy. To me, the instinct is always, why not? I just wish it were after dusk for me.
Going to the grocery store while fasting is, admittedly, a bad idea. The eye eats. We always put more on the table than we can possibly consume.
Evenings after iftar, which sometimes take place at the mosque, bring the community together. The kids love it. My daughter has already declared that she wants to go to the mosque every day to play with her mosque friends. We tend to be flexible with bedtime during Ramadan. I love seeing her navigate diverse social frames, between neighborhood friends, school friends, mosque friends, and the friends who exist in all those spaces at once—what sociolinguistics calls multiplex ties, social relationships that span multiple domains or contexts. Ramadan this year will be easier. Kids can socialize in the evening, break fast with us, and still go to bed on time. That would not always be the case if dusk arrived at 8 or 9 p.m. When my daughter was a baby, Ramadan was in June.
And there is something else I have come to realize. By the time Ramadan reaches deep summer again, when breaking fast happens after 9 p.m., my kids will be grown adults. That thought stays with me. Ramadan measures time in a different way, not only by days and minutes, but by seasons of life.
The last 10 nights of Ramadan carry a particular weight. We pray a bit more during these nights. There is a quiet intensity to those final days, a sense of reaching toward something just beyond reach.
As Eid approaches, there is the ritual of preparation. We buy kids books and new clothes for the celebration. My daughter picks hers carefully — she already requested a dress from Morocco. My son is always happy with more dinosaurs and Pokemon. These small traditions mark the transition, the reward after a month of discipline and devotion.
Ramadan lives in these small, quiet, human details. I share these reflections simply to offer a glimpse into how this sacred month shapes the rhythm of our days—the early mornings, the long afternoons, the gathered evenings. Perhaps in these details, we find what connects us: the rituals that mark our time, the sacrifices we make for what we hold dear, and the ways we create meaning through the life we share with those we love and work with.
Living and working together,
Soudi
Abdesalam Soudi is a teaching associate professor of linguistics and Dean's Fellow for Experiential Learning in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences.