Ramadan (or Ramazan, Ramzan, Ramadhan, Ramathan) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. During this month Muslims worldwide fast to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad according to Islamic belief. The word Ramadan comes from the Arabic and it means scorching heat or dryness.
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| Ramazan is all over the city, this special celebration cannot be missed. |
During Ramadan, Muslims all over the world shall refrain
from food, drink, and other physical needs during the daylight hours. It’s
special month, in which time is dedicated to purify the soul, refocus attention
on God, and practice self-sacrifice. Muslims should make peace with those who
have wronged us, strengthen ties with family and friends, throw away bad habits;
It is the moment they clean up their lives, thoughts, and feelings. The Arabic
word for "fasting" (sawm) literally means "to refrain" -
and it means not only refraining from food and drink, but from bad actions,
thoughts, and words.
Pray
Maybe you’ve heard before Muslims pray 5 times a day. It’s
true. But the fact that each time the time comes, each mosque announces and
calls for pray, by using loudspeakers (which is a must for every mosque), it’s
weird, at least for the first couple of days. And the voice says something in
Arabic, even the Turkish people cannot understand it, but they know it’s time
for pray. And I’m still confused, but they speak more than 5 times per day,
sometimes is just to remember them that in the next hour, they have to pray. So
there is no change you can forget about it. Also when the call starts, all the
music must be paused: TV, radio, or even live music. Everything has to stop and
it should be quiet so we can hear the call.
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| No photos in the mosque, but I am free to take as many pictures as I want outside of it :) |
Iftar
There is one particular moment they wait for all day long,
and there are a lot of jokes about it: IFTAR. It is the name of the fast
breaking dinner. So after a long day of fast, they all wait for the announcement
of Iftar, at a specific time (this year was around 20:15). They all prepare
traditional Turkish foods, and some traditional food that they eat only during
Ramadan, and wait for the announcement of Iftar, from the mosque.
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| I've got the Quran in my native language, Romanian. Thank you Kemal! |
It’s a special moment, which they like to share with friends
and family, most of the time in their own homes. It’s a magic moment that cannot
be missed even by foreigners, because after starting iftar, the world seem to
stop. The Mother Nature gratifies humans with the blessing of tranquility, and
an enormous feeling of quiet and serenity fills your soul. This experience was
amusing me at the beginning, because I was too ignorant to realize the
importance of the moment and I couldn’t understand where all the people are and
why is everything so still. Walking on the street at that time, made me aware
of the magic of it. And then I could hear the sound of life, the ringing of
tableware bumping into each other, forks hitting the plates, and water being poured
into glasses. They all disappeared into their homes, because it was time to
break the fast, it was Iftar time. And after a long day of work, with no food
and no water, it will start to look like a big moment for you too. I’m not here
to judge, I’m here to be amazed how religion and tradition can bring people
together and help them to stay in peace. This is the true magic of Iftar: in
the end, after the worst has passed, they still have the strength to be
together and share their time and happiness with the most loved ones.
Fasting during Ramadan
Depending on the city they live in, Muslims have different
perspective over this sacred month dedicated to Allah. As I said before,
Kayseri is part of the traditional Turkey, and here most of the people do fast,
even the youth. Don’t imagine that all of the supermarkets are closed during
the day, they are not extreme. Some of the restaurants are closed during the
entire month of Ramadan, but most of them are open, even during the day, when
they are supposed to fast. So nobody’s starving, just that it would be advisable
to eat out of their sight, and some of the restaurant only serve you, if you
want to seat inside, so nobody from the street can see you eating. It’s a proof
of respect to their ways and it’s better to keep this in mind.
Sahur
Suhūr (Arabic: سحور
suḥūr, lit. "of the dawn", "pre-dawn meal"; also spelled
suhoor, sahur, or sehri) is an Islamic term for the meal consumed early in the
morning by Muslims before staring the fast, before sunrise, during the Islamic
month of Ramadan.
This moment is for the ones that have no problem to wake up
early in the morning, because it should be before the first prayer of the day
(which is around 3:15 am). But you should too much about missing it, because
during Ramadan, there are some cafes open till 1 or 2 in the morning, and of
course there are also a lot of “houses of tea” open for the ones that prefer
not to sleep between the two meals of the day, Iftar and Sahur. The most
traditional places to drink Turkish tea (the most common thing to do in Turkey),
are not too fancy, and mostly full of men, because single women do not sit in
such places (that would be considered a strange event, being an unusual
occurrence). So women stay in the house or maybe go to the mall with their
friends, but that place closes at 10 pm, and men hang out with their men
friends, while drinking tons of Turkish tea… Cultural shock.
So… moving on, if you have no patience to wait till sahur,
of course you can go to sleep. Let’s be honest… after filling up your stomach
at iftar time, there are not too many things that you want to do. At about 2 30
– 3 00 am, there is a good man, with a drum, walking on the streets, and making
as much noise as he can, beating the drum, to make sure you get up for sahur.
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. Good, now that there are all up,
let’s eat breakfast, or lunch, I’m not sure about this one. Some describe it as
breakfast, eating what we all eat in the morning, and others eat lentils soup
and some other kind of heavy Turkish foods. It’s all up to your cravings.
After eating for the second time in the same night (making
our stomach to love us even more), we can go to bed, to replenish the energy
sources for a new day of fasting and work. Overall... it's hard. I’ve tried it for a couple of days,
and I can say it’s not easy. At all!
This was my short story about Ramadan! I hope you didn’t get
too bored J
Conclusion:
Ramadan is a time to practice self-restraint; a time to
cleanse the body and soul from impurities and re-focus one's self on the
worship of God.
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| Discovering the world of Islam. We are very thankful for the books gifted by our Turkish friends |
Some common saying around here:
In šāʾ Allāh often romanized as Insha'Allah, Inshallah, or Inch'Allah, is Arabic for "God willing" or "if
Allah wills".
-Iulia
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