USA-INDIANA: CROWN POINT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS EXPERIENCE THE 'MOSLEM CULTURE'

Traditional Muslim feast
CROWN POINT: Students share Ramadan with classmates
BY ROYAL M. HOPPER III
Times Correspondent

For Crown Point teenagers Marwa Nour and Mohammad Mirza, Wednesday night's Ramadan dinner was a typical and traditional affair.

They wore traditional garb and said their prayers in the traditional manner.

When they broke their Ramadan fast at 6 p.m., they dined on pita, humus and falafels in their high school cafeteria along with Dionicia Caudill and Andrea David."

It tastes a lot like the Mexican rice my grandmother makes for family gatherings," Caudill, a freshman at the school, said as she ate a dish of spiced meat and rice at the same table as Nour.

Ramadan is a monthlong Muslim holiday that requires the faithful to refrain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. It is a time of reflection and reinforcement of family and cultural values, said Nour, a freshman at the school. It teaches self-control."

You also have to stop cursing and swearing and doing bad things," she said, explaining the holiday to friends at Wednesday's Ramadan supper sponsored by Crown Point High School's Muslim Student Association.

The association, headed by Crown Point native and high school senior Maryam Khalid, organized Wednesday's breaking of the Ramadan fast to help foster an understanding of the holiday and Muslim cultures.

Knowledge is often the best weapon against intolerance of diversity, and people are less like to resent what they understand, Khalid said.

Non-Muslim students like Caudill, who is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, and freshmen Helen Webb and Andrea David volunteered to fast for one day to get a taste of Ramadan.

They all agreed the hardest part was not drinking anything for 12 hours. The holiday traditionally begins with the appearance of a crescent moon that signals the start of the Ramadan month, which is usually about Sept. 24, on the Muslim calendar and ends a month later with the holiday of Eid, which features feasting and gift giving.

Mirza, also a freshman, first came to Crown Point in sixth grade.

His day started at 5 a.m. with a Ramadan family breakfast of green beans and potatoes and a type of unleavened bread called roti.

Like all Muslims, he did not eat or drink again until 6 p.m. Wednesday. Ramadan breakfast is usually heavy, more like a dinner to get the diner through the day, he said.

Families spend a lot of time together during Ramadan eating breakfast together and having parties in the evening after the day's fast has been broken.

Muslims pray five times a day and Wednesday's event ended with a formal prayer involving more than two dozen Muslim students. The prayer, conducted in Arabic, was rewarded with a round of applause from the non-Muslim students in attendance.

"I figured I might as well do it and learn something," Webb said as she sat at the Ramadan table.

Ramadan ends Monday.


Da'wa continues upon the unsuspecting and completely oblivious infidels...My question is valid for these high school students, DO THE MOSLEM STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN YOUR CHRISTIAN OR JEWISH TRADITIONS/OBSERVANCES WHEN YOU CELEBRATE ?!?!

Pertinent Links:

1) Traditional Muslim feast