Ramadan is the name of ninth month in the Muslim religion. It is a time of fasting, praying, and alms giving. They fast from sun up to sun down for the entire month. That is so crazy. Do you know how hard that would be? That is insano. The Muslims also give a lot more money and food to the poor at this time. The refrain from gossip and other evils to purify themselves and become closer to Allah. At the end of the month of Ramadan, they have a FEAST! That’s the part that we did, although we feasted months and months early. You have to modify things for JC life though.
Dr. Adnan Musallam, our professor for our Palestinian/Islam class, taught us about Ramadan and introduced us to the two sheiks that he had come and pray for us. The sheiks are like the religious leaders. The two that came in were father and son and their names were Nagi and Feras I think. Their positions at Al-Aqsa Mosque have been passed down in their family for 530 years. They are the type of people that do call to preayer.
Five times a day, there is call to prayer. I love listening to it. And when I first got to Jerusalem, I loved it waking me up at 5 am every morning. Love it. They sing surahs (sections of the Quran, the Muslim holy book) and it’s really amazing what they can do. They don’t breathe for sooooo long too. They just sing/speak the surah.
After learning about it, the feast began. Our kitchen staff at the JC is so good. Jimmy and Mohammed, they’re all so good to us.
Marianne, Kara, and I sat together at a table, and guess who else… KEN! We had so much fun at our little table. And we created some sort of concoction for Ken to drink. He did it, painfully. What a trooper. But he did get a magnum bar out of the deal… :)
