by Lyna Bentahar

As the sun went down over the University of Maryland’s campus in mid-April, the Muslim prayer caller called the mu’azzin gathered students, faculty, staff and other university community members to worship in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union’s Colony Ballroom. 

The fasting Muslims broke their fast with dates before splitting off into lines to grab food at a long buffet table of beef and chicken kabob, rice, salad, hummus and pita bread.

The end of Ramadan at the beginning of April marked the first time since the pandemic that Muslim students at the University of Maryland could break the fast on campus, after the pandemic shut down most of the university’s facilities.

Yavuz Goktepe, a senior architecture major, was invited to the dinner by friends. He said that he very rarely joined events after moving to the United States from Turkey in 2018, but appreciated the sense of diversity that came from having iftar  — the meal Muslims eat to break their fast after sunset — with other Muslims on campus.

“I’m surprised to see many different people from different countries,” he said.

Goktep was particularly surprised with the number of iftar meals Stamp hosted this year. Stamp was able to host six iftars, including one iftar for graduate students, between April 4 and April 13 — the first half of Ramadan.

Rana Odeh, a freshman computer science student, celebrated Ramadan at the university for the first time and heard about Stamp’s iftar meals from a cousin. She said she was disappointed to find the meals only lasting until halfway through the month.

“I was surprised they ended it so quickly,” she said. “I thought they would push it out a little, spread it out more towards the end of the month.”

If they had spread the days out, she said, “I would have had more time to know about it. I didn’t even know about it before this.”

Every year, Ramadan is celebrated about a week earlier than the previous year because of the lunar calendar. That means that it will only become a bigger part of the spring semester for Muslim students.

Kazi Antara fasted with other Muslim people for the first time since the pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Antara had mainly been fasting at home. 

She prefers to fast with others, though, and keep herself occupied during Ramadan. Stamp’s iftar meals filled her with joy — she could finally break with the fast with others again.

“There are a lot of people now,” Antara said. “It is great to see people now, because I’m seeing [them] after a long time.”

Compared with her high school in Long Island, New York, which had very few Muslim students, Odeh said the ability to fast and break fast at the university made the month easier to get through.

“You don’t have to sit in the cafeteria and sit and watch everyone eat or anything,” Rana said. “There’s a lot of other people doing the same thing. So it feels easier to me.”

Featured image: Students eat their iftar meal in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union’s Colony Ballroom, Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Photo by Lyna Bentahar.