With 95% of the Jordanian population being Muslim, it is no surprise how interconnected the religious and the cultural aspect of society can be here. Islam and its laws greatly dictate the way society functions and the holy month of Ramadan was a perfect illustration of this. Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is when Muslims fast to fulfill the fourth pillar of Islam. Fasting consists of abstaining from eating, drinking, smoking or sexual relations from sunrise to sunset for the whole month.
There are many practical changes that occur during Ramadan, to accommodate this temporary alteration in the daily lives of the population which really illustrate what a community-wide experience it is. The end of daylight savings time was moved up this year to make the sunset an hour earlier just before Ramadan began. The school and work day are greatly shortened to allow people to be home in the afternoons to rest and to prepare the evening meal called iftar, or breakfast. Busses stop running about an hour before sundown as well and all restaurants and cafes are closed during the daylight hours. Even if you are not a Muslim or not fasting, there is no way to not notice and be affected by the changes it bring to everyone’s daily routine.
I observed subtle changes in the atmosphere of my community as well. As Ramadan began, some people were grumpy and tired during the day, as their bodies adjusted to the new routine, but this seemed to pass after the first week. At school, most teachers spent their free time reading the Koran and were much more diligent about praying at the prayer times and often prayed in groups. I am not sure if people cheat much during Ramadan, sneaking a glass of water or a little snack, but I got the sense that the people in my village were pretty strict in their observance—the woman at the post office would not even lick the stamps for my envelope because she was fasting. People get very anxious as sunset draws near each day just sitting and counting down the minutes until the prayer call comes from the Mosque, signaling the official time to eat.
Though I am not a Muslim, I chose to fast during Ramadan to embrace this community-wide experience. I am the only non-Muslim in my village, and the only non-Muslim many in my village have ever come into contact with, so the villagers did not really know what to expect from me during this time. When I told them that I was fasting too, the reactions were usually of surprise and delight. But this often led to the assumption that I was planning on or could be easily persuaded to fully convert, so many often went into long dialogues, in Arabic and broken English, about the beauty of Islam. I tried to just smile and explain that I enjoyed learning about their faith and experiencing Ramadan with them, but I am happy being a Christian and do not plan on converting. Some of the teachers at school took it further which led to some frustrating and uncomfortable situations. I know they were only saying these things out of their sincere concern for my well-being, but being told over and over again that you will be going to hell if you don’t convert and that Islam is better than Christianity starts to become difficult to just smile and not really respond to. I did try clarifying some of their misconceptions about Christianity, like we do not worship three gods and the Bible did not recently change (ie. the addition of the New Testament), but these discussions are hard to enter into when you are greatly outnumbered and considering it is illegal to try to convert Muslims in Jordan.
I did not find the fasting to be as difficult as I thought it might be, especially since everyone around me was doing the same. I usually felt more tired than hungry but was able to take frequent afternoon naps since school ended by 12:30 each day. Every evening I broke fast by having iftar with my landlord’s family who lives downstairs. I was told that many Peace Corps volunteers are overwhelmed during Ramadan with invitations for iftar from the people in their village, but I did not really experience this. Nevertheless, I still felt very welcomed at my landlord’s house and always went along with them to iftar or evening visits to the houses of extended family members. The evenings in the village were filled with visiting family and friends and eating many more small snacks of fruit, sweets, coffee and tea throughout the night.
Ramadan evenings in the cities, like Irbid or Amman, have the same sort of atmosphere of celebration and spending time with family and friends, but takes a more lively form. In the hour before sunset, the streets are crazy, jammed with traffic and people scurrying about but just before sunset everything dies down and a calmness blankets the city. Going to restaurants is a popular outing for the iftar meal or for evening entertainment. (I even got together with a few other Peace Corps volunteers for iftar at Pizza Hut one night.) Younger people like to spend the evenings out either hanging out in cafes or at restaurants where they sit around for hours listening to live music, playing cards and smoking arguilla. In the last week of Ramadan, shopping becomes a frequent evening activity as many buy new clothes for the post-Ramadan holiday.
The three day holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan is called Eid Al-Fitr. It is not dominated by the type of gift giving that Christmas brings in the US but usually children get new clothes, which they wear proudly as they go around from house to house in the neighborhood collecting sweets and money from the adults. It was like Halloween without the costumes and the special American candy I bought to hand out to the kids who stopped by was a hit. The Eid holiday is spent doing lots of visiting, following an unwritten protocol of immediate family first then on to extended family and friends (but since everyone in my village is related, everyone ends up visiting everyone else.)
One of the things I liked most about Ramadan was the consistency and predictability it brought to a village life where I never know what is happening when. I knew when the buses would stop running, when people would be eating their meal and pretty much what would be going on in the afternoons and evenings as everyone seems to be in the same routine. Also, the meals during Ramadan still consisted of the one main dish but also tended to be served with salad and soup and dates—I loved the variety. It was a bit frustrating when only 3 of my students showed up to school the two days before the Eid holiday officially began, but it seems like taking a shopping day before Eid is normal and no teachers were expected to actually teach class anyways.
Now Ramadan has come to an end but the only big changes I have observed is the longer school day and the eating during the day. Everything still tends to stop around sunset and the evening visits continue, probably because there is not much else to do here anyway. I am glad that Ramadan began so soon after I moved into my village as it really did serve as a way to join into the community. Participation in the fasting allowed me to introduce myself as someone who was similar to them that they could relate to before the conversation turned into a barrage of questions about all of my differences. I think I also scored big points by showing respect for their religion, which is such a dominant part of their lives.
Ramadan is just one way I have gotten to learn a lot about the real side of Islam—a very peaceful and loving religion. Though there are still many parts I do not understand or agree with, I know what a great difference there is between the Islam of the people here in my village and the religion that the extremist use to justify their terrorist actions. Much of our exposure to learning about Islam in the United States comes through these extremist whom we see on the news, but I hope that I am able to convey that the different side is the majority, not the exception.
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