Reaching for the warmth of Ramadhan far from home

Reaching for the warmth of Ramadhan far from home

By Sri Pudyastuti Baumeister

BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany (JP): Fasting in the month of Ramadhan,
a routine annual ritual for Muslims, can mean another experience
if you live in a non-Muslim society, such as Germany.

For the majority of Muslims in Indonesia, abstaining from food
and drinks, from dawn to sun set every day during the whole month
of Ramadhan, is not a real problem. At home, in the office, in
school or almost everywhere, almost everyone is doing the
religious service. There is a clear absence of serious
temptations to break your fast.

In Malaysia, snack vendors should temporarily close their
business during the day time. In Indonesia, some offices reduce
the working hours.

But in Germany, fasting or not fasting, you should work the
usual eight-hour routine. And this year's Ramadhan falls during
winter. It is somehow difficult to put up with your hunger in
such a cold weather. The smell of roasted sausages coming from
the hot dog vendor around a street corner is often irresistible.

Those are only the hardships. You should also see the more
interesting things of doing the holy month rituals, very far away
from home.

"In winter, the fasting period is shorter," laughed a 24-year-
old Malay woman, Asmareni Ismail, an electro-technology student
at the Braunschweig University of Technology.

In most tropical countries where the sun is up for at least 12
hours a day, the fasting time is from around 4 a.m. to around 6
p.m. In Germany, during the winter, the sun is only up for around
10 hours. So the Muslims here "enjoy" a late start to the fasting
that is at 6 a.m, and break it at sun set which is 4 p.m, which
in Indonesia means mid-afternoon.

The Muslim community in this German city apparently have
developed a deeper feeling of togetherness during Ramadhan.
Asmareni said she and her husband would invite four or five
friends to a fast-breaking dinner at their apartment in the
student dormitory. On the other hand, each of their friends would
take their turn to host the dinner too.

After dinner, they would go to the university's mosque nearby,
which is only a few minutes of walk from the dormitory, to
perform the Ramadhan's evening prayers or sholat tarawih. The
mosque also organizes other evening prayer congregations such as
Qiyamullail or late night prayer service and a more special
prayer service, Lailatul Qadr or the Night of Power.

Muslims here also crowd other places of worship such as
Turkish and Arabics Mosques, which welcome Muslims from other
national backgrounds to break the fast with them where they serve
traditional Turkish delicacies.

Unlike the Turkish community who has their own mosque, the
Arab community here rents the local Heidelberg sport hall the
whole Ramadhan as an open house for tarawih prayers.

Both the Turkish and Arab mosques invite the preachers from
Egypt to deliver the religious sermons during services. But the
tarawih prayers are conducted differently. The Turkish mosques
usually executes 21 rakaat service (an essential unit of a prayer
service, consisting of bows and prostrations performed a
prescribed number of times), while the Arab mosques only does
nine.

The Al-Iman mosque, owned by the Arab community, is quite
popular among Indonesian Muslims. Lectures given in Arabic and
are translated into English and German. "Many of the students in
Gottingen study in English, not in German," said 32-year-old
Waode Hamsinah Bolu, who is studying forestry at the University
of Georg August, Gottingen.

At the mosque, different community groups, including those
from Egypt, Germany or Indonesia, take turns in arranging the
breaking the fast dinners. When it is the Indonesians' turn to
host the dinner they prepare their traditional servings such as
spicy saffron rice or nasi uduk, vegetable salads mixed with a
thick, creamy, peanut sauce called gado-gado, the lodeh soup or
vegetables in coconut milk, corn fritters (perkedel), crispy
crackers (kerupuk), and the most important side dish, hot, ground
chili pepper (sambal).

"Unlike in Indonesia, we do not break the fast with filling
drinks and snacks like cendol (rice-flour droplets in cold
coconut milk) or kolak (sweet compote made of starchy fruits like
cassava and bananas), but with dates," said Waode Hamsinah Bolu.

While the Arabs eat only one or two dates, and only have
dinner after they had performed the sunset prayers. "Back home,
after eating the kolak, sometimes we would be so full and delay
the prayer," laughed the mother of a child.

"But breaking the fast get together also means forging a
better relationship among Muslims," said Waode. That is why when
such a gathering takes place, most people come with their
families.

In Bonn, Koranic studies are intensified during Ramadhan. The
classes run throughout the afternoon until the fast-breaking
time. The topics include Koranic reading and interpretation of
the phrases in holy book and the hadith (the prophet's deeds and
sayings).

The Muslims take turns to host the study sessions. "Every
Muslim is welcome to join us," said Wati, who is accompanying her
husband Arif Sabdo Yuwono, a professor at the Bogor Institute of
Agriculture now studying at Bonn University.