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.