Prayers, feasts and piety - it’s Ramadan in India (Special)

From dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is a time for nurturing piety. Mosques fill with worshippers, hotels are closed during the day. The muezzin’s call of ‘adhan’ and sounds of sirens are the signals for starting and breaking fast.

Each year, when the sound of a particular siren is heard in the Jama Masjid area of Old Delhi, people begin the first fast of Ramadan. They go to the neighbourhood mosque as soon as they hear the adhan.

A child, holding his father’s fingers, comes to the mosque. They have woken up four hours earlier than usual along with others. Although the child’s mother told him he was too young to fast, he did not listen.

Syed Affaf Qadri Nadvi, an Islamic cleric of Delhi, explains that Ramadan is the name of ninth month of the Islamic calendar. “It is the holy month because the Quran was revealed during Ramadan. Fasting is compulsory for Muslims in this month. It begins after the sighting of the crescent moon.”

And when the sun sets, it is time for iftar, the evening meal.

In Delhi, there are different environments in various dominantly Muslim areas like Jama Masjid, Okhla, Jamia Nagar and Seelampur.

Mohammad Anis Siddiqui, an 80-year-old retired teacher, says: “I’ve been listening to the voices of sirens in Delhi since 1955.” Sometimes, he says, the sirens were not enough to get people out of bed, so different techniques have to be employed.

“Sometimes announcements are made through mosques and at some places some people voluntarily walk to the homes in an area and announce ‘This is dawn, this is the time to eat sehar. At some places people sing ‘naat’ from the mosque’s loudspeaker to wake up people.”

India being a huge country, dawn arrives an hour earlier in the east. This is why the time of iftar and sehar in West Bengal and Assam is more than one hour earlier than in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“In the past, sewai (vermicelli), a special sweet prepared from wheat, was made by hand in Delhi and northern India. But now there is no handmade sewai or jaggery,” said Abdul Qayyum, a 70-year-old farmer from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.

Compared to life in the villages, people from cities go to sleep late at night. During Ramadan they stay up even later. So some take the Sehar meal late at night and then sleep later in the morning.

Traditional foods vary around the country. In some parts of northern India like Azamgarh, Allahabad, Lucknow and Kanpur, a liquid mixture of ground coconut, cashew nut and almond is very common.

In schools with Muslim majorities, schedules are changed. After the ‘fajr’ prayer before sunrise, Muslim neighbourhoods fall silent. As soon as the afternoon is over, shops open and traffic gets jammed. The iftar markets draw huge crowds.

Mohammad Sajid, a student of philosophy at Jamia Millia Islamia here, says: “It seems Ramadan is a month of eating and drinking. Earlier there weren’t so many food items, nor as many iftar as today.”

In Tamil Nadu and parts of Kerala, mosques invite people to come for iftar and neighbours may donate unique cooked items.

Abdul Jaleel, a political activist from Kerala, said people considered it an honour to be allowed to volunteer to arrange the iftar in their local mosque.

(8.09.2010-Abu Zafar Adil Azmi can be contacted at abuzafar@journalist.com)