Around 4:15 a.m. Friday, Rokiya Elhak, president of the Muslim Student Association, awoke to a call from the organization’s vice president, Yunus Stevens, reminding her to eat before the sun rises. The act, while seemingly small, represents a connection between Muslim students away from home at Emerson to the larger Muslim community worldwide as Ramadan commences.

Emerson’s MSA collaborated with Bon Appétit to create a suhoor meal program, so students who are fasting during the holy month of Ramadan can request pre-dawn meals for the week and pick them up the night before every fast.

“Ramadan is my favorite month of the year,” said Elhak, who is a sophomore visual media arts major. “This is the month where I can really understand what being a Muslim means to me.”

Ramadan, occurring from Feb. 28 to March 29, is the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. Muslims practice fasting, forgoing food and water from sunrise to sunset as an opportunity for self-reflection and spiritual improvement. Typically, Muslims eat suhoor, a meal before dawn, and break their fast after the sun sets with iftar.

“It makes you aware of the blessings in your own life, because there’s a privilege in making the choice to fast,” Stevens, a junior interdisciplinary studies major, said. “In feeling that hunger, you get a sense of humility and a sense of gratitude. It’s a really beautiful experience.”

On the evening of March 30, Muslims around the world will break their fasts for the final time with Eid al-fitr, a large celebration involving prayer, food, and community gatherings.

Ramadan typically involves social events throughout the month as well, as Muslims share suhoor and iftar and meet to pray. Stevens particularly enjoys Eid, which MSA has built its own tradition around.

“In the past what we’ve done is we all go to the mosque and then go to brunch together because it’s the first time in a month you’re able to have brunch,” he said. 

Stevens’ personal experience with Ramadan differs from other Muslim students. 

“I’m a revert, my family is not Muslim,” he said, “so I would say I have the rare experience that at college I have more of a Muslim community.”

However, for other students, being away from home and a larger Muslim community alters how they are observing this month.

“Coming to Emerson was kind of hard, and I felt very disconnected from the community,” Elhak said.

Noor Al-Sonbaty, a first-year visual media arts major from Egypt, described the grand celebrations she would have during Ramadan with her family.

“Ramadan in Egypt really is something else,” Al-Sonbaty said, describing a big feast with family and friends as lanterns light up the streets and music plays from the windows. 

“Every night, there’s always a family hosting big events with lots of food,” Elhak said. “So I grew up with that … I get to see all my friends every night and we get to break our fast together. It’s just so fun.” 

Elhak said she is grateful that spring break is approaching and she can return home, as it will give her a chance to observe Ramadan with her friends and family. 

“At home, we always have huge dinners or iftars,” she said. “I [get] at least a week of what I’m used to.”

In past years, the dining hall offered a halal food station and held community iftars in 172 Tremont. Halal, an Arabic word translating to “lawful or permitted” in English, refers to food that follows Islamic dietary laws and regulations and to meat that has been slaughtered in a specific way. While Stevens said he appreciated the steps taken from Emerson to support Muslim students, there are still areas for improvement. 

“It does feel like it’s been initiated by us, and it [feels] like we as students have really had to advocate for these resources,” Stevens said. 

He pointed to an email sent from the Office of Intercultural Student Affairs on March 1, the day after Ramadan had already started, regarding the to-go meals.

“It would have been nice if the whole school was informed of these resources from the beginning of [Ramadan,]” Stevens said. “Especially because communicating with other Muslim students about these things is kind of difficult.”

Additionally, Stevens said that he would like to see more year-round accommodations from the dining hall, such as regularly providing halal meal options and using halal chicken in dishes. 

“It tends to limit the options for Muslim students who observe the halal dietary restrictions,” Stevens said.

Restraints also exist for Muslim students who live off campus, Elhak added.

“They can’t even go to the dining hall to have the [to-go meals], so then we have to spend money from our budget, which is already low,” said Elhak.

Al-Sonbaty said she thinks the suhoor meal program is a positive shift towards schools offering support for Muslim students. She said that when her dad was studying engineering in school, “he used to break his fast in the lab on a cheap sandwich.”

“It’s so nice to see that universities are making accommodations for that,” Al-Sonbaty said.