Claremont Colleges celebrate Ramadan in campus dining halls

As a sophomore at Pomona Faculty, Aysha Gsibat remembers speeding to get into the eating corridor to seize meals to interrupt her quick in the course of the holy month of Ramadan, which entails abstaining from meals and water from dawn till sundown.

She learn prayers whereas ready for the solar to go down. Alone in her dorm room, Gsibat had iftar, the sundown meal often eaten with family and friends, as a celebration of 1.

Freshman Ismail Kavuran hasn’t seen his household in Turkey in eight months, and will probably be one other eight earlier than he sees them once more. As a world pupil at Harvey Mudd Faculty, the 18-year-old fearful he would spend Ramadan consuming by himself.

Dualeh Dualeh, 19, attended a boarding college earlier than coming to Pomona Faculty. And not using a microwave in his dorm, he would decide up packing containers of meals to eat within the night for iftar and morning for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal. He anticipated he must do the identical as a university pupil.

However this 12 months is completely different for all three. On a current Thursday, the scholars and different Muslims celebrating Ramadan on the Claremont Schools have come collectively nearly each weeknight for iftar, breaking their fasts in group.

Ramadan began in late March and ends this week, marking the holy month for Muslims, who consider the primary verses of the Quran have been revealed throughout this era to the prophet Muhammad greater than 1,400 years in the past. It represents the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and the dates fluctuate every year. Ramadan this 12 months has fallen totally into the educational 12 months for a lot of college students.

On the Claremont Schools, Muslim college students hail from completely different backgrounds and areas — Indonesia, Syria, Turkey, the Palestinian territories, Somalia. Shia and Sunni Muslims, teams which have traditionally had a tense relationship, have spent the holy month sharing meals and prayers in campus eating halls, these masking their heads with hijabs alongside these with out.

Different schools in recent times have additionally expanded their companies to accommodate Muslim college students. UC Berkeley introduced in January that it’ll present expanded eating choices for college kids fasting throughout Ramadan, together with carry-out meals. At UCLA, the Muslim Scholar Assn., which was based in 1964, has been organizing iftar prayers and dinners and fundraising to cowl the prices since early March. Final 12 months, USC started providing college students to-go meals for suhoor as a result of eating halls didn’t open earlier than daybreak.

The eating workers on the Claremont Schools has stepped as much as present genuine meals, laying out elaborate banquets for college kids throughout a attempting time when they’re learning for rigorous exams and fasting.

“Ramadan isn’t just about staying hungry and breaking your quick, but it surely’s additionally about being collectively together with your group,” Kavuran stated as he sat at a desk within the Harvey Mudd eating corridor on a current Thursday throughout iftar. “Earlier than coming to the USA, I used to be involved about how I used to be going to have a good time as a result of I [moved here] alone.”

However right here, he stated, “I can eat meals from my nation, I can have drinks from my nation, from my kitchen. And for those who take a look at the individuals, they’re identical to household. I can sit with anyone and so they’re simply embracing me like I’m certainly one of them.”

The Claremont Schools are a consortium of 5 undergraduate colleges and two graduate colleges: Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps; Claremont Graduate College and Keck Graduate Institute. This 12 months, the campus eating halls have expanded meal choices and hours to host iftar dinners each weekday at a unique undergraduate faculty eating corridor to serve the Muslim group.

Final 12 months, when college students have been again on campus amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many tried to place collectively iftar meals on their very own. However this 12 months, Shaila Andrabi, the coordinator of Muslim life, stated she spoke to every faculty’s eating companies staff to see if they might lengthen their hours to accommodate college students who’re fasting throughout Ramadan.

“That is the primary time that this has ever occurred, that every one the universities have acknowledged Ramadan, and they’re studying,” Andrabi stated. On the weekends, she orders catered meals and prepares fruit salads at her dwelling, with the assistance of scholars.

Shaila Andrabi, second from left, the coordinator of Muslim life, and Muslim college students from numerous Claremont Schools break their Ramadan quick with dates collectively at Harvey Mudd Faculty in Claremont.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

At USC, about 150 to 200 college students have proven as much as iftar meals put collectively by the MSA chapter this 12 months, in line with Varun Soni, dean of non secular life. Whereas the college offers some funding help, Soni stated the iftar meals, which occur on the College Non secular Heart, are pushed by college students, who set up and fundraise.

On a current Thursday night, the Hoch-Shanahan Eating Commons at Harvey Mudd was buzzing as college students arrived for dinner. In the primary eating corridor, college students have been queueing as much as seize Mexican meals ready by the workers. Because the hour grew nearer to 7 p.m., the standard closing time, and the solar started to fade, the corridor was nonetheless crowded, as workers started to put out plates, desserts and drinks for iftar.

Every eating corridor stays open previous the common closing time at some point per week throughout Ramadan. On this evening, it was Harvey Mudd’s flip.

Within the kitchen, as one cook dinner flipped dozens of quesadillas on a grill, cooks Michael Montoya and Ruben Vega moved effectively side-by-side over one other grill, roasting bell peppers and halal hen kebabs for the iftar feast.

“I positively really feel prefer it’s getting higher,” Montoya stated as he flipped enormous peppers on the grill. “We would like them to come back right here and really feel like they’ve every thing they want.”

After Andrabi spoke to them, the staff members at Harvey Mudd volunteered to host the primary campus iftar dinner, stated Miguel Ruvalcaba, the senior director for eating companies at Harvey Mudd.

At left, lead chef Michael Montoya and govt chef Ruben Vega put together halal hen kababs in shawarma seasoning to be served at iftar to Muslim college students. At proper, greens sizzle on the grill for meals for Muslim college students who come from numerous Claremont Schools to interrupt their Ramadan quick collectively on the campus.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

The eating workers researched the meal’s elements — dates, halal meat, spices and customary drinks and desserts. They went to shops that offered halal meals and requested restaurant house owners about what they used to make their meals, Ruvalcaba stated.

“We took it as a problem, like, ‘Let’s see what we are able to do with this,’” Ruvalcaba stated. “We’d not know the meals, we would not know every thing about it.”

However he wished to attempt.

Earlier than this 12 months, Ruvalcaba stated, his workers labored individually with a couple of of Harvey Mudd’s Muslim college students to supply them with iftar meals to take again to their dorms. However this 12 months, they’re feeding as many as 60 individuals every Thursday evening, which may lengthen eating corridor operations for one more hour.

As 7:15 p.m. hit — the time the solar set on this Thursday — different college students had largely left, whereas these observing Ramadan piled their plates with meals from an extravagant show. They ate grape leaf dolmas, samosas, Israeli and Balela Center Jap salads, grilled harissa hen — a primary for Ruvalcaba’s eating corridor — and beef kofta. They picked up bowls of tomato lentil and lamb stew. And crispy, candy baklava for dessert.

Kavuran, in a blue hoodie, exclaimed excitedly over the dolmas, which reminded him of dwelling. After he set down his plate, he ran again out to Ruvalcaba, who was portioning out soups, to inform him the jallab, a grape molasses-based drink with rose water, was identical to his iftar meal at dwelling.

“Thanks a lot,” he informed Ruvalcaba as they fist-bumped.

Miguel Ruvalcaba, director for eating companies, places the completion to a Center Jap pudding specifically ready for Muslim college students’ iftar meal.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

An off-the-cuff ballot by The Instances requested Muslim college students to rank the assorted eating halls on their iftar choices. Though college students from all the universities have been surveyed, the findings might have been influenced by the setting — Harvey Mudd.

As a result of the clear winner was … Harvey Mudd, which they are saying set a excessive bar from the outset. The workers reserved a room for the scholars to eat their meals in. After the eating corridor closed, that they had area to hope as nicely.

“In fact, Harvey Mudd Faculty,” stated Kavuran, the Harvey Mudd freshman. His good friend, Arsum Nadeem Chaudhary of Pomona Faculty, pretended to consider the query. “Are you severe?” Kavuran stated accusingly.

“I agree, I agree,” Chaudhary relented.

“Thanks very a lot,” Kavuran stated, glad.

“Harvey Mudd has been the clear winner,” Gsibat of Pomona Faculty stated. “From the meals, the service to the individuals, the personal room, like, they only excel — to the desserts. … You’ll be able to inform they put a lot work and analysis into attempting to emulate our conventional dwelling dishes. And so they do it amazingly.”

College students credit score Andrabi for a lot of the success in getting the colleges to have a good time iftar.

Andrabi stated she and her husband have been the primary Muslims within the Claremont Schools group once they arrived in 1988. Since then, she stated, the Muslim group has grown. Many college students got here to know her as “Shaila Auntie,” as she served in an unofficial capability as their confidante and advocate.

“This work was not a burden for me,” Andrabi stated, and college students welcomed the help. “I wasn’t a professor so I wasn’t grading them, and I wasn’t their mother or dad. I wasn’t judging them.”

The Claremont Schools already had Jewish, Catholic and Protestant chaplains on campus. Final January, the school named her the interim coordinator for Muslim life, a place that grew to become everlasting and allowed her to tackle an official function. She started gathering contact info for Muslim undergraduate and graduate college students and realized there have been many greater than she had initially thought.

Her checklist of emails grew to 200, with college students from at the least 20 completely different nations, she stated. When it got here to organizing iftar meals this 12 months, she was capable of get meals coated by the universities for college kids who didn’t have meal plans and wished to attend.

Andrabi stated she is pleased with the “stunning communal meals” they’ve delivered to the campus and breaking down the partitions throughout the Muslim group.

“This type of coming collectively could be very, very uncommon,” she stated. “I’m simply so excited.”