Around 7 p.m. Friday night, Muslim students removed their shoes as they poured into the space beneath the Morriss-Champlin lounge, home of the Brown Muslim Students' Association. At 7:12 p.m., the official time of sunset, the students munched on their first morsels of food since before dawn - cookies with some water - and then they headed to special mats in one corner of the room, knelt to the ground and faced Mecca.
They were attending a nightly iftar - or fast-breaking dinner - hosted by the BMSA and the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life during the month of Ramadan, which is considered holy by observers of the Muslim religion, who fast and reflect each day of the month. This year, the Islamic month of Ramadan began Monday Sept, 1, just as many Brown students were arriving on campus.
The iftars bring together up to 50 students every night for a meal - often catered by a Thayer restaurant - in the BMSA center, where many students eat and chat for at least an hour. This is only the third year Brown has sponsored nightly iftars, said Janet Cooper Nelson, chaplain of the University. That change was fueled by Rumee Ahmed, the University's first Muslim chaplain, who left last spring. He and his wife, Community Director Ayesha Chaudhry -"ferocious organizers," according to Cooper Nelson - worked to coordinate the meals, along with help from students.
But this year, with the absence of a Muslim chaplain, students are having to take on more responsibility. To try to fill the gap, the University has created two organizational work-study positions, which have been filled by Amie Darboe '10 and Shabneez Emambux '11, Cooper Nelson said.
The Universityis "optimistic" that they'll find a new Muslim chaplain soon, Cooper Nelson said, adding that the University has been "working like Trojans all summer" to find someone who meets Brown's high standards and will fit in with Brown's personality in a field that is still new and unconventional.
"Part of me just says, 'hire anybody,' " but that "would not be doing it the Brown way," she said. When summer ended and the University had not yet found a chaplain, "Ramadan arrangements began to be the highest priority," she said.
In the meantime, students and budgets have been stressed to pick up the slack. The holiday's timing has caused logistical problems for the organizers of activities and for recruiting new students to the community, but students say the hard work is worth being able to observe the holiday.
BMSA President Rashid Hussain '10 said it was hard to get the word out about the iftars early on. No student organization was allowed to advertise before last Thursday's Activities Fair, he said, and iftars have conflicted with unit meetings and dinners.
Cooper Nelson also pointed to her office's recent move from Faunce House to J. Walter Wilson as a cause of disorganization. "Normally at this point in the year, we'd be doing more to reach out," she said.
Both Darboe and Emambux, who organize the iftars, said they too have been experiencing logistical troubles. Darboe, who contacts vendors, decides on menus and sorts out funding issues, said that even though Brown Dining Services pays the Office of the Chaplain for Muslim students' unused meal credits, it has been tough to make ends meet financially.
Until she started working on the iftars herself, Darboe said, she didn't "know how much work" Ahmed and Chaudhry put in and said they "went out of their way" to do a great job. The students relied a lot on Ahmed in the past, Emambux said. "We need a new (chaplain) ASAP," Darboe said.
"I declare (Darboe and Emambux) magnificent. They declare themselves swamped," Cooper Nelson said. "With (Ramadan) coming right off the bat, it's just really been tough," she added, but iftars are "critical for every Muslim person at Brown who wishes to observe."
"If you were thinking, 'Gosh, how am I going to meet other Muslim friends?' this certainly answers that question," she said.
Emambux, who is from the African island of Mauritius, said she and Darboe "want the people arriving here to feel that even though they're far away from home, they have a place where they can gather and be," she said. As a first-year, she had time to attend the pre-orientation program for international students and get settled into campus life before Ramadan began. She said she felt "cocooned" by the BMSA and the Muslim chaplain because they "didn't want you to feel alone."
Returning students also seemed to appreciate reuniting with their friends from last year early on. "It's definitely a really fast way to get to know each other and get back into the jump of things," said Amrin Khander '11, secretary of the BMSA.
Overall, the timing of Ramadan seems to have had both positive and negative results.
"I think it is an advantage" for Ramadan to fall earlier in the year, said Atena Asiaii '08 MD'12, adding that "it's sort of like its own ice-breaker."
"It gets people together from the first day," she said.
Asiaii said she has noticed a lot of change over the five years she's observed Ramadan at Brown. Until Ahmed came, it was impossible to do nightly dinners because there just wasn't the support, she said.
But on the other hand, there have been problems getting first-years involved. "Little by little, we're starting to get them all in," Khander said. "It's just going a lot slower than usual."
"As a freshman, I was better prepared," she said. "Since the Activities Fair was before (Ramadan), I knew where to go and what to do."
Like this year, the next Ramadan will also have already begun by the time students arrive on campus. Osman Chaudhry '11, treasurer of the BMSA, said he's nervous about next year, but is confident that "things will get taken care of."
Meanwhile, staff are trying to remain upbeat. "As one student put it," Cooper Nelson said, "'at least it'll be shorter!'"
