Detroit-area Ramadan festival is more than just about food
DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. — Shortly before midnight, a buzzing crowd stood patiently in a line that bent around the corner of a community center and stretched far back into the night.
After a countdown, the throng streamed into the fairway of food trucks and other vendors, then pressed forward to the cadence of a banging bass drum.
It was suhoor time.
The informal gala — in full swing after midnight, illuminated with lights and resplendent with the scents of Middle Eastern and other cuisine — has been staged every weekend during the Muslim holy month in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights. Ramadan ends at sunset Tuesday.
But the Ramadan Suhoor Festival has a purpose beyond the carnival atmosphere and buffet: It’s a chance to gather during the holy month in which worshippers fast daily from dawn through dusk.
Despite its religious underpinnings, and in accordance with Muslim faith, festival organizers also have made one thing clear: Non-Muslims are welcome.
And so they all have come — Muslims and nonMuslims, thousands at a time and collectively in the tens of thousands — to share suhoor, the early morning meal typically consumed before daily fasting resumes and meant to fuel the many hungry hours after sunrise when neither food nor water may pass a faithful Muslim’s lips. The ring of food trucks serve up more than just overflowing plates. For many, it’s a welcome departure from the standard pre-dawn Ramadan fare that typically includes spiced or seasoned bread with cheese or yogurt.
Here at the festival, visitors may instead indulge their appetites with plates of pancakes, halal (permitted under Islamic dietary laws) hot dogs, cheesesteaks, miniature doughnuts and shawarma, which consists of slivers of seasoned, spiced marinated meat.
The event itself reflects the area’s growing, diverse Muslim population, which goes back more than a century and whose population is estimated by experts to be approaching 300,000. As the community grows, so, too, does its willingness to practice and more share traditions — with food as the ultimate unifier.
“People are becoming more educated about it, and it’s a beautiful thing,” said Hassan Chami, a pharmacist who started the festival last year. “One of my goals here is to celebrate religious diversity.”
Other U.S. communities have large Muslim populations, including those in and around Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. They also have hosted festivals drawing thousands to mark the Eid al-Fitr, or the end of Ramadan.
The Detroit-area’s events aim to amp-up such efforts: They serve as homecomings for some Muslims who left the state and missed the atmosphere, and even attracted “a foodie from Houston” who had no connection but just wanted to experience it, Chami said.
Chami said he launched the festival after seeing food trucks and tents popping up in gas station and strip mall parking lots in recent years during Ramadan. He was impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit, but thought it would be good to “centralize it.”
But it had to be authentic.
Signs around the festival grounds offer guidance on fasting, prayers and good deeds, and men sitting in a tent recite verses from the Quran, or Islamic holy book, and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Their amplified recitations waft along with the aromas from Corn on the Corner, Tornado Potato, Smiley’s Halal, Rafic’s Felafel and other trucks.
The traditional and contemporary mix mirrors the Islamic community around Detroit. In the past 30 years, the area has gone from having about a dozen mosques to more than 90, reflecting immigration of Muslims from across the Mediterranean, Middle East and South Asia.