A time for gratitude
For families in the Valley observing Ramadan during the pandemic, food is keeping the ‘spirit of giving’ alive
“We as kids didn’t like (fasting). We thought it was just starving ourselves and didn’t look forward to it. … Once you realize the beauty of it and you grow up and teach your kids about it, it’s different.”
Salmah Monsour Laveen area resident
On an unseasonably hot April afternoon in Mesa, late-lunch diners occupy fewer than a quarter of the tables in the tidy, crimson-walled dining room at Princess Mediterranean Restaurant & Market.
After perusing shelves crowded with deli containers of whole spices and yellow cans of fava beans, a lone shopper checks out at the cluttered front counter after filling her cart with a jumble of Middle Eastern groceries.
Owner Noor Alsadi greets her by name, smiling as he inquires whether she found everything all right.
Alsadi has been the driving force behind the family business for seven years, ever since his father, who opened the market in 2002, died. The past year has been the most difficult in the market’s nearly 20-year history, he says, though he tempers his lamentations. “It’s not bad, but it’s not what it used to be.”
As COVID-19 vaccinations continue to roll out in Arizona, more diners are coming back, Alsadi says.
But it’s hard to feel more than cautiously optimistic as he prepares to go into what would normally be one of the busiest, most culturally important and financially lucrative months of the year.
From April 12 or 13 to May 11, Muslims around the world are observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. During this time, it’s traditional to practice daily fasting from sunrise to sundown before celebrating iftar, which means “breaking of the fast.”
Princess Market usually serves a daily iftar buffet, providing community members, including foreign exchange students from nearby Arizona State
University and Mesa Community College, a place to find fellowship, if only for the duration of a meal.
“We’ve been doing the buffet every year since day one and it was the only way, at least in Arizona, that you could get the Ramadan spirit,” Alsadi says. “When you see everyone just sitting there and not eating, it’s not so bad.”
This year marks the second time in Princess Market’s history when diners won’t be able to celebrate iftar at the restaurant and market. Before the pandemic, it was an “intense” affair, Alsadi says, with the family and staff cooking from about noon until well into the early evening. Alsadi’s mother, Sana Shalabi, would cook dishes primarily from Pakistan, where the family emigrated from, but the dishes offered on the buffet changed daily. Shalabi would put out a suggestion jar, where customers could submit dishes they’d like to see on the buffet. If his mom knew how to cook it, she would, Alsadi says.
Then there were the desserts, which Shalabi made with help from her daughter, Deena.
“The buffet is the main draw, but the desserts are why people keep coming back,” Alsadi says. “I’ve got people that come 30 days in a row.”
The lineup would include atayef, a dessert made of pancakes filled with walnuts. The half-moon shaped sweets, traditionally made for special occasions, are baked or deep-fried and covered in fragrant simple syrup. Kanafa, a crumpled sweet cheese topped with shredded filo dough, is another popular offering.
All the desserts require experience and skill to make, Alsadi says.
“You’re either grandmother level or higher,” he jokes. “I wouldn’t even try to make them at home.”
This year, Shalabi is only making desserts to sell at the restaurant and market. There’s no buffet. Instead of partaking in a busy communal meal, Alsadi and his family will break fast together in his office in the back of the market before attending a socially distant evening prayer service at a nearby religious center.
The COVID-19 pandemic makes it difficult to celebrate Ramadan the way Alsadi would like to, he says. Like many Muslims in the Valley, he’ll be unable to break the daily fast with family and friends the way he normally would. But at the very least this year, there’s hope on the horizon that by the next holy month things could be back to normal.
He admits he would have loved to host the traditional iftar buffet, but says the risks to his staff and customers still outweigh any possible reward.
“It just wouldn’t sit right,” Alsadi says. “There’s always going to be another year.”
“It’s not only the food part. There are so many other things: taking care of others, making sure everybody has food. If anybody has need, make sure you are there to help.” Parveen Javed Mohammad
An administrator at the West Valley Islamic Center
How Muslims in metro Phoenix observe Ramadan
Muslims believe the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It’s a time to become closer to God, to focus especially on selfless deeds and prayer, says Mustafa Haji, chairman of the Somali Association of Arizona.
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Every year for 29 to 30 days from sunup and sundown, Muslims who have reached puberty are expected to abstain from food and drink, including water. There are exceptions for people in certain situations, such as pregnant women or ill people.
Muslims are also asked to abstain from gossiping, arguing and lying during Ramadan.
Obligations during Ramadan are a personal choice. Some choose not to fast or stop fasting before the end of the month. Others drink water, but don’t eat during the fast. Some make it a tradition to go to IHOP for their predawn meal. And others may choose to abstain from other activities besides eating and drinking, such as using social media.
The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation, but the Pew Research Center estimates Muslims make up 1% of Arizona’s adult population. The Muslim community is made up of longtime residents, multigeneration Arizonans and recent immigrants, including refugees from Syria, Iraq and Somalia.
During Ramadan, Muslims eat a predawn meal called suhoor. The sundown meal is called iftar. For many, iftar is a particularly festive time when family, friends and others in the community gather for feast and prayer.
Haji said he isn’t picky about what he eats for iftar. He came to the United States as a refugee more than 20 years ago during the still-ongoing Somali Civil War.
He likes soor iyo caano, a maize flour dish, and mandazi, a puffy fried bread. Waamo in east Phoenix is a popular restaurant for Ramadan observers, he said. But he prefers the simple salmon and rice his wife makes.
Eid al-Fitr celebrations mark the end of Ramadan, when people stop fasting and are encouraged to donate to charity. People also exchange sweets and gifts.
Salmah Monsour grew up with five siblings in Lodi, California, children of Palestinian immigrants from Jerusalem. Before moving to Arizona in 1996, they observed Ramadan quietly together as a family. They had modest means, so they didn’t go out to restaurants for iftar. Instead they sat down together for home-cooked meals, she remembers.
And if one of them wanted to sneak a bite in secrecy at school, well that was “between you and God,” she says.
“We as kids didn’t like it,” Monsour says. “We thought it was just starving ourselves and didn’t look forward to it. … Once you realize the beauty of it and you grow up and teach your kids about it, it’s different.”
How Ramadan gatherings changed during the pandemic
Now Monsour lives in the Laveen area of southwest Phoenix. She likes to hype her children up for Ramadan by cooking Palestinian sweets together, making paper lanterns and decorating the house with lights and ornaments. Before the pandemic, she, her husband and kids would go to their neighborhood mosque, the Islamic Center of Laveen, which hosted iftar every day of Ramadan for 200-300 people wishing each other “Ramadan Mubarak.”
There are certain aromas she associates with iftar: the smell of lentils, used in soups and samosas. Qatayef, semolina-flour pancake, folded and stuffed with nuts. Maqluba, a dish translated to “upside down” because the pot of rice is flipped before serving.
But because of COVID-19, Monsour stayed home last year. Instead of community gatherings, she helped give out containers of premade meals via drivethru. The mosque will continue the takeout method this year, she says.
Parveen Javed Mohammad, an administrator at the West Valley Islamic Center, says her mosque was completely closed last year during Ramadan. Normally every night of the holy month, a few families would sponsor iftar at the mosque and around 100-125 people would gather for prayer and an iftar buffet. Men and women would sit on rugs on the floor on separate sides.
Mohammad, who emigrated from Pakistan, lives in Verrado, a community in Buckeye. Last year during the pandemic was the first time in her life she can remember participating in iftar at home instead of the mosque.
Two of her four adult children moved back to Phoenix during the pandemic and she tried to cook something different every day for them: chicken pakora, curries, fish, served with biriyani. Just as she does at the mosque, they break fast with dates, which have nutrients and help bring the body’s sugar levels quickly back up.
Fasting allows them to “feel that hunger and learn to be patient with each other,” a reminder that there people in their community who go hungry every day.
“It’s not only the food part,” Mohammad says. “There are so many other things: taking care of others, making sure everybody has food. If anybody has need, make sure you are there to help.”
Her family typically sponsors other families every year during Ramadan, providing meals and supplies to people who are experiencing financial hardship. She believes the best way to teach children about Ramadan is by showing.
She remembers living in Chicago and driving an hour away from her house, when it was still snowing in spring, to take her children to the mosque.
“When a kid sees everything with their own eyes, that stays with them forever,” she says. “So they learned with me. Now in their homes, they bring that passion to their own kids.”
This year, the West Valley Islamic Center will be open with limited capacity for night time prayer service only. There will be no buffet like years past and people will still be expected to have iftar at home.
“All those beautiful holidays were passed staying alone at home, that becomes a little bit hard,” she says. “This is the best for everybody, to be safe than sorry... by end of the year, I believe and have all hope in my heart this will pass and everything will be normal again.”
‘The spirit of giving is so profound’
The prayer hall of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix sits inside a towering pink dome visible from Interstate 17. Glistening chandeliers hang over a large room carpeted with burgundy red velvet flooring.
A sign of the pandemic, lines of blue tape mark where people may pray while maintaining adequate social distance. In the lobby, a table holding a variety of hand sanitizers partially blocks a wall of cubbies where worshipers store their shoes before they enter.
Usama Shami, president of the mosque, says the pandemic has taken away many of the community aspects of practicing Islam.
For the second year in a row the ICCP community is forgoing the usual iftar celebration. Typically the mosque would be alive with activity during Ramadan, Shami says. Every night of the month, the mosque would host an iftar meal with local restaurants catering for 120-150 people.
“The whole point is you sit together, crack jokes, talk politics. The practice of Islam is about community, to gather, to be together,” Shami says. “There is an empty feeling not to gather.”
Still the community is continuing the tradition of lending a helping hand during the holy month. Service is an important part of Islam, especially during Ramadan, when making donations and volunteering are encouraged.
The community center facilitates a program during Ramadan through which each worshiper is encouraged to donate $15 to a fund that’s distributed to local community members who sign up for relief. Many people who live in the neighborhood around the mosque are recently resettled refugees, Shami says, and prior to the pandemic, the line to receive aid during Ramadan could wind around the block.
Last year, the mosque was completely closed for the first half of Ramadan. During the second half, it opened for prayer only, with bathrooms and water fountains closed and all social events, such as language classes and family nights, canceled. Donations dipped, along with attendance.
This year, as worshipers return to the mosque for prayers, Shami expects the fund to rebound.
The community center also hosts community food distribution events throughout the year, working with INCA Relief, a program of national nonprofit Islamic Circle of North America. Volunteers from the mosque help distribute thousands of pounds of food to anyone who needs them at the twice-monthly drive-thru events.
Andres Arreola is the food pantry coordinator for the Arizona chapter of INCA Relief. For each event Arreola loads his pantry truck at a cold storage site in Mesa where donations from the Muslim community, along with food from partnerships with Shamrock Foods and the USDA, are stored.
He then organizes volunteers to help distribute the food at sites around the Valley including at four mosques, multiple churches and other community sites.
When Arreola started with INCA in 2019, he operated six food distributions per month. Now he organizes 27-30. Arreola says he sees donations increase and even more people volunteer to help with the events during the month of Ramadan.
“It’s just beautiful to see that development and growth,” he says. “The spirit of giving is so profound in Islam.”
Arreola, who is Roman Catholic and Mexican American, says that spirit drew him to the Muslim community in metro Phoenix. Being bilingual and a first-generation American, he’s found many connections with the Muslim community, he says.
“It’s been a learning curve culturally, linguistically and spiritually,” Arreola says, and the community has welcomed him with open arms and gratitude.
For the past four years, Mohammad Al-Rokh has helped coordinate volunteers and organize the distribution events with the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, facilitating the connection between the mosque and INCA Relief. Over the past year, due to the pandemic, the demand for food has increased drastically, he says.
During Ramadan and while the mosque is not providing the iftar meal due to COVID-19, the food distributions are even more important, he says.
“We are not happy not being able to provide iftar,” he says. “But at least people will have some food at home to cook especially after fasting all day.”
Al-Rokh describes the distribution events as a “win-win-win” for everyone, including himself, the mosque and the community.
“The Islamic Center is not just a place to pray and leave, it’s a place to help the community in and around the mosque,” he says. “Helping one another is a core value of our religion and it bonds the community together.”
‘Hopefully now we have a light at the end of the tunnel’
Usama Shami says the lasting impact the pandemic might have on the mosque’s worshipers worries him. During a time when so many experienced hardships, from the death of friends or family to lost jobs and financial difficulties, it’s been hard for the community to lose the social aspect of visiting the mosque.
“It’s been very tough times on people and you have to have a strong faith to deal with it,” Shami says. “People don’t know how to react and it’s very hard for some people to adjust to these conditions.”
But as more people are vaccinated, Shami is hopeful this Ramadan will be better than the last. He’s hopeful activities can soon get back on track.
The mosque’s leadership team is planning ahead for how they might be able to start family nights, Sunday school programs and Arabic classes again, which have all been canceled for the length of the pandemic.
“Hopefully now we have a light at the end of the tunnel,” Shami says. “After Ramadan, we’ll see where things stand.”