USA: Local Muslims observe month-long fast

Ramadan is based on a lunar calendar. The month’s end varies by a day or two based on which calendar system observers use, but it is roughly the same as the month of August.

Photo: Dalton Daily Citizen

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Dalton Daily Citizen | Excerpt
By Rachel Brown | August 24, 2011

The following is a portion of the larger story published in Dalton Daily Citizen

Khola Humayan isn’t on a diet, but she abstains from eating or drinking for most of the day.

She’s been doing so for weeks, putting nothing in her stomach — not even water — from sunrise to sunset, she said, in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Muslims dedicate the month to fasting, prayer, reciting the Quran and doing good deeds. The main purpose of the month is to “gain nearness to God,” Humayan said.

Ramadan is based on a lunar calendar. The month’s end varies by a day or two based on which calendar system observers use, but it is roughly the same as the month of August.


Humayan is a native of Pakistan who came to the United States in 1996. She is a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, an international Muslim revival movement that rejects terrorism, according to its website (www.alislam.org/). Humayan lives in Dalton and worships weekly at a mosque in metro Atlanta.

She and her husband observe the Ramadan fast every year, but their children, ages 14, 11 and 5, aren’t considered yet old enough to do so. Muslim children are exempted from fasts but are usually encouraged to begin partial fasts during their preteen or early teenage years, then complete the entire fast once they are further into their teens.

Is it hard to fast? Humayan says “not really.”

“Of course, I feel thirsty, sometimes hungry, but still I divert my attention to what is the purpose of me holding a fast. So that helps me,” she said.

  -- rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

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