Ramadan, part seven (iftar)

By the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, I was feeling recovered from the Equinox party, though hungry for dinner.

I'd planned to make a vegetable side dish for the self-described progressive iftar in the suburbs, but there were enough dates and tabouli leftover from the night before that I decided to take them instead. Around 5:30, I slung the same bag over my shoulder that I'd carried to the Shabbat potluck, with the same big, blue Tupperware bowl inside, and headed for the Metro.

I'd found this group of progressive Muslims online, and I'd been invited to the iftar by a woman I'll call Tish. I arrived early to the apartment building in Fairfax where the iftar was to be held in the community room, so I sat on a bench and scribbled in my journal for a few minutes while the sun was sinking. A few minutes before 7, I walked into the building, and found the room I was looking for labeled with a small sign by the door, just past the front-desk of the building. The doors into the community room were glass, with glass panels on either side, so I could see into the room, and saw that maybe 30 to 40 people had congregated.

Entering, I approached a waist-high bar by the small kitchenette, where the others had deposited their potluck offerings. I placed my food amongst the rest of the bowls, and introduced myself to the Arab woman behind the bar, and to the white woman standing by my side. After a short conversation with the white woman, who was busy getting things ready, I surveyed the room. A long dining table with seating for 25 or so sat to one side of the room, with sofas and padded chairs, in a sort of generic hotel or airport style, sitting in a circle off to the side with a low, blocky table in the center. The group appeared to be mostly Arab or black or multi-racial; only one or two other obviously white people joined the group. Of the 15 to 20 women in the room, perhaps four of them wore headscarves.

One man sat on the padded furniture apart from the sparsely populated table, while others stood in groups around he room. I joined the man and introduced myself and we began to chat about the fast. His wife joined a few moments later and greeted me in Arabic, which confounded me. I felt silly having to ask her to repeat herself, and then stumbled over my apology for not understanding. She instructed me on the appropriate Arabic response to her greeting, which I repeated to her and promptly forgot, and soon others joined our small group. The conversation spun away from me and my ignorance, moving on to topics like the upcoming progressive Muslim paintball outing, and who had lost or gained weight during Ramadan.

When the sun was down, someone announced with little fanfare that we should all get something to eat, and a woman in a headscarf circulated with a tray of dates as we queued up with our small paper plates. I lingered toward the back of the room, not wanting to be one of the first to eat. Making small talk with those around me in line, I asked a man if he could point out Tish to me, so I could thank her for inviting me. The man gestured toward a white woman in a flowered skirt, who was holding a child with bright eyes and bronze skin, and talking to a darker-looking woman in a black blouse and black pants. The woman in black was Tish.

After filling my plate, I returned to the circle of furniture and sat near where I had before, though the other seats filled in with a different collection of people. My interest here, of course, was religious and theological, but I quickly realized that the focus of the dinner was social, so I felt bad wanting to quiz everyone I met about their beliefs in God, or what they do at prayer time, or how their interpretation of the Koran informs their outlook on life. "What makes you progressive," I wanted to ask everyone, "and what do you find in Islam that conflicts with your values? What do you do when you find conflicts? What makes you want to be Muslim in the first place?"

I overheard the first white woman I had met by the food counter say to someone next to her the phrase "when I converted," and I also overheard that she is a vegetarian. Quickly, I formulated a plan to bond with her over the vegetarianism and then quiz her on her religious conversion, but I wasn't close enough to strike up a conversation. I limited myself to the conversation around me: a discussion about a photography class, for example, and someone confessing to breaking the fast to go on a hike.

Eventually bored, and sitting there sipping water with an empty plate in my lap, I got up to throw my plate away, and when I did, someone moved in to take my seat. I thought I would go find Tish to introduce myself, but she was deep in conversation and surrounded, so I floated back against the wall and observed. Feeling self-conscious, I decided I had to go the bathroom. And I did have to go... just enough to justify stepping out of the room for a moment. "Maybe Tish will be less busy when I get back," I thought. "Or maybe my chair will be free again."

I was in my stall, buckling my pants and about to flush, when the door to the restroom opened, and someone came in to wash his hands. I'm shy about running into people or talking to them in public restrooms, so I decided to linger in the stall a moment longer. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened, and I heard many more footsteps come in, with dozens of voices rising in a mixture of English and Arabic, until I could tell the restroom was full of men, and I realized that ritual washing was happening -- and quickly. There was barely enough time for a rinse of the hands -- nevermind a full cleansing of face and feet -- before the stampede was gone as quickly as it came, and I snuck out of the stall to wash my hands myself.

By the time I got back to the community room, prayers had begun. I couldn't see who was leading, and the first thing I noticed was that not everybody was praying. A group of men who were not praying had stepped out onto the patio. A group of women who were not praying sat chatting (chatting!) on the padded furniture. One man sat silently next to them. Those who were praying were arranged in rows, on mats, facing east. The men had all lined up in the front, and the women lined up behind them -- all now wearing headscarves. A pile of shoes sat by the door.

I slipped in and sat next to the only man in the room. He did not speak to me, and despite the example set by the women, I felt uncomfortable speaking during the prayers, so I kept silent as well. When the prayers were over, Tish pulled off her lavender headscarf and wrapped it around her neck. The iftar was winding down, and I slipped over to introduce myself. In addition to Sunday's iftar, she has invited me to her own home for study of the Koran as well as an iftar in one week, so we chatted briefly about the logistics of how to get there, and then I grabbed the rest of my tabouli and headed back to the Metro.