During the month of Ramadan, the University of Michigan’s Muslim Coalition, a group of Muslim-adjacent campus organizations, is hosting community iftars for Muslim and non Muslim community members to come together and share food. The Muslim Coalition’s iftars are held on every day of Ramadan. This year, the month of Ramadan takes place from March 10 to April 9.
LSA junior Bilal Irfan helped found the U-M Muslim Coalition in 2022. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Irfan said he started these community iftars to unite the multiple iftars hosted by student organizations. He said, before the U-M Muslim Coalition was established, iftars were randomly organized by Muslim-adjacent groups during Ramadan and by the Islamophobia Working Group, which is a part of the LSA Arab and Muslim American Studies department.
“What we did is we essentially streamlined those when we created the Muslim Coalition,” Irfan said. “And a lot of times what we saw is that there were many different individuals to an (organization) that have a majority Muslim population. They may not be religiously Muslim, for example, the Arab Students Association or whatnot.”
During Ramadan, U-M dining halls continue to offer halal food options, but these options are not usually zabiha halal, which describes the strictest standards of halal meat. In an interview with The Daily, LSA sophomore Minahil Raheel said the halal foods available for students do not meet the criteria to be considered zabiha halal, while the community iftars do.
“At the dining halls (their meat is) machine-slaughtered so that’s not technically allowed in our religion,” Raheel said. “Some people will still eat it but others who are a lot more strict will not get the machine slaughtered (food). I think just having a community space here to have guaranteed halal food is so important.”
In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen wrote that while the University does not currently have plans to expand halal options, several dining halls’ hours have been extended to accommodate students observing Ramadan.
“Currently, Michigan Dining provides halal offerings at every meal,” Broekhuizen wrote. “While there are no immediate plans to increase the amount of halal offerings, we have extended the hours at South Quad, Mosher Jordan and Bursley residential dining halls to accommodate students observing Ramadan, ensuring greater access to halal foods.”
Raheel said she appreciates how iftars bring the community together and provide students of all religious observance with zabiha halal food.
“I’m actually an out-of-state student so this is my second Ramadan away from home now, and I think its a great way to bring the community together,” Raheel said. “Halal food, it’s hard to come by on campus, especially the highest (standards of halal). Some students are very strict on halal and others aren’t as, but it’s just important to have a place where anyone, regardless of the halal standards that they ascribe, is able to come.”
In an interview with The Daily, Engineering senior Hasnain Rehman, who is an international student from Oman, said he believes the community iftars bring the entire campus community together.
““I’ve stayed in the Middle East for 10 years of my life,.” Rehman said. “It’s not just about eating food together. It’s about a sense of community, a sense of belonging that you can see in the people. When you come here you’re welcomed with this generosity and this pureness in the heart.”
Rehman said the iftars are open to people of all identities, not just those who identify as Muslim.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, we’re all brothers and sisters,’” Rehman said. “You can be a Muslim. You can be someone who’s not a Muslim. We don’t really care about that because all we care about is we’re bringing the community together and everyone’s coming along together.”
The Muslim Coalition is made up of many different cultural organizations, and each of them has the opportunity to host an iftar. In an interview with The Daily, Engineering senior Haashir Ali, president of the Pakistani Student Association, said he appreciates the ability to host because of its importance to community organizations.
“In Islam, there’s a really big emphasis on community and looking after one another so I think by doing these iftars people have the opportunity to … invite all the different cultural orgs to host an iftar,” Ali said. “It gives every single person an opportunity to have that feeling like, ‘I’m hosting something, I’m feeding other people, I’m helping them break their fast,’ and we believe that in helping someone break their fast in the evening, there’s a lot of blessing in doing that act.”
Ali spoke about his first experience serving food at an iftar on U-M campus.
“I think there’s a sense of fulfillment and when the time to break fast comes and you’re seeing everybody, sitting down eating their food and you’re like, ‘I did that, I helped people do that,’” Ali said. Daily Staff Reporter Miles Anderson can be reached at milesand@umich.edu.