Giving it a Go in Muslim Worlds: Musings in Honour of Ramadan

Sunday Talks / Random Musings, Understanding Islam
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Speaker & Worship Leader:- Kate Lewis

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Kate Lewis © 30 March 2025

As far as I can tell looking through the archives we’ve had two services in which the musings were about Ramadan. In both cases Clay introduced the services by talking about violence associated with Islam. In 2017 it followed a week in which there had been six terrorist attacks around the world, all of which involved Muslims as either perpetrators or victims. He presented a talk by another Unitarian minister on religious fundamentalism in Islam and other religions.

In May, 2019, the talk followed the murder of 51 Muslims at a mosque in Christchurch. In that case Clay used text from a convert to Islam answering some basic questions about Islam and Ramadan.

I would love to have an occasion to talk about Islam without mentioning violent extremism, but it is impossible not to mention the on-going war in Gaza and to acknowledge that violence against Muslims by Christians, Jews, and other Muslims pervades our world. The persistent and wide-spread Western association between Islam and violence leads to prejudice and racist speech and behaviour, so it is everyone’s problem.

Having said that, this talk is quite personal and describes times that I have had entirely peaceful experiences and relationships in the largely Muslim country of Senegal, in West Africa, and in Saudi Arabia. I will talk about my experience of observing Ramadan in Senegal, and how this helped lead me to Unitarian Universalism.

For starters it’s important to know the difference among the words Islam, Islamic, and Muslim. Islam refers to the religion itself. It is an Arabic word that means “submission to the will of God.” Islamic is an adjective that usually describes things related to the religion, such as Islamic culture or history. Muslim is the word for a person who practices Islam. It is also an adjective, as in a Muslim family.

I went to Senegal for my entire third year of university. Senegal is the farthest west country in West Africa, on the tip of the western hump of the continent. It was a French colony from the 1600’s until 1960, and most people still speak French as well as local languages. When I was thinking about studying abroad I wanted to study in French and focused on West Africa in part because my father had lived and taught English in East Africa after university and had had many outstanding adventures.

By the time Ramadan came around in spring of 1992 I had been living in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, for 8 months. I lived in a house of 12 American students, and initially we walked to our classes at the university down the road. Unfortunately after a couple of months the Senegalese students went on strike, and university classes were cancelled. I had a Senegalese boyfriend and socialised with local students more than my American housemates. We spent hours on the front porch of the house drinking minty tea.

I hadn’t seen much evidence of religious devotion in my friends, who were mostly young men in their 20’s. I was pretty sure they did not pray 5 times a day, since we were together drinking tea through at least two of the prayer times on any given day. I was 22 at the time and aggressively questioning my own Christian background, but like many young people I thought that I was unique. It surprised me that Muslims, who I assumed would be devout and observant, were not. Now I know there’s often a difference between what the books say Muslims (or anyone else) do and what some Muslims (or anyone else) actually do.

Thus I was taken aback when, just before Ramadan, they said they would be fasting for the month. Fasting in Ramadan means no food or water passes your lips from sunrise to sunset. No chewing gum. No kissing. All Muslim adults are required to observe Ramadan unless it is unhealthy to do so; the exempt include people who are travelling, ill, elderly, breastfeeding, pregnant, or menstruating. The goal is to practice self-discipline and sacrifice, and to gain more empathy for people who are less fortunate. It is a time to draw closer to God and piety through prayer and self-examination.

I wanted to share this experience with my friends, so I fasted too. I started getting up early to eat breakfast before dawn. The guys stopped coming over for tea, and I hadn’t spent much time at the university dorms in any case, so I didn’t see them much. I had long quiet hours, fasting 7 am to 7 pm, and new experiences of physical discomfort.

By 8 am I started to get thirsty. I discovered that hunger was nothing compared to thirst. It was hot and tropical, and the thirst tore at my body. By the afternoon I stopped caring about my relationship with God. However, I persisted with the fast and broke the fast alone with dates and weak tea, drank litres of water, ate a normal dinner and went to bed. I started to lose weight and felt morose and lonely.

After a while, maybe a week or so, I learned that my friends were treating Ramadan quite differently. They had become nocturnal, staying up late into the night eating and sleeping most of the day. They were having a grand time, and as far as I could tell self-reflection and sacrifice were not part of the programme. I seethed. I successfully finished the month of fasting out of curiosity and stubbornness, partly fueled by my feeling of pious superiority.

Later again I realised that Cheikh, the boyfriend, wore a tiny leather bag on the belt loop of his jeans, every single day. When I enquired he said it was an amulet from his uncle and symbolized the religion of the place where he was from. I asked him how he could do that and still be a Muslim? You remember that pious superiority I felt? Here it came again… as well as a huge fight between me and Cheikh. He was outraged that I would question his devotion to Islam. He saw no contradiction between being Muslim and embracing the gods of his family village and home.

I had already been interested in why people embrace religion, in how religion drives us and and motivates behaviour, and this interaction set me on a path of exploring religion both for my university major and for myself.

Then in 2012 I had the chance to go to Saudi Arabia three times to study volcanoes. There are thousands of small volcanoes along the western edge of Saudi Arabia, bordering the Red Sea. The volcanism is similar to that of Auckland, lots of small eruptions in different places scattered around a volcanic field. We were part of a research group at a university there, and the three women from the Auckland team were the only women involved.

We decided it was important to dress correctly and bought black abayas, the robe-like thing that covers the clothes underneath, and head scarves. We followed the instructions of our Saudi colleagues, rode in the cars they sent for us, and sat in the “family” areas of restaurants, separate from the men. When we ate as a team they usually got a private room in the restaurant where we could all sit together.

At one point there was a conference, and we had to sit behind a screen so as not to be on the television news, which was portraying a male-only environment. Saudi geologists complained that we had been too “visible,” in approaching the breakfast pastries and coffee bar and needed to ask our male colleagues to get our food for us. We discovered how our immediate colleagues had been changing their own behaviour to welcome us into their research programme.

These behaviours are not written into the Quran. They have been superimposed on some Muslim societies by men in power. In Senegal most women did not wear headscarves. In the Middle East the requirements for women’s dress and behaviour changes as political power ebbs and flows.

Being in Saudi Arabia brought me back to my interest in religion and specifically in Islam. I’m interested in how people interpret religious texts to suit their needs and beliefs. In how practicing religion is a political act. In how practicing religion is a deeply personal act as well.

I had grown up in the Episcopal church in the U.S. but stopped going after university. I attended the Quaker church for a period but finally came back to a religious community when I found this church. I think most of us know that our religious practice and beliefs are intertwined with our politics.

Reflecting on the observance of Ramadan and my friends at that Senegalese university, the act of holding that amulet was a political act as well as a personal one. The country had been converted to Islam over centuries and then colonised by the French. In retrospect I wish I had learned more about Cheikh’s family and how they managed to hold onto anything from their ancestors’ ancient beliefs.

It’s partly these experiences that let me to Unitarianism and our principles. I believe interacting with different cultures and religions helps us be better people, more understanding, patient, compassionate, and loving towards people who are different than we are. I think we become more tolerant and more interconnected when we seek truth and meaning in other places and peoples.

So on the eve of Eid al-fatr, the end of the month of Ramadan, I wanted to do this talk to honour the complexity of religious belief and practice. And to thank those friends in Senegal and Saudi Arabia for their generosity in welcoming me in and sharing their worlds.

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