For Ramadan, BU Will Provide Prayer Spaces, Special Meals to Muslim Students
Details about locations for prayer and Iftar and suhoor meals
Traditional Ramadan foods will nourish fasting Muslim students this year, courtesy of BU Dining Services. Photo via Unsplash/Anna Pelzer
For Ramadan, BU Will Provide Prayer Spaces, Special Meals to Muslim Students
Details about locations for prayer and iftar and suhoor meals
The sizzle of lamb. The warmth of lentil soup. The colorful burst of seasonal vegetables, farro salad, and watermelon with yogurt. Boston University’s Bay State Underground at Marciano Commons will serve Muslim students their fast-breaking iftar meals in observance of Ramadan, Islam’s monthlong period of daylight fasting and spiritual growth that celebrates the Prophet Mohammed’s receiving the revealed Koran.
For the second year in a row, BU Dining Services and BU Religious Life will provide Ramadan menus—both the sunset iftars and to-go, pre-dawn suhoor meals—most Mondays-through-Fridays in March. (Ramadan begins the evening of February 28, but meal service won’t start until March 3.) The menu will also feature skewers of cilantro chicken kofta with lemon garlic yogurt sauce; simmered lamb haleem slow-cooked in legumes, herbs, and spices; stuffed eggplant with lamb, vegetables, and lemon zest; and for dessert, mango lassi, crème caramel, and diced watermelon with yogurt, poppy seed, and fried rosemary.
This year’s observance will include the participation of the University’s expanded Muslim chaplaincy, available to answer any student questions about Ramadan. (Citing an example, associate chaplain Naureen Mallick told BU Today last fall that should a student have a test during Ramadan, when hunger might interfere with their academic ability, “I’ll talk to your professor [about] what we can do to make an arrangement so that you don’t have to skip your fast, you don’t have to fail academically, you can lead your best religious life as well.”)
Last year, BU Dining conducted a taste test of Ramadan food with about a dozen students, mostly from the Islamic Society of Boston University, before setting its menu. (In previous years, the Islamic Society had handled Ramadan food arrangements.)
“The feedback that we got was that the students were also satisfied,” says associate chaplain Nagla Abdallah, leading to a similar menu this year.
“They also wanted to make sure that they were encompassing a bunch of different cultures, since we have students from so many different backgrounds who are Muslim,” says the Rev. Jessica Chicka (STH’07,’11,’18), University chaplain for international students.
They also wanted to make sure that they were encompassing a bunch of different cultures, since we have students from so many different backgrounds who are Muslim.
Here are the main logistics of prayer and eating during the holy month:
- All Monday-through-Friday prayers will be held on the first floor of the Kilachand Honors College, 91 Bay State Road. “The last two of the five daily obligatory prayers for Muslims are the sunset prayer, Maghrib, offered immediately after sunset, and the Night Prayer, Isha, offered about one and a half hours after the sunset prayer,” Mallick says. “In Ramadan, some additional units of voluntary prayers are added after the Isha, called Taraweeh. The combined Isha and Taraweeh can last one and a half to two hours.”
- Saturday and Sunday prayers will be held at the George Sherman Union Alley, 775 Commonwealth Ave.
- During spring break (March 8-16), prayer space will be available in Marsh Chapel’s lower level, 735 Comm Ave.
- All iftar meal attendees must bring their physical Terrier cards to Bay State Underground to swipe into for the meals.
- Suhoor-to-go meals will be available Mondays through Fridays for pickup at Bay State Underground. They must be ordered through the Rhetty-To-Go service by 6 pm the day before pickup. For students with BU meal plans, each suhoor meal is one physical Terrier Card swipe. Students without meal plans will be charged $17.55 for a suhoor, with convenience points and credit cards accepted.
- Please note—iftar and suhoor meals will not be available from March 10-14 because of spring break.
- The Boston University Police Department will station officers to guide students from Kilachand prayers to iftars and back.
- On three nights—March 24, 26, and 28—there will be extended prayers, about one and a half hours after students eat their sunset meal. Prayer mats will be left out at Marsh Chapel those nights. “This will basically be an all-night event, from midnight to daybreak,” Mallick says. The special prayers recognize that the Koran was revealed on one of those nights, she adds.
“We are doing a crowdfunding fundraiser to offset the costs of meals for students without a meal plan,” Chicka says. The fundraiser is to continue throughout Ramadan. “We’re hoping that we will be able to provide meals for free for all students, whether or not they have a meal plan. We are hoping that we will be able to raise the money to offset the cost.”
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