For local Muslims, Ramadan is business as usual

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“We don’t have Good Friday once a year. For us, every Friday is good Friday.” 

Imam Adam Adamu shared that joke with more than 50 men and women who filed into a cramped, carpeted room at the Yonkers Islamic Center last week. The congregants were getting ready for the holy month of Ramadan, which begins May 26 in the United States. The holiday involves fasting from sunrise to sunset, but also is a time of blessing and perseverance for the Islamic community.

“It’s easy,” Adamu said. “You can Google ‘Ramadan’ and you can see all kinds of stories. But it’s good when you come see it with your own eye.” 

The Yonkers Islamic Center is the only mosque that serves the northwest Bronx since the Riverdale Islamic Center, previously located on Godwin Terrace, closed in 2015 due to financial difficulties.

Originally from Ghana, Adamu has been the imam of the Yonkers Islamic Center since it began in 1995. He did not intend to be the mosque’s leader, but was chosen for his ability to read in Arabic and his undeniable presence.

His steady guidance is just one of the reasons the mosque has outgrown its home — not once but twice. The center started with just five men and two or three women in a community room. Now it attracts 20 times that at weekly prayer services. 

It’s why people even kneeled in the adjacent hallway entrance last Friday to hear him speak about the approaching Ramadan holiday. 

The holy month of Ramadan contains many historical events for the Islamic faith. It was during this month Allah sent down the Quran, the Muslim holy book, to guide followers to do what is right and moral. It also was at this time Muslims were able to march peacefully into Mecca for the first time.

It is believed every good deed performed during Ramadan is multiplied. It is a month of extreme discipline, of fasting while food sits in your refrigerator. Along with food and drink you must also cut out impure thoughts and behaviors. You must ignore vices that you like, such as smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. 

“Ramadan is about discipline, health and repentance,” Massoud Mass, a leader of the mosque, said. 

While it is a month of sacrifice and introspection, the holiday is not too different from how many Muslims practice their faith every day.

“It doesn’t really change much,” Shaida Alabi said. Alabi just graduated from the University of Buffalo and lives right across the street from the mosque, which she has attended for most of her life. 

There are differences, she noted, in the way the imam speaks as the congregation prepares for the holiday. But for the most part, Ramadan is a formal calendar earmark for a religion that is founded in self-examination and dutiful worship.

“That’s just part of Islam,” Alabi said. 

This year, the Islamic community faces certain challenges when it comes to practicing its faith under the Trump administration and its Muslim country-focused travel ban. Some at the center have family members who cannot get back into the country. While the topic is not ignored, it also won’t interfere in the mosque’s observance of Ramadan.

During the holy month, there will be an increased police presence as additional officers are deployed outside mosques and Islamic cultural centers to ensure community members are safe.

“We have freedom of religion,” Adamu said. “Every now and then, there will be some ignorant individuals and they’re everywhere. They can be Muslim, they can be Christian, they can be Jews, anything. That’s ignorant, and they want to attack.”

Ramadan, Yonkers Islamic Center, Trump, Alexandra Hutzler

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