c. 2004 Religion News Service

MEDFORD, Mass. _ When Barry Bridgelal graduated from Tufts University last May, he found himself searching for his place in the world for the first time in his life. Bridgelal, a native of Trinidad whose parents are Christian and grandparents are Hindu, found a sense of belonging in a rather unpredictable place _ the Tufts Islamic Center.

During Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, Bridgelal is fasting each day from dawn until dusk as a spiritual exercise and a connection to a cohesive community.

“What I like most is the whole community being together for the whole 30 days,” he said on a recent evening as he munched on pizza and Chinese food to break his daily fast.

The one salient fact that most people know about Ramadan is that Muslims fast from sunup to sundown each day of the holy month.

But some non-Muslims, particularly college students, have learned about the philosophical and spiritual underpinnings of the holy month and are adopting the practice of fasting themselves. Reasons range from hunger awareness to a statement of political solidarity to a desire to practice a spiritual discipline.

Cindy Thoman-Terlazzo of York, Pa., is fasting for all three reasons.

Thoman-Terlazzo, 47, is a Unitarian Universalist who describes her upbringing as “fundamentalist Christian.” She had never fasted for religious reasons before this year, when she followed her minister’s lead and joined in the Ramadan practice of self-denial for the entire month.

“The thing that caught my attention first was political solidarity with Muslims because of the state of the world today,” she said, citing the war in Iraq and anti-Muslim discrimination in the aftermath of 9/11 as the major impetuses for her fast.

Solidarity and tolerance have inspired others to fast as well. San Jose, Calif., police chief Robert Davis, for example, is fasting in a gesture of outreach and connection in troubled political times.

In addition to the political message, Thoman-Terlazzo was intrigued by the idea of empathizing with the world’s hungry by fasting.

“I knew I really don’t know what that’s like,” she said, adding, “I really appreciate that first sip of water” used to break the fast each evening. “I can feel it going through my body,” she said.

Spiritual discipline also comes into play in making Thoman-Terlazzo’s fast meaningful.

“It has been a contemplative experience for me,” she said, “I am mindful of the hunger I am experiencing.”

Non-Muslims who fast for Ramadan rarely do so without interaction with a local Muslim community. In Thoman-Terlazzo’s case, her church invited a speaker from a local mosque to explain Ramadan to the dozen non-Muslims who were interested in participating in the fast. The mosque then invited the churchgoers to join in the celebration of the end of Ramadan, which will likely fall on Nov. 14, depending on the sighting of the moon.

Many Muslims appreciate the efforts of their non-Muslim peers to understand their religious tradition.

Julie Moskim, another recent graduate of Tufts, is trying to convince her non-Muslim boyfriend to fast.

“A lot of people don’t understand,” she said, adding that she is often asked, “Why are you doing this, why are you starving yourself?”

Moskim said that fasting can demystify the practice of fasting and give non-Muslims insight into the spiritual meaning of the practice. If a person doesn’t practice it, “you don’t understand the self-restraint, that it’s not torture,” she said.

One of the most organized efforts to acquaint non-Muslims with the practice of fasting is the Ramadan Fast-A-Thon, a national campaign in which colleges across the country invite non-Muslims to fast for one day during Ramadan in order to raise money and awareness for local food pantries and anti-hunger charities.

Throughout Ramadan, hundreds of non-Muslim college students are joining their Muslim peers in the fast. The Fast-A-Thon has enlisted registrants from nearly 150 colleges from Harvard to Berkeley.

At the University of Florida in Gainesville, around 200 non-Muslim students signed up to participate, raising over $700 for the St. Francis Home, a local homeless shelter.

Hajer Abdul-Rahim, a college junior and a leader of the Islam on Campus group, says that sharing the Ramadan tradition was not as much of a challenge as she anticipated.

“A lot of (non-Muslims) were already familiar with fasting because they do it in their religions,” she said.

Developed in 2001 by University of Tennessee, Knoxville student Sanjana Ahmad, the Fast-A-Thon was conceived as a way to educate non-Muslims about the world’s second-largest religion and draw attention to issues of hunger and poverty at the same time. Last year, schools nationwide raised $46,000 for charities, and Ahmad estimates that 9,300 non-Muslims participated in the fast.

“We wanted to make it more than just about Ramadan and fasting, and draw it out to the larger issue of hunger and homeless in our community,” said Ahmad, who now leads the national Fast-A-Thon organization from Knoxville when she’s not working full time as an economic researcher.

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