lunar calendar<\/a>\u00a0as it migrates through the solar-based Gregorian calendar. I fasted my first full 30 days of Ramadan as a 13-year-old seventh grader in her first (and only) season of track, when Ramadan occurred in May. Thirty-three years later (two years ago for me), Ramadan again fell in May, having shifted backwards in yearly 10-day increments over that span.<\/p>\nThen I was one of the only kids fasting in school (my older brother was the other one) in a Midwestern school community that didn\u2019t really get what we were doing as Muslims but allowed us to hang out in the counselor\u2019s office or library at lunchtime. By the time I completed the lunar fasting cycle, my ninth grader son was texting our family group chat a photo of the \u201cRamadan Mubarak\u201d sign hanging in his school library.<\/p>\n
And, here\u2019s the best part.<\/p>\n
Last week at my son\u2019s first ever school tennis match, one of the coaches approached me as I watched him play doubles and asked if I was his mom. When I replied yes, she asked me if he would be fasting for Ramadan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to talk with the parents of all the kids who will be fasting on the boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 tennis teams,\u201d she told me. \u201cI want to know what their fasting plans will be so we can make sure to best accommodate them and keep an eye on them as they play \u2014 make sure they aren\u2019t getting too tired or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was floored. The coach approached\u00a0me<\/em>. I didn\u2019t have to set up a meeting or send an email (as I always have) to talk through spring sports and the fasting month and how we could make it work. I also didn\u2019t have to ask the PE teacher to go easy on my guy. (He already knew about Ramadan, and besides my son asked me to not say anything, that he could handle gym class. You know: Butt out, Mom.)<\/p>\nThis shift is the result of so many American Muslim organizations taking on this fight over the years, so many grassroots efforts by parents and other American Muslims educating our communities around the country. We have built awareness about our faith and about humanity. It has been extremely hard-fought and messy, and, to be sure, it isn\u2019t this way everywhere. There is always more growth to be had in our schools, workplaces and community structures. I\u2019m not taking it for granted. But Ramadan is at last becoming baked into American life, and yeah, it feels\u00a0good<\/em>.<\/p>\nMy aspiring tennis star is not the only one who is being recognized. In the United Kingdom, where Ramadan lights are up for the first time in Piccadilly Circus, officials in the Premier League, soccer\u2019s major leagues, have been\u00a0advised to allow for stoppage of play for Muslim players to break their fast at sunset<\/a>.<\/p>\nI reached out to Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and avid soccer fan, to ask him about the magnitude of what this means. \u201cFor the longest time,\u201d he explained, \u201cMuslims watched certain levels of sport in the West as pure spectators, distant from the superheroes on the pitch. Over time \u2026 we began to be those superheroes on the pitch, on the fields and on the greatest sports platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs that happened, our values and our lifestyles became less foreign and less distant. It\u2019s not that we need validation; it\u2019s an assertion of who we are and what matters to us. For major sports to acknowledge us, it\u2019s really amazing. It\u2019s another milestone of belonging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For me, it\u2019s just as big as my son\u2019s tennis coach approaching me to have a Ramadan discussion about how to balance sport and fasting. It wasn\u2019t about my son not playing or about drastically changing team schedules to accommodate the Muslim kids. It was about how to best help him make all parts of his life work in harmony. When I excitedly related the conversation to my son after his match was over, he was nonplussed, as if that was to be expected.<\/p>\n
Yes. Exactly.<\/p>\n
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(Dilshad D. Ali is a journalist and blog editor for the website\u00a0<\/em>Haute Hijab<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0an e-commerce company that works to serve Muslim women. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Dilshad D. Ali. Courtesy photo<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n