With approximately 1.9 billion Muslims around the world, it’s no surprise that Ramadhan is an experience that is celebrated differently in each part of the globe. In our special Ramadhan Around the World series, we share the Ramadhan experiences of Muslims worldwide and hear how the blessed month is celebrated in their countries.
Haris is a Singaporean who is currently living in ʻAmmān, Jordan. He is currently studying for his Bachelor’s degree and is in his final semester. We caught up with Haris to see how he spends his Ramadhan in Jordan, here’s a day in the life of Haris in Ramadhan!
I will wake up at 0430 for my pre-dawn meal and fajr prayers. For sahur, routinely I will have some sukkari dates and a glass of milk, maybe with some toast if I’m hungry.
After a quick nap and shower, I will go to university at around 1050. I’m super grateful that my university is only about 10 mins walk from my place & classes in the fasting month are much shorter than the regular 1 hour 30 mins.
Later in the evening, I met up with other Singaporeans to go to downtown Balad (Note: The Al Balad is the oldest Downtown area of the capital of Jordan, Amman). Usually we will just hang around our apartment, cook Iftar and pray Taraweeh at our university mosque.
However, a trip to Balad during Ramadhan is a must, it’s very vibrant and lively there. We break our fast with quintessential jordanian dishes, such as mansaf, maqluba & mashwi mushakkal.
Thereafter, we did our maghrib, isha’ and Taraweeh prayers in the historic Grand Husseini Mosque.
For our moreh (feasting together after taraweeh, similar to having supper) session, we hunt for some tamar hind & qatayef. These are almost exclusively enjoyed during Ramadhan, closest we can get to food fare in Geylang Serai and Kampong Glam Bazaar in Singapore.
To sum up our day, we queued for some kunafa at the famed habibeh and took away some food for our sahoor the next day.
That’s all from me! Ramadhan Mubarak and Happy Fasting everyone!
