” “United Kingdom: a free meal

Sunni Moslems, Shiites, Ismailis… they all celebrate Ramadan in the same period. It’s an occasion for sharing and dialogue. With approximately 2 million Moslems (concentrated in the big cities such as London, but also in Bradford, Leicester and in Scotland) out of a total population of 60 million, Great Britain has long come to terms with, and raised its awareness of this situation. On 7 November, the day marking the beginning of Ramadan, many non-Moslems – including MPs at Westminster – lent their support to what was billed as a “day of national fasting”. “We fast from ourselves”. “Ramadan is a month of contemplation, purification, recharging our batteries and reconciliation”, sums up Zaki Badawi, director of the Muslim College in London and president of the Council of the Imams of the Mosques of England, explaining that “we don’t only fast from food, but also from ourselves: we make an effort to behave well”. Badawi uses the significant image of maturity to describe Ramadan: it’s the period in which “the person is educated to become adult, to graduate from a condition of intolerance, typical of childhood, to maturity, to learn to support difficulties, to accept frustrations”. If Ramadan is a period of “education of the spirit”, another essential aspect should not be ignored: that of “community”. All the activities organized by the Moslem groups present in Great Britain, as elsewhere, explains Badawi, must make manifest “the sense of community to all faiths”. “Banquet of God”. Food, for example, continues the director of the Muslim College, is an element around which it’s easy to bring people together. That’s why, apart from meetings, seminars and debates, in general open to everyone, many Islamic centres have got organized to offer a free meal at sunset: even if in limited dimensions, in London as in the streets of Cairo, what is billed as the “Banquet of the merciful God” is proclaimed. Some groups have also mobilized themselves to offer food to the poor and to people living rough on the streets on the occasion of Ramadan, while NGOs famous at the international level such as Islamic Relief (the Moslem “Caritas”) step up their fund-collecting efforts and appeals during this period to relieve famine and disease in the third world or to send humanitarian aid to crisis areas with a strong Moslem presence that have suffered war or natural disasters, such as Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Islamic Awareness Week. An event which has by now become widespread throughout Great Britain is Islam Awareness Week (IAW); it was launched by the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) for the first time in 1994. It takes place annually in November, and this year coincided with the beginning of Ramadan. To mark the occasion, on 4 November, the ISB presented Parliament at Westminster with the results of its own survey conducted in Great Britain on attitudes to British Muslims: 64% replied by admitting they knew little about the Moslem community in Great Britain, 27% said they knew quite a lot, while 9% replied: nothing. While 84% of the sample admitted that “non-Muslims have become suspicious of Muslims after 11 September, an equal 84% considered that the peaceful coexistence of Muslims with other faiths was possible in Britain. Shar Kahn, psychiatrist and exponent of the Islamic Society of Britain, explains that the objective of this organization is “to build bridges of hope and create a forum for combating prejudices about Islam”; Islam Awareness Week also aims at being a “bridge” between the different faiths. Against “islamophobia”. A London-based organization, the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, is very active in raising the awareness of Moslems and of the British population as a whole to the celebration of Ramadan with a particular attention to social problems such as violence, poverty, exclusion and racial discrimination. Artistic events (exhibitions, concerts, readings) on the occasion of Ramadan are organized in London throughout November by the Iran Heritage Foundation in liaison with a prestigious university institute, the School of African and Oriental Studies” (SOAS), while the Al-Khoei Foundation, mainly Shiite but open to everyone, holds meetings of an intellectual character to examine and discuss some aspects of Islamic religion, such as law, devotion, etc.