By Yassin Juma
NAIROBI, Kenya
At Al-Yusra, a popular restaurant in downtown Nairobi, four young Muslim men gather to break the Ramadan fast.
After hearing the call to prayer, they eat a popular Kenyan dish called Pilau and launch into an animated conversation.
All four are members of the Kenyan-Muslim diaspora who have returned to their home country this year to observe the Islamic fasting month, when the faithful abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk.
“I live and work in Stockholm as a truck driver,” 32-year-old Abbas Jamal told Anadolu Agency. “This year, I chose to fast in Kenya to avoid Sweden’s long fasting hours and summer weather.”
“The fast is less of a burden here in Kenya, since the fasting hours are shorter and the weather is cool this time of year,” he added.
His three friends voiced similar sentiments.
“I prefer to fast in Kenya, where my family and friends are,” Suleiman Mabruki, a 27-year-old Kenyan who lives in Norway, told Anadolu Agency.
“For me, Ramadan is like a holiday – a break from the hustle and bustle of western life,” added Mabruki, who also brought his wife and two children.
This year, western countries are experiencing long Ramadan fasting hours. In Lulea, for example, a town in northern Sweden, Muslims have less than one hour in which to break the fast.
“In Denmark, we only have three hours in which to eat and drink. That’s not enough time to rest,” Jamal Hassan, a Kenyan who holds Danish citizenship, said, referring to the leafy stimulant that is native to the Horn of Africa.
‘Spirit of Ramadan’
For Yusuf Ali, a Kenyan Muslim who works in Calgary, Canada, the joy of Ramadan “is to fast with your family in an Islamic environment. This is what made me come back home for Ramadan,” he told Anadolu Agency.
“The call to prayer emanating from the many mosques; the traditional Swahili food sold on the streets; and, of course, the Eid,” he said, referring to the traditional three-day post-Ramadan festival.
“This is when the spirit of Ramadan comes alive,” he said from his home in Mombasa, a majority-Muslim town on Kenya’s coast.
It is not clear how many Kenyan Muslims have returned from abroad this year for Ramadan. But according to Kenya’s Immigration Ministry, the trend has become increasingly common.
“We’ve seen many Kenyan Muslims from the diaspora return home since the beginning of June,” Joseph Kariuki, an Immigration Ministry official, told Anadolu Agency by phone. “We saw a similar pattern last year during Ramadan.”
Not all Kenyan Muslims, however, approve of the trend.
“Fasting is about your faith in God. It makes me question the faith of a person who escapes long fasting hours in Europe or North America for shorter hours in Kenya,” Nairobi resident Mustafa Miraji told Anadolu Agency.
‘Month of charity’
Aside from the issue of fasting, however, some Kenyan Muslims in the diaspora choose to come back home for Ramadan to engage in local charity work.
“For me, Ramadan is the best time to go back to Kenya to assess the programs that my organization, which is based in the U.K., has provided to needy Muslims in Kenya,” Mahfudh Habibu, a dual Kenya-British citizen and aid worker, told Anadolu Agency.
This Ramadan, Habibu – along with a number of other aid workers – is planning to travel to Kenya’s remote northeastern region, where most of the country’s Muslims reside, many in abject poverty.
“The Muslim population in northern Kenya has been marginalized since independence in 1963,” he said. “I feel it is upon us, the elite, to assist our community. I feel I have a debt to pay back to my community.”
“That’s why, every year during Ramadan, I come back home and share what I have with those in need,” Habibu said. “Ramadan is a month of charity.”
