(RNS) — Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and intense prayer, is a time when mosques are overflowing most evenings with Muslims coming to break their fasts together and perform the nightly taraweeh prayers. But with the violence, detentions and anti-Muslim animus that attended the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis and other cities in past weeks, many Muslims are asking themselves, is it safe for me to go to the mosque?
In a North Minneapolis neighborhood at Masjid An-Nur, the real test of Ramadan began this week when the masjid began to hold iftars — the meals that end a day of fasting, which are often hosted communally at mosques. Sharon El-Amin, the social coordinator, said the past months of deportations and fatal shootings that have so deeply affected the city have also meant that attendance — normally “wall-to-wall, no room left,” said El-Amin — is not guaranteed.
“I can’t say enough about (the current focus on) safety and awareness,” said El-Amin, who has lived in Minneapolis for three decades, and, besides her job at the mosque, is the imam’s wife and a local school board member. At Masjid An-Nur and other mosques around the city, security measures are up but attendance numbers are still down in these early days of Ramadan.
Despite assurances from President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, earlier this month that the immigration crackdown surge is ending in Minneapolis, said El-Amin, “There’s still that fear, and people are being cautious in showing up.” Depending on how iftar at their mosque goes, she said, they are ready to pivot to meal deliveries.
ICE isn’t the only worry. Just this week shots were fired at an imam and an Islamic center. In Utah, officials are investigating a shooting that targeted Imam Shuaib Din of West Jordan-based Utah Islamic Center, with Din’s car being hit seven or eight times by gunfire. In Matamoras, Pennsylvania, shots were fired into the Pike County Islamic Center mere hours after the conclusion of taraweeh prayers.
A consultant on preparedness trainings for houses of worship said another persisting fear is a return to post-9/11 surveillance and infiltration by the Department of Justice. Various mosques in Maryland are rigorously vetting anyone seeking to lead security work and in Muslim spaces, according to someone who advises houses of worship on preparedness.
The few times I’ve made it out to a local mosque for night prayers in these beginning days of Ramadan, I’ve seen the flashing lights of not just the usual privately hired security, but local police cars in the parking lot as an extra measure. Like many other Muslims around the country, I am ambivalent about it. Should Muslims change their worship plans? Or should we take heed in an oft-quoted hadith and tie one’s camel while trusting in Allah?
The security, of course, is there not only to encourage attendance, but to make sure that Ramadan can be Ramadan. How are Muslims making the most of this holy time without giving in to elevated worry and fear? Is that even possible? “We don’t want to be so fearful that we can’t focus on the blessings of the month,” said El-Amin.
Many Muslims have responded by organizing to care for the most vulnerable. In North Texas, a group of Muslim chaplains with Aamaan Care is working to support detainees in numerous immigration detention centers, including Muslims fasting for Ramadan. A community chaplain who works with the group, whom I will call Maryam, said the challenge remains around trying to provide food for iftar, hijabs for prayers and Qurans.
The detainees are “packed like sardines in a room,” Maryam told me. “They don’t have access to space, and even the (temporary) chapels are packed with detainees, so there is not a space to go and pray.” The group has had requests for a French Quran and a Russian Quran, as well as paperback editions in Arabic, which are challenging to find.
The group was formed from a loose network of chaplains who had studied together, local imams in prison ministry and others trying to figure out how to navigate the incarceration system and provide spiritual care. The work will continue throughout Ramadan, Maryam said, with chaplains driving upward of four hours to do site visits throughout the month. “It’s part of our worship to be there for brothers and sisters at this time. And we’re not just there for Muslim detainees in Ramadan. We’re there for everybody. Everybody is struggling,” she said.
In Minneapolis, Fatoun Ali, director of the Somali Youth and Family Development Center, told me that prior to the start of Ramadan, her work focused on educating nonimmigrants about Somali Muslim people as well as informing Somali Muslim community members about their rights, whether they had a green card, an American passport or were undergoing asylum processing. “But soon we realized that (ICE) was taking anybody and everybody who looked Black and immigrant.”
She pivoted to making food deliveries, drawing on white friends to help with the work. This is continuing into Ramadan. “ICE is using different tactics now, dressing like construction workers or acting like they are having car trouble to get people to stop, so everyone is still scared.”
Ali’s main concern is how to support young families with children. “I have about 300 families who are stranded with low, low income,” she said, who may strain to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that comes at the end of the fasting month.
But none of this shakes her from her work. “I come from a (past of) civil war. I’m about self-love, empowering women. Masha’Allah, I think Allah gives me my strength.”
These are the words I’m hearing from Muslim communities across the country — caution, security, fear, worry, education and trust. As in, don’t let fear of what may happen derail your worship and Ramadan goals. But tread cautiously.
(Dilshad D. Ali is a freelance journalist. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
