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COLCHESTER — Ramadan is a time of fasting and communion, when Muslims strengthen family and community ties, focus on their faith, and spend less time concerned with the banalities of everyday life. But finding fellowship can be difficult for some 1,000 Muslims in Vermont, who are spread far and wide across the state.

The ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, Ramadan falls at a different time each year. This year it began in early October and will end the first week in November; the exact date to be determined by the sighting of the new moon. A time of worship and contemplation, Muslims are asked to fast for the entire 28 to 30 days, and abstain from food, drink, and indulgences like smoking and sex, from sunrise to sunset.

In traditional Islamic societies, Muslims break their fasts in the evening with friends and family, sharing a simple meal called the iftar, often at a place of worship, and then going out for visits.

According to a recent study, “Faith Communities Today,” membership in U.S. masjids — the Arabic term for a Muslim congregation — is increasing at a rapid pace. Sixty percent of U.S. Muslim congregations grew by 10 percent or more between 1995 and 2000, the study showed.

During that same period, the number of masjids in Vermont increased by one. The Vermont Guardian this week talked to Muhaideen Batah, a Palestinian carpenter from Nazareth and a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Vermont, about the center and what it’s like to be Muslim in Vermont.

But I don’t like to say mosque. Many don’t know the root of the word. In Spain [in the 14th and 15th centuries] Muslims and Jews were supposed to convert or they were forced to leave … The Spaniards used to call the Muslims mosquitoes and they would find them at the places where they worshipped … and from that came the word “mosque”. In Arabic, masjid means a place you can prostrate yourself. [Muslims prostrate themselves in prayer.] Therefore, I think the word should be changed.

VG: Have there been any problems at the center, especially after 9/11, or for Muslims elsewhere in Vermont?

Batah: Only in the beginning. We had a guy who came with a gun in September 2001 …. He said to the guy who opened the door, “Are you affiliated with bin Laden?” After that he kept calling and harassing us on the phone. [Eventually, police intercepted the caller]. Once a woman was harassed in her car while she was driving her kids to school, and another time a guy leaving out the front door was wearing a jalabiyeh [a long tunic]. A guy went by in a van and pointed his finger at him like a gun.

But mostly people are friendly and very nice. We had an open house in 2002 and we were awed by how many people came in support.

VG: How large is the Muslim community in Vermont? Have you seen much growth?

Batah: We have two kids and we lived in New York City for 10 years. When the older boy — he is now a seventh grader, 12 years old — when the time came for his school we had such a hard time finding a good public school … We were debating where to go. My wife is American Christian; she wanted to go to a place where she knew somebody. Her mother and brother live here in Vermont. So we decided on Waitsfield because the schools are among the best nationwide.

VG: That’s a ways from Colchester. During Ramadan do you feel detached from the congregation?

Batah: It doesn’t really bother me that much. I wish that we were closer to the masjid, especially now in the month of Ramadan, because every night you should go pray and now I only go on the weekend.

You don’t really feel much of Ramadan here. I feel more when I go to break the fast in the masjid on the weekend; a large number of our community come, they bring food and we talk.

But aside from that, what I have been doing in Vermont I wouldn’t have done if we had stayed in New York City. I go to colleges or churches or radio stations to talk about Islam … Vermont is a small state. It’s easy access this way, unlike New York.

And there has been much more interest. After 9/11 … everybody wanted to know about Islam. It was a terrible disaster, of course, but before that people really didn’t show any interest in knowing about Islam, and now everybody wants to know. And I always make sure to say that [the 9/11 hijackers] did not represent me, or Islam, by doing what they did.

Batah: If we lived in a Muslim community it would be easier for him because he would see others who are fasting, but he goes to school and sees other kids eating their snacks, so it’s difficult. But he’s fasting on the weekend.

VG: Do you find that other U.S. residents know what Ramadan is?

Batah: It’s amazing how much Americans don’t know about, other than what they know of their culture and their faith. When I explain to people about Ramadan and talk about fasting they say, ‘Oh my god, you fast the whole month? How can you do that?’ I explain that you fast during the day and in the evening you break the fast … I explain that nothing should go into your system, even if you’re a smoker.

If you break the fast the right way — eat three dates and drink some water or milk and then you pray, and then you go and sit and eat — when you do it’s as if you’re eating dinner, the same as when you’re not fasting. The fast is healthy, it’s cleansing.

VG: Is Ramadan a social equalizer? Is that part of the concept behind it?

Batah: The month of Ramadan is proscribed on you as it was on those before you …. We know that Jews and Christians fast. Allah says in the Quran: It was proscribed on others before us.

But that’s also part of it. When you’re hungry and have nothing to eat or drink you remember those who are starving, the poor who barely have anything; you feel what others in your community or outside your community are feeling, which is a great thing to have. You start thinking of how fortunate you are.

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