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Members of the National University of Singapore Catholic Students Society took part in a Ramadan fast last week before joining with Muslim students as they broke their fast in the evening.
Second-year National University of Singapore medical undergraduate, Deanna Koh, and five other student representatives from the NUS Catholic Students’ Society joined hundreds of Muslim students to break fast on the campus grounds, UCA News reports.
Koh, who had a sandwich for breakfast and drank only water during the day, was initially worried she might not be able to keep the fast.
“I’ve never done this before. I guess it wasn’t so bad apart from the lethargy,” she said.
In her view, fasting the whole day requires more willpower than the Catholic practice on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
“It’s not about not eating, per se, but knowing from the start that you can’t (eat),” she explained, pointing out that as part of the Muslims’ nightly Ramadan prayers they make a promise to keep the fast the next day.
Damien Poon, 22, a second year arts undergraduate also fasted from food and drink except water. He treated the effort as a “Catholic fast, but with the consciousness that I was expressing solidarity with the Muslims.”
The NUS Muslim Society invited the non-Muslim students to join them in fasting in order to have an experience of Islamic culture and better understand the religion. It also hoped to encourage and promote interreligious harmony.
Song Xiuhua Shafiqah Nadizah, 22, a fourth-year arts undergraduate who helps the Muslim students’ society on an ad-hoc basis, invited the Catholic students to break fast with her group. It was, she said, “a good way to establish a connection between the two groups on campus, keeping in mind any collaborative events that we might want to host in the future.”
Rafi Rashid, 27, a doctoral student in engineering, told the guests that Muslims typically break the daily fast with dates and water before the maghrib prayers that Muslims recite every day at sunset.
He explained that the goal of fasting is to contain one’s desires and, as such, one’s desire to sin.
“The basic role of fasting is to instill discipline and to attain a shield against evil,” he said. “We spend the year eating to our fill. Why can’t we fast one month for God?”
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Catholics break fast with Muslim students on campus (UCA News)
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