“What’s Ramadan like in my area? Well, during working hours in Ramadan the city streets are much quieter than usual with people trying to conserve energy by staying in their air-conditioned shops and offices.

This all changes in the mid-afternoon, as everyone joins the rush home, often stopping at a Ramadan market on the way to pick up food delicacies including curries, savoury snacks and sweet deserts. The streets then empty again as people wait in front of their food at home or in restaurants for the evening call to prayer at around 7:15pm, which signals the time for them to break the fast. This is almost the only opportunity to meet people socially during Ramadan. However, there isn’t much time to linger over the meal, as people rush off to pray. They need to do this before the last call to prayer at about 8:30pm.

The streets around the mosques and prayer halls are then filled with people flocking to the special night time prayers which are believed to bring additional merit during Ramadan. And so, many women, who don’t usually go to the mosque to pray, and children join the men in attending the prayers. The best thing we can do for Muslims during Ramadan is to increase our prayers for them.”

From a Christian professional in Southeast Asia

Will you pray for East Asia’s Muslims?

• Pray for God to bless Muslims’ relationships as they spend time together each evening when they break the fast.
• Local followers of Jesus with good relationships with the community are often invited to the breaking of the fast each day. Pray for good conversations in these times.
• Pray for workers and employers to be patient with one another during Ramadan, when people are more tired and hungry.

“The night before the fast starts is an important time in for my Muslim neighbours. There’s a sense of anticipation – this is a very special month and they’ve have been looking forward to it for some weeks now.
Some of them will be watching Ramadan-related shows on TV, which feature prominently throughout the fasting month. Those who will be selling special food for breaking the fast are already busy with their preparations for all that will involve the next day. Women are checking they have everything they need to cook the pre-dawn meal. Some might phone their elderly relatives to check they have remembered that they need to start the fast tomorrow.
Ramadan marks the time Muslims believe the Qur’ran was first revealed to Mohammed. But is also great time for followers of Jesus to pray. To pray for God to bless East and Southeast Asia’s Muslims. And to pray that they would learn more about Jesus.”

From a local follower of Jesus in Southeast Asia

Discover more about Ramadan in East Asia:

“Let me tell you about what Ramadan is like for my Muslim neighbor and friend Adyan.

The days of the fasting month are even harder work for her than all the other days of the year. With a quiet husband who has struggled to find work, the burden of finding money to feed her family of four children falls largely to her. Thankfully she had good health and is a hard worker. She is shrewd too, a careful wife and mother, so they have survived this far, and now their eldest son is working too.

During the fasting month, Adyan pulls out all the stops and sells snacks for the breaking of the fast each evening, this is on top of the two jobs she held down washing clothes and cleaning at local boarding houses. It means she has to go very early to the market each day to buy the ingredients she needs, and spends hours frying batch after batch of fried snacks in a huge wok of boiling oil.

The days go by in a slow blur, waking a long time before dawn to cook breakfast for the family, shaking the children awake in time to eat before the sunrise, going to the first boarding house to work for a few hours, returning home to do her own housework and get the children ready for school, before starting work on food preparation. And so it goes on throughout the day. Back to the boarding house. Back to school to collect the children. The work doesn’t stop apart for the few hours she sleeps each night.

She is 45 now and feels less strong than she used to be. Her back aches after the afternoon’s ironing work and her eyes feel stretched and tired. But she is driven on by the need to earn enough money to travel home to visit her family for celebrations at the end of the fasting month. She has been looking forward to it all year, hoping against hope that this year she will be able to afford it.

Two years ago she had gone home, taking her two younger children for a precious week at the village. She had seen her sisters, heard all the news, and enjoyed the pleasure of family. When she left, it was in the knowledge that she wouldn’t see them for another year. But it had turned out to be two years because last year money had been too short, so she’d sent her eldest son alone on his motorbike for the long, long journey. He had taken money for the family there – the amount she could have spent on the bus ticket, plus a little bit more she had saved. She hopes and prays that this year she will go herself.”

From a local follower of Jesus in Southeast Asia.

Will you pray for East Asia’s Muslims?

For women like Adyan, their workload during Ramadan can be particularly heavy. Many will rise very early (perhaps as early as 2am) to prepare a meal before dawn. The daylight hours may largely be spent preparing food, either for the breaking of the fast or to sell, alongside their usual responsibilities.

Lord, as you did with Mary and Martha in Luke 10, please would Muslim women, whether they tend toward activity or contemplation, come to know of your love.