A Sacrifice to be Sanctified

By HERMIONE CAITOR

The moment I step in the excruciatingly hot classroom, my stomach grumbles, the same as it would for a famished beast alone in the vast desert. I mustn’t put anything edible inside my mouth from sunrise to sunset. And this makes a student’s mind as mine wander off in the midst of classes.

Ramadan, the holy month of Islam, is a huge deal for Muslims in every year. We must perform fasting or abstinence from food and water—in order to be penitent for our misdeeds.

In Islamic schools or other Muslim countries, class schedules shift to accommodate Ramadan. Unfortunately this time, it coincided with the academic calendar, and for the first time, I am actually obliged to fast even at school as an adolescent Muslim.

I am one of the very few who practice Islam in E. Rodriguez Jr. High School, and might be the only one performing Ramadan fasting. While a lot of my peers question my faithful perseverance, I’ve always intended to associate religious obligations with academics, extracurricular activities, and social engagements in a sleight of hand.

Contrarily, requiring school activities and projects that need physical work would not be a great gesture of tolerance for religious practices, especially when fasting students are clearly at a disadvantage. Thus, I ought to adjust and harmonize with the dilemma it initially causes me.

Throughout the month, I’ve realized that it is indeed wearisome to study in a public school in the Philippines where the Muslim percentage is not dominant in religious aspects. While others have it easy, I have this peer pressure of being constantly compared to younger Muslims who are highly tolerable for hunger and thirst.

Zakia Pathan, a special education teacher at

Discovery Charter School in San Jose, encourages teachers and parents to find ways to cut back on activities for their Muslim students during Ramadan if they can.

“It’s supposed to be a time where you’re simplifying your life,” she said. “Being calm, spending time with myself, and reflecting on who I am — that’s a big component of Ramadan. And sometimes we don’t give our kids a chance to do that.”

There are many concessions for hardship in observing religious commandments, but it has never occurred in my mind to break my fast to rectify mere weakness. I endured all the agitation from my cavernous stomach and those gave me more self-control, discipline, and patience than I