Fasting And Feasting In Sanaa

This year the scared month of Ramadan feel in October. On this autumn afternoon, the sun was made milder by thick clouds, and everywhere in Sanaa thousands of people were talking to one another. Their voice mingling in a tremendous hubbub. The firing of a cannon from the heights of Jibal Nugum, which now changed like water with the reflection of the sky – heard instantaneously throughout the country on radio and television – is a signal releasing Muslims from their fast. It is a signal to the waiting city the end of each day of fasting at the very moment of sunset. And also re-imposing the fast at the moment of daybreak. The boom of the cannon is called "the cannon of the removal".

Brightness, both real and imaginary, have always been special to Yemen. The Yemeni capital Sanaa is surrounded by fields of wheat and barley and fine orchards. As one of the oldest cities in the world, it has a history which goes back deep in time. It has been mentioned in writings you can find things which you will never find anywhere else in the world. And had made me taste two real kind of happiness: that of an ancient city being reborn adorned with beauty.

A rush of feet, a tumult of voices, watching the silhouettes of the city which is about to be outlined against the setting sun. Nearly everyone is trying to get home in time to break the days fast with family and friends. As the call to prayer marking sunset ripples outward from the Sanaani mosques, everything else falls silent. The streets, suddenly, empty and the city motionless. It is time for Iftar, the sundown meal during which Muslims break a day of fasting. Like a wave, Iftar moves across the continents. It has been an hour since Saudis broke their fast, next will be the Sudanese across the Red Sea, Moroccans, and much later, American Muslims. A month of contrasts, celebration as well as reflections. Measures abandon as well as strict discipline.

During the month of Ramadan, Sanaa is transformed, perhaps more vibrantly than any other city in Arab world, into a kaleidoscope of light and color. The scared month of Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim lunar year, is a time of fasting, blessings and prayers. It also commemorates the revelations of the first verses of the Holy Quran to Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Because that calendar is lunar, Ramadan falls 11 days earlier each solar year. The hours of the night, until dawn, are marked by prayers, ceremonial meals and celebration of the days spiritual victory over human desires. Each time the sun wet down and the minarets and domes are silhouetted against the sky, a new magic possesses the city. The scared month of Ramadan is about self, to be able to express oneself in the simplest way, to have space and time and peace of mind. It is about humans encountering each other and leaving everlasting impressions of their fellow humans. To strive that all men may one day be able to understand each other, is that not the noblest of ideals? Is this not in part, what I am doing: what have I gained, what have I lost, which I shall say to the supreme Creator? And return to Him, at the time He ordains bearing no other treasure than our shrouds and our good deeds. Where all worlds, all gestures, all looks became futile. That there were tales that did not begin the same way.

Sidewalks serve as "tables of mercy" and offer free Iftar meals to the needy and poor. For His eyes passes as well through the imposing façade of palace as through the clay wall of a hovel. A traditional Sanaani Iftar table is topped with dishes of meat, rice and vegetables. Many of Sanaani finest dishes are centuries old. Over centuries many exotic dishes from India, Syria, Indonesia, Turkey, and Central Asia have been adopted. They have assimilated them so completely that today it is difficult to think of those dishes as foreign. Part of the table comes from a common culinary food, part developed from the eastern, inland traditions, and coastal. Long favored vegetable and meat dishes, white beans, cubed potatoes, okra - lady fingers, peas or other available vegetables are prepared with meat and variety of spices and sauces. Stuffed vegetables, Mediterranean or Turkish in origin are also popular. Lamb, chicken, fish cooked in gravy, or kuftah are served with lemon and Yemeni bread. Rice dishes, widely considered the supreme test of culinary skill, are another. Flavored with rose water or saffron, garnished with raisins, onions, dried limes and various mixed spices, rice is also fit for all celebrations of all kind. Dried limes, cloves, cinnamon sticks and each household proprietary spice mixture give dish its zest. The meal is rounded with fresh fruits and desserts, followed by mint of green tea or Yemeni coffee. During the month of Ramadan, elaborate sweets are considered essential. The preference is likely to be fruit, local apples, apricots, grapes, figs, pomegranates. The common denominator is the flat, round Yemeni bread.

In Yemen, the art of cooking is still passed on from mother to daughter as it has always been. Nowadays, Sanaani women have begun to prepare dishes from other regions of Yemen than their own. Traditional dishes are thus preserved, but are also giving rise to new variations and new possibilities. As in the rest of Arabia, hospitality is an important cultural trait, and the hallmark of the Yemeni people. Customary, Iftar begins with dried dates and a drink, which is how the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) broke his fast some 14 centuries ago. A sip of qamar ad-din, a thickish drink prepared from sheets of dried, pressed apricots, chopped and poured with water.

It is the date palm which is the tree throughout the Arab peninsula, and even further. The date is divided into more than 100 genera. Spreading out from the Middle East, date palms were carried far and wide by Yemeni and Arab Muslim traders and travelers. Date is not simply valued as a dried food. Pressed into cakes, it is still used as feed for animals, the palm also provides the wood. Dates stones can be ground and mixed with other flour, and the result is a delicious nutty-tasting bread. The meal itself begins with a thick nourishing soap and sambusak, paper thin pastry made up in triangular shapes.

The most popular site to pray after Iftar is the Great mosque in the Old City of Sanaa. For many, praying tarawih with hundreds of others, the murmur of prayer in the Great mosque, is a scared experience. Lips were murmuring the words of the Most High without stammering or distortion

There are signs on earth for those whose faith is solid.
There are signs in yourself, do you not see them?
There are also good things in Heaven which are destined for you.

One keeps a thousand memories of the scared month. By eight o’clock, prayers are over and the area around the Great mosque in the Old City is bustling with activity. People are out shopping, or visiting. Here are the scents of rare perfumes, sounds and wares of the markets, incense burners, perfumed air, miniature Sanaani houses, jewelry, faint scent of spices, frankincense, herbs, henna stalls, finest grades of Yemeni coffee, which are their own shade of greenish-brown.

During the month of Ramadan, Yemeni coffee is spiced with saffron, cloves and other spices such as cardamom, all according to the preferences and the creativity of whoever prepares it. Popular conversation spots and an enduring scent that breathes of long tradition. For centuries before the coming of electricity, Sanaa was noted for its spectacular use of lantern to illuminate, especially during the scared month of Ramadan. Then lantern hung at the end of stalls. People would say with a smile that this was the shortest night of the year, that there was no point in sleeping. The "noble month" of Ramadan would produce the most spectacular nightly illuminations of the year.

In Sanaa you know the falling of its sands by the sounds. You are awakened in the time of stillness, between night and morning, in space of a day and a night, before the first call to prayer, the finest hour in the city. It was already daylight, but the fine crescent moon of the new day could still be seen. It is the moon, full or new, that the stages of a caravans used to be calculated.

After few hours we wake up and, with Muslims around the world, begins another day of fasting.