Community Corner

Farmington Valley Muslim Group Hopes to Find a Home, Forge Friendship

Group members invite the community to break fast with them during Ramadan.

As the sun rises today, Muslims across the Farmington Valley are also rising to greet this first day of Ramadan, the holy month in which Muslims celebrate the revelation of the Koran.

The month is marked by fasting from sunrise to sunset each day, a sacrifice that brings many rewards, explained Noora Brown and Khamis Abu-Hasaballah, who live in Farmington with their three children.

“It’s a month of reflection, empathy with those who have not and really a month of spiritual renewal and cleansing,” Abu-Hasaballah said.

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Brown said that while fasting from 3 a.m. to sunset – usually around 8:20 p.m. in the summer – “you do get quite hungry. But you deprive yourself of something to reach closer to God… The people do it willingly. It’s not seen as a burden or depriving themselves. They look forward to this month every year - it’s like a reset button. This is the month you recharge your batteries.”

It’s a time unlike any other for Muslims. 

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“You don’t feel the spirit outside of Ramadan the same. You can do the same thing [but] it’s not the same,” Abu-Hasaballah said.

There’s also an element of community support, as Muslims will call each other to encourage each other in the fast. And the breaking of the fast at sunset each night is a joyous occasion, one in which families and sometimes congregations gather to celebrate together.

But the closest mosques are in Berlin and Windsor – a ways away – and so the couple, along with several others in Avon and West Hartford, joined together to form the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center.

The group, which incorporated as a nonprofit in January 2013, will be celebrating the breaking of the fast together each Saturday night at the hall of the Avon Congregational Church and is extending an invitation to congregations of other faiths as well as anyone who would like to attend.

“We will have potluck and prayer,” Abu-Hasaballah explained though visitors would likely be present for about 5 minutes of prayer. “Others are welcome to come and enjoy friendship and a good meal. We don’t want to give any lectures or seminars.”

Since many of the Farmington Valley’s Muslim families come from other countries, the feast will include a variety of international cuisine.

Inviting their neighbors to break fast during Ramadan is only the beginning of the steps the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center hopes to take to forge friendship within the community.

The group hopes to find a permanent home in the Farmington Valley soon and to create a place that will nurture their children as well as their neighbors’. Brown said they envision basketball courts, maybe a running club, open to all children. 

Both through the Saturday evenings in Ramadan and later at the center’s permanent home, the group hopes Farmington Valley families – Muslim and non-Muslim – will be able to get to know each other.

“Part of overcoming fear is just getting to know one another,” Brown said. “People only know what they hear in the news – but we’re people who live in the community, have children and care about the same kind of issues.”

Indeed, many people in the area know them - doctors, lawyers, parents. Brown, an active Farmington mother. Abu-Hasaballah, an AVP of technology at UConn Health Center, also coaches soccer, is a member of the WD40 (West District over 40) soccer team and runs with a group from Avon’s Valley Community Baptist Church. 

“We want it to be an open door and an open heart,” Brown said.

Visitors are welcome to come to the Avon Congregational Church hall at 6 West Main St., Avon, around 8 p.m. for the next four Saturdays. The group will break fast with dates and water and a call to prayer (about 5 minutes), followed by the meal. Visitors are welcome to leave then or stay for the nightly prayers, which could last an hour or two.

To RSVP, email info@fvamc.org.


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