The 2nd Annual Ramadan Tent Project Open Iftar 

By Whitney Gomes

Muslim men line up for the call to prayer before the opening night Iftar, the breaking of one’s fast at dusk.

Last year, Sadaf Assadi and seven other Portland State University students organized the first Ramadan Tent Project Open Iftar in the United States.

Held in Beaverton, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, the three day event during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan offers anyone a chance to learn more about Islam and join the evening iftar meal, when Muslims break their daily Ramadan fast.

RTP volunteers Eman Al Turky and Fatima Hashmet serve the first round of food on opening night. May 26, 2017, the first day of Ramadan.

In 2016, the interfaith celebration was hosted by a Presbyterian church across the street from an Islamic center in Beaverton. This year it was held in a larger space, the Muslim Educational Trust (MET).

Organizers say opening night attendance doubled this year to over 600.

High-profile guests included Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and women’s rights activist Aneelah Afzali.

Father and son read the Quran together as community members begin filing in the gymnasium at the Muslim Educational Trust, where the Iftar took place.

The increased attendance and visibility may have been in part due to a deadly attack in Portland just 24 hours earlier. A man traveling on a light rail train shouted racial slurs at two young women, one of whom wore a hijab. He stabbed three men who intervened, killing two. The men who died were honored at the event.

The backbone of the project remained the same as the year before: conversation, community, prayer, and, of course, plenty of food. Guests lingered, eating and talking, well after the sun set and a thin new moon appeared.