Ramadan: Prayer, fasting and inter-religious exchange

(Vatican Radio) Muslims from Morocco to Afghanistan will begin the toughest Ramadan in more than three decades this weekend, at the first sighting of the crescent moon. For many the month of prayer, almsgiving and fasting is taking place during the hottest time of the year.

Ramadan – the month which commemorates revelations of the Muslim holy book, the Quran to Muhammad - is also a time of gathering for families and communities during Iftar meals to break fasting after sundown.

Mustafa Cenap Aydin is the director of the Rome based Tevere Institute for inter-religious dialogue. He says there is also a social dimension to the observance of Ramadan and that it can become a propitious time to further inter-religious understanding.

Originally from Muslin majority Turkey, he says experiencing Ramadan in a Christian majority country like Italy has helped him to discover another part of the fasting: “Here I can share this moment with different friends coming from different traditions. For instance I have been invited by different Catholic, Christian and Jewish friends for Iftar dinners, in which we are learning each others experience, and share this moment of peace and inter-religious exchange”. Listen to his full interview with Emer McCarthy: