Enab Baladi – Ghazal Sallat
The month of Ramadan has always been associated in Syrian memory with family gatherings and a spirit of togetherness that fills homes and gathering places. However, the ousted Assad regime, for more than a decade, has played a significant role in fragmenting this social fabric through killing and displacement, making family gatherings a distant dream for many Syrians.
Today, after years of separation and long days in exile, Syrians are once again gathering around a single table, in a scene that evokes simple details they have missed for many years.
This year, Ramadan has returned, bringing with it a different taste, uniting families and restoring the gatherings that have been absent for many Syrian families, according to some who spoke to Enab Baladi.
A long-awaited reunion
This year, many Syrians will experience an exceptional event, as they gather once again with their families around the Ramadan table. However, their great joy is accompanied by mixed emotions, balancing happiness in reunion with fear of returning to an unstable reality.
“Like fairy tales,” this is how Ola Hamish described the family gathering at the iftar table, pointing out her immense joy after returning to Syria nearly a month ago.
Hamish said, “After 13 years, coming together with the family at iftar feels like a long-awaited gift, like that moment when a person holds their firstborn.”
The family reunion at iftar is considered the first joy after 13 Ramadans, “just like someone waiting for the arrival of a child after a long time.”
She added that her first day of Ramadan was “extremely beautiful,” as the family gathered with the grandchildren who were born in exile, around a table filled with delicious food.
Nur Derani, who returned to Syria after a long absence, could not hide her happiness when asked about her feelings of spending Ramadan with her family in her homeland after years of separation.
Derani told Enab Baladi, “My feelings are conflicted, between fear of returning and excitement to see my family, but since the journey coincides with Ramadan, joy overwhelms everything else.”
Derani imagines the smile that will light up her parents’ faces as they sit with her son, sharing iftar with tears of joy in that moment.
She tries to transcend the complexities of the political scene and focus on the moment of reunion after eight years of absence, especially since it will be the first time her son spends Ramadan among family members who will meet him for the first time.
Derani feels that her moments of gathering with her family at the Ramadan table are “a miracle coming true,” indicating that these moments have been for her “a long-awaited dream.”
She added, “I had lost hope of living these moments before.”
As for Nasim Ismail, she feels that returning at this time gives her a piece of her lost soul, saying, “My feelings are indescribable; I am excited to hear the call to prayer in Syria again and for the family reunion I have long missed.”
She imagines her first iftar filled with emotions and memories in the embrace of family, saying, “It will be my first iftar surrounded by laughter and the smell of food that I have missed. I feel like I will cry with joy; it will be an extraordinary moment, as if I am compensating for all the past years in a single moment.”
Ismail, a mother of three children, expressed her happiness at her children returning to Syria during Ramadan, saying, “My kids are excited to experience Ramadan for the first time among family and the true Ramadan atmosphere that I have been trying to convey to them during our time in exile.”
Ramadan in exile
In exile, Ramadan feels strange, unlike the one Syrians left behind, after being dispersed around the world, leaving behind homes and streets that once echoed with their voices around iftar tables.
Despite their attempts in host countries to revive the Ramadan atmosphere through iftar invitations and gatherings coupled with some Syrian traditions, Ramadan in Syria remains “a void that cannot be filled with dishes or revived by gatherings.”
Ramadan has lost its taste in exile, as Nur Derani described it, living in Turkey with her husband and young son, pointing out that her child has not yet grasped the meaning of Ramadan, and “he thinks it is one of our holidays. No matter how hard we try to bring back the atmosphere, it always feels somewhat dull and lacking.”
For Ola Hamish, the Ramadan atmosphere has lost its meaning in exile as well; it has become merely a meal after a day of fasting. In Syria, Ramadan has always meant families gathering around a single table.
Hamish confirmed that Ramadan in Syria carries a special meaning, accompanied by joy and unique rituals, beginning with family gatherings and ending with various traditional sweets and dishes.
However, in the country where she lived, she found no trace of those rituals.
Nasim Ismail misses the spiritual and communal atmosphere that Ramadan in Syria is characterized by, where it was not just fasting and feasting for her, but daily rituals she lived in all their details.
Ismail believes that her children have lost many of the details that distinguish the month of Ramadan in exile, as they have not experienced large family gatherings, nor do they know what it means for a child to walk down the street carrying his lantern and singing, or to wake up to the sound of the Syrian “musaharati” instead of a phone alarm.
She added, “This year, Ramadan in Syria will be a new experience for them, as they will experience for the first time the atmosphere I lived in at their age.”
After a long wait, Syrians have returned to gather around their tables following years of absence, filling the places that were void of them, with the noise of homes, the sounds of laughter, and the clatter of plates, competing to arrange the table in a moment they have long wished for.