Students break bread and build bonds at MSA Fast-a-Thon

Princeton’s Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) gathered in Frist Campus Center’s multipurpose room to celebrate the conclusion of its annual Fast-a-Thon on Friday, March 21. The Fast-a-Thon is one of the club’s biggest events of the year, inviting non-Muslim students to participate in one day of fasting for Ramadan. This year, the day began with a pre-dawn ‘suhoor’ (the early morning fast-breaking meal) in the Whitman-Butler dining hall at 4:30 a.m. and ended at 7:15 p.m. with a buffet-style ‘iftar’ (the evening fast-breaking meal) featuring South Asian cuisine.

MSA co-President Zoha Khan ’26 emphasized that all were welcome at iftar, whether they fasted or not.

“What MSA always tries to [be about] is the idea of making community, of bringing the community together, and I think that’s what Fast-a-Thon really is,” she told The Daily Princetonian.

Maya Stori ’28 attended Fast-a-Thon alongside her friend Faleehah Dam ’28, and said that her primary motivation was originally to “support [her] friend, because [she] could tell it mean[t] a lot” that she joined Dam to break her fast. But once she was in the room, Stori said she was struck by the “size of the community” present as well. Approximately 250–300 people attended the iftar.

Dam, who had participated in MSA events throughout Ramadan, praised the club, the University, and its staff for helping students balance fasting with academics.

“I’m super grateful to the dining hall staff, because they’ve been super accommodating — especially with [suhoor] meals — about letting us get as much as we need to be able to sustain [ourselves] through the day,” she said. She noted that University accommodations — such as extra meal points and opportunities to pick up breakfast foods in advance at the Frist C-Store — had been “really helpful,” because it meant “one less thing [we] have to worry about during the day.”

Khan and the rest of MSA leadership planned ahead of time to accommodate members, nearly all of whom were accompanied by friends.

“It takes a lot of Instacart ordering, a lot of asking [the] Projects Board for money along with every department on campus,” she said.

MSA organized four buffet tables’ worth of catering for the event, and Khan said the club spent time cultivating a welcoming atmosphere to greet newcomers who had never participated in Ramadan celebrations. “[Fast-a-Thon] is also about learning about other people, reaching out to them, asking how we can get fasting integrated with their lives, how fasting applies to them, and really just showing the commonalities between our Islamic life and their own,” she said.

It was this opportunity to make interfaith connections which made Fast-a-Thon meaningful to Dam. “Fast-a-Thon, for me, means being able to share our tradition with other people, [to] show them what Ramadan’s about. It’s not just about fasting … there’s the aspect of community and just bringing people together and just fostering a sense of love.”

Leela Hensler is a staff news writer for the ‘Prince’ from Berkeley, California.

Please direct any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com