There is something lonely about Ramadan. For somebody from Cairo, arguably the Muslim world's most active city during the holy month, the relative quiet of Abu Dhabi - not to mention separation from family and friends - feels sad. Because throughout the Muslim world, Ramadan is not only an occasion for piety, solidarity and the gathering of the ranks of army-sized extended families, but equally a kind of festival of the arts - and the Cairo version of that festival remains the more absorbing, at least for an Egyptian. The many Muslim heritage-orientated activities - from solemn dhikr or invocation ceremonies to shisha-filled evening tents, from experimental theatre to Arabic calligraphy exhibitions - are something I have certainly missed about Cairo since my first crescent sighting in the Emirates - an occasion that, think what you will of it year after year, would never have passed so quietly or in the company of so few people in my birthplace.
In my own little way, to make up, I've staged a tiny, one-sad-man Ramadan festival at my apartment - to which I haven't mustered the oomph to invite non-Muslim friends - at this time of year, the only kind I have in this land of expatriates. The programme comprises - among other things - sessions with the celebrated munshid, or chanter Yassin El-Tohami on my iPod, late-night snacks of dried fruit and nuts with that beautifully named apricot drink known as qamar ad din, Moon of Religion (the ready-made variety, of course), and the occasional plunge into the Arabs' largest, most psychedelic sea of stories, The Thousand and One Nights.
Until I leave for Cairo, where I should catch the tail end of the festive atmosphere before Eid, the programme is ongoing. Yet there is one thing about Ramadan that Abu Dhabi has not managed to change for me: the sudden, somewhat disorienting disruption of the daily routine. Governed by the two main meals of the day - iftar at sunset and suhoor as late before the dawn prayers as possible - life in Ramadan, whether in Cairo or in Abu Dhabi, tends to make the day briefer and the post-iftar evening much longer. Whether you fast or you don't fast, even when you have effectively locked yourself up with your iPod and a glass of qamar ad din, the effect is the same: you are grumpy and eager to cut short your work day, you stay up very late and you spend far too much time reading The Thousand One Nights.
And least I do. And a good thing, as well: this way at least Ramadan in Abu Dhabi isn't as lonely as it might be.
@email:yrakha@thenational.ae