Fasting is a key part of Ramadan, but for many Muslims, climate change is making food scarce all year

By Nasya Bahfen, La Trobe University

Every Ramadan, volunteers at Westall Mosque and OneSpace in Melbourne hold free weekly iftars (communal dinners to break the fast in Ramadan). This year, volunteers say numbers are up.

To cut down on the resulting landfill, attendees are asked to bring their own reusable food containers and water bottles. In dedicated bins, bottles and cans are collected and recycled under the state government’s container deposit scheme - adding A$12 to A$25 every weekend to each mosque’s coffers, volunteers say.

Many of the attendees are international students from Indonesia or Malaysia. Living away from their families, paying high tuition fees, and juggling precarious work with studies, they represent a segment of Australian society particularly hard hit by rising costs of living. These include a jump in food prices stemming from global warming-induced crop failures.

This is a small example of a global problem. The way Muslims around the world experience Ramadan is changing because of climate change, often for the worse.

Food insecurity all year round

Like members of Australia’s other Islamic communities, Melbourne Muslims of Indonesian background make up a privileged minority, living in a prosperous, peaceful country.

Muslims in other parts of the world face exacerbated challenges.

Several of the countries thought to be the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are countries with Muslim majority populations (such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan).

In the Middle East and North Africa where Muslim majority countries abound, the World Food Program describes a “persistent food security crisis”.

In this region devastated by conflict and climate change, the World Food Program says the practice of abstaining from food (temporarily, as a religious tradition) has become an ongoing reality for millions throughout the year.

Food insecurity is made worse in the Middle East and North Africa by the aridity of the region, which contains 12 of the world’s driest countries. These include Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar, the Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen.

Read Full Story https://theconversation.com/fasting-is-a-key-part-of-ramadan-but-for-many-muslims-climate-change-is-making-food-scarce-all-year-225778