'Safari Ramadan': A reappraisal of dhikr, culture and climate justice

It is Tahajjud time on April 7, 2022, and I have just landed at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. It was the first time in five years since my feet touched the ground of the ‘Motherland’ i.e Africa, and my first time in East Africa, a region I had long wanted to visit. It was also Ramadan.

Travelling during this blessed month should not be a novelty for the observant Muslim. In fact, the notion of traversing the earth is mentioned in the same Quranic verse which legislates compulsory fasting in Ramadan,  temporarily exempting the traveller – an exception and mercy.

The novelty of this trip was that I would experience safari during this blessed season, and with two work colleagues, Dominic from Kenya and Reagan who is Trinidadian.

"Going on safari in Kenya introduced me to a new way of experiencing Ramadan – by helping me to reevaluate my relationship with God through nature and finding out more about other African cultures along the way"

We wanted to see the ‘Big Five’. We accomplished that. I also wanted to pray on the continental soil of my ancestors in keeping with my Islamic spirituality, all the while having a different experience of Ramadan, even for a few days.

While there is great emphasis on performing acts of worship such as increasing one’s recitation of the Quran, secluded worship (i'tikaf) in one’s home and in the houses of Allah and giving charity, going on safari in Kenya introduced me to a new way of experiencing Ramadan – by helping me to reevaluate my relationship with God through nature and finding out more about other African cultures along the way.

And what a time I chose to go.

Ramadan literally means 'the hot month' and comes from the Arabic word 'ramad' which means 'to burn’ and ‘dryness'. The point behind fasting is for Muslims to obtain God-consciousness. 

Travelling on a Kenyan safari was an intentional clarifier for me, a means to draw into my spiritual core through using nature.

Kenya is a predominantly Christian country with Muslims making up 11% of its population according to the country’s 2019 census, many of whom can be found in the northeast and the country’s coastal area.

"Beyond the fledgling Muslim community, Nairobi is a hotbed of activity that is exquisite with bustle from colourful markets selling beautiful artefacts to the sounds of soukous music bursting from various restaurants that would serve street food"

Mosques in Nairobi for instance, are like emerald gems once you find them, whether that be the Bul Bul mosque with its brightly coloured walls, the Jamia Mosque which its towering green and silver minarets, or the Khoja Mosque, which was a cornerstone of the Ismaili community and finished completing its construction 100 years before my arrival in the city.

Beyond the fledgling Muslim community, Nairobi is a hotbed of activity that is exquisite with bustle from colourful markets selling beautiful artefacts to the sounds of soukous music bursting from various restaurants that would serve street food.

Due to the exemption to fast, I was treated to half a rack of roasted goat called nyama choma, and the popular Kenyan stuffed traditional sausage called mutura, prepared by fasting Muslim butchers.

After being collected by our Safari guide, who drove through the central part of Nairobi that included the presidential palace, government buildings and offices of the country’s state media, KTN, we ventured out towards Nauru National Park, where we arrived just as the dawn gave way to the sunrise.

It was breathtaking to witness, nothing but vast land grassland with huge mountains that reminded me of the mountains that I had seen during my time in Saudi Arabia on Hajj, including Mount Uhud.

There was a majestic aura about the landscape before us that reminded me of the beautiful creativity of Allah, and the only time the seamless green that stretched before we were interrupted, was when we stopped to let a group of zebras pass before us.

It was not before long we rode on a canoe boat onto Lake Nakuru where we encountered irritated hippopotamuses, curious gazelles and a haze of flamingos on the edges of its shores.

"There was a majestic aura about the landscape before us that reminded me of the beautiful creativity of Allah" 

After this, we traversed the park, bird-watching and encountering wildebeests and lions that were past their prime and were exiled from the pride they once led.

The circle of life and the temporal nature of the Dunya. However, it was difficult to ignore the impacts of the current climate crisis and the delicate balance with which Allah has created the earth’s ecosystems, which are now being threatened.

In the last decade, Lake Nakuru has experienced continuous flooding, increasing the lake area from 35 km2 in 2009 to 54 km2 in 2018.

This has been reported to impact negatively on the available space for wildlife. We witnessed this as we rode on the lake, which had flooded inland two years prior.

The top half of the tree, which once stood on dry land was deeply submerged in the water. In the nearby Mara river, rhino feeding patterns have been largely turned upside down.

Likewise, on the first part of our safari, we saw a series of wildebeests and other mammals struggling to feed from the land, which our guide told us had been overheated due to ‘extraordinary’ dry and hot weather in the area.

What comes to mind is the verse in which Allah says: “And the earth We have spread out (like a carpet); set thereon mountains firm and immovable; And produced therein all kinds of things in due balance. And We have provided therein means of subsistence – for you and for those for whose sustenance ye are not responsible.” (Qur’an Hijr: 19-20).

As the world struggles to adequately take action in warding off the extremes of a crisis that has already arrived, I was reminded of one of the important lessons Ramadan teaches us: the importance of shedding our passions that can be harmful to ourselves and those around of us, and how this is driven by a natural and innate consciousness of Allah.

We learn that our morals and ethics are in fact of existential importance and that our communities and environment reflect whether we as a collective are succeeding or failing in that regard, and what kind of ‘new cultures’ we must create to prevent the latter.

"Kenya is not just renowned for its incredible wildlife culture. Its human cultures are among the most recognised and beautiful on the continent and beyond"

At another morning venture, we went on a second safari stop in Nakuru National Park. It was picture-perfect. We saw a line of wildebeests stretching hundreds of yards, moving in the direction of the Serengeti, a protected area ecosystem between Tanzania and Kenya. Afterwards, we rode further out to see a pride of lions, hyenas, elephants and giraffes.

I used the opportunity to remember Allah through various forms of dhikr as the sun’s heat shrouded us. Those moments were accompanied by a beautiful serenity and tranquillity, and awe.

It is beautiful to remember Allah within the wall of a masjid, but we too can do this beyond the scope of the places we most associate with Ramadan. All the world is ripe for dhikr. 

Kenya is not just renowned for its incredible wildlife culture. Its human cultures are among the most recognised and beautiful on the continent and beyond.

Cultural affinity is rarely considered a barometer for heightened spirituality during this time, but as someone who was raised with pan-African sentimentality – the trip to Kenya was an opportunity for me to tap into my identity as a Muslim of African descent.

Swahili words such as ‘Habari’, ‘Sawa’, and ‘Asante’ flowed from my mouth every chance I could get, immersed in a lingual tradition that reflects the multicultural history of this part of the continent. 

Kenya has around 36 million people from more than 40 different ethnic groups, including the Kikuyu, Luhya, Luo, Kalenjin, Kamba, Meru and Swahili.  

Swahili or Kiswahili as it is also known as is greatly influenced by Arabic and dates back to contacts between Arab traders and peoples of the east coast of Africa for centuries.

But it is in its own right an African language, that is not just a lingua franca in the country, but in large parts of the continent including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Somalia, Comoros and as far as Oman and Yemen.

For me, this directly speaks to a verse that is oft-repeated whenever the topic of diversity within the global Muslim ummah emerges.

Allah says in the Qur’an, ‘O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another.’

For Muslims living in predominantly non-Muslim settings, Ramadan is a unique opportunity for this to be made into a reality in more intimate ways.

Our distinctive recipes, foods and languages are in the shared spaces masjids provide or at house iftars. But this Ramadan, food would not be the lens by which this verse would be etched in my mind.

Rather, it was when we left Lake Nakuru and embarked on to Narok county to our lodgings, Maasai Mara, where would later sleep in the great outdoors in a Kichwa Tembo Tented camp.

It is also near where the population of the Maasai people resided. The Maasai are indigenous Nilotic people that can be found in large groups in Kenya and northern Tanzania, and whose culture, according to Dominic has become Kenya’s main cultural signifier. 

I could see how that is because my first introduction to the Maasai was through the 1994 film The Air Up There.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by some of them dressed in their attire, the shuka cloth,  affectionately known as the “African blanket”.

Some of the men performed their famous ‘jumping dance’, called the Adumi, one of the rites that young warriors perform to advance into manhood. Their women also sang for me in beautiful acapella.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Maasai was the role that simplicity plays in their individual and communal lives, which has remarkably been left unchanged for centuries, including the co-existence they’ve had with the local wildlife.

We met Joseph who showed us inside his small and cosy mud hut, where his wife, newborn and two other children resided, we learned about the important role women played in the construction of the village, and the various development projects taking place to protect the cultural integrity of the community while assimilating them into a more modern lifestyle.

"One of the fascinating aspects of the Maasai was the role that simplicity plays in their individual and communal lives, which has remarkably been left unchanged for centuries, including the co-existence they’ve had with the local wildlife"

It might sound cliche to say that lifestyle was inspiring, and I dare not say that is their objective per se. I cannot speak for them. They are merely continuing a path that they found their ancestors upon and are very proud of the fact that people travel from all over the world want to know more about them and also meet their kin in countries where they’ve also communed.

I could however appreciate the parallels between this and the platitudes some Muslims often speak of the change Ramadan accentuates – the shedding of the weights and expectations of worldly life for the Muslim, all the while still very much being a part of it.

Towards the end of this adventure, I received the sad news that my grandfather’s brother and former Sierra Leonean ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Wusu Munu, had passed away following an illness.

It was heartbreaking, to say the least, but I was able to make a beautiful reconciliation with the fact that he knew he was loved by many family and friends and that Allah had decided to take his life during this blessed season.

"I learned that one may enter a blessed month such as Ramadan, but there is no guarantee that one will also see its end"

It was a striking metaphor for how easily our circumstances and current state of being can change in an instant.

But as I discovered on safari, that is a reality that implicates cultures and whole ecosystems. That night was a particularly difficult one. I learned that one may enter a blessed month such as Ramadan, but there is no guarantee that one will also see its end.

So as the days of Ramadan, 2023 are upon us and as millions around the world observe their daily fasts this month, I reflect and appreciate the beautiful memories, laughs, reflections and new experiences that happened during this short trip.

What was initially for me, an unorthodox trip of sorts for the season turned out to reveal and remind me of the beautiful complexities and lessons that the month teaches us, lessons that can also be found outside of it and in spaces that we rarely associate with it.

Adama Juldeh Munu is an award-winning journalist that's worked with TRT World, Al-Jazeera, the Huffington Post, Middle East Eye and Black Ballad. She writes about race, Black heritage and issues connecting Islam and the African diaspora.

Follow her on Twitter: @adamajmunu