ISLAMABAD: Thousands of miles away from home, foreign students enrolled at Pakistan’s International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) said the holy month of Ramadan brought with it a yearning to be with friends and family members back home, and of course, a longing to relish their local food.
Around 2,000 foreign students from some 40 countries, from the Middle East to Africa, are enrolled in various courses at the IIUI, as per the university’s management, which makes special arrangements for the pre-dawn and evening sehri and iftar meals for international students. The meals can be purchased daily at subsidized rates throughout Ramadan.
Around 700 male foreign students live at the university’s hostels and come from various countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, China, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Others are day scholars who live off campus, often with their families, in rental units.
Foreign students prepare food at a private hostel in Islamabad, Pakistan on March 19, 2024. (AN Photo)
Foreign students often pooled money for iftar and sehri meals, Dr. Abdur Rehman, a visiting faculty member at IIUI and a representative of international students, told Arab News, saying they enjoyed breaking their fasts in the expansive, lush green lawns of the campus during evenings.
“In Ramadan, every foreign student, they miss their families first of all and their culture, their food and their friends,” Rehman, who hails from Uzbekistan andhas lived in Pakistan for the past 28 years, said.
Food items in the IIUI iftar spread include Rooh Afza, a popular rose-flavored drink, fritters, fried pastries known as samosas, and fruit and chana salads. But the special ingredient was eating together, which made international students feel at home, many told Arab News.
“We don’t feel too much that we are in a foreign country, we feel that we are in our own country,” Rehman said.
Abdulahi Iman Hassen, a 21-year-old student from Ethiopia who studies economics, echoed the sentiment.
“We live as a family and there are a lot of foreign students living here at IIUI,” Hassen told Arab News. “Mostly the foreign students eat their iftar as a common [activity], it feels like home.”
Haseen said he enjoyed traditional Pakistani foods such as biryani, minced meat, vegetables, aloo gosht, a meat and potato curry, and lentils.
But for Bahar Ahmad, an Afghan student of environmental sciences at the university, Ramadan brought with it the longing for Kabuli Pulao, a traditional Afghan dish made from steamed rice, spices, raisins and tender chunks of lamb or beef.
“Afghanistan has a first-class food culture” Ahmad said. “Sometimes we miss a little bit of Kabuli Pulao in Ramadan.”
