Lynn-Tyre Lundy Evans, program assistant for multicultural student affairs, said she has been looking forward to this all year.

“The week before Ramadan I get very nervous, I start getting prepared a month before,” she said.

However, preparation for this month-long celebration looks quite a bit different from the way most Americans are used to getting ready for a holiday.

Instead of putting up decorations and baking cookies, Evans said she has been practicing going without food and water for long periods of time, preparing her body for a 30-day fast.

Sept. 1 marked the first day of Ramadan, a month-long Muslim celebration commemorating the month when the prophet Mohammed received the Quran from the angel Gabriel, according to Muslim tradition. Evans said Muslims worldwide go without food or water from sunrise to sunset during this month.

Evans said she has been a Muslim for 10 years, and the 30-day fast hasn’t gotten much easier for her since then.

“It is now like it was then: hard. But it’s rewarding. You’re doing it for yourself to get closer to Allah. Not having your basic needs humbles you.”

Yassir Mahmoud, senior in construction engineering, has been celebrating Ramadan since he was a child and said refraining from food and water is just a small part of what it means to fast.

“That’s a minuscule part of what fasting is. It’s not even the hardest part,” he said. “The hardest part is refraining from everything that’s immoral — cussing, harsh teasing, even looking at girls in lustful ways.”

Omar Manci, senior in accounting, agrees with Mahmoud. “I’ve been fasting since I was seven or eight, you get used to that. If you get really stressed out one day and you just want to curse and go off, you can’t. You don’t get used to that.”

Mahmoud and Manci were both raised in Muslim households. Mahmoud’s family moved to the United States from Saudi Arabia when he was a teenager and Manci said he was born in the U.S. to a Palestinian father and an American mother.

Manci grew up in Ames and said it was sometimes hard to celebrate Ramadan while none of his friends at school knew what it was.

“None of the other kids understand why you can’t eat while they’re eating around you,” he said. “But I think it’s a good thing because it’s a test of your faith, to see if you can stick to what you believe.”

Ahmed Kamal, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was born in Egypt and said it is entirely different to celebrate Ramadan in an American rather than in a predominantly Muslim country.

“The signs of Ramadan are everywhere,” he said. “Everything around you reminds you of the holy month.”

Manci said he visits his extended family in the Middle East from time to time, and that he wishes he could have spent Ramadan with them.

“I would much rather be with my family in the Middle East, fasting with them and experiencing Ramadan as an entire country where everyone is fasting. People take time off work, work gives people shortened hours and there are no exams during that month.”

Unfortunately for Muslim students in America, exams are often scheduled during the month of Ramadan. Mahmoud remembered one night when he had to break his fast during a chemistry exam.

“That was the worst,” he said. “I had to stop and eat, and everyone looked at me like ‘what is he doing?’”

Despite the challenges, Mahmoud and Manci said fasting during the month of Ramadan is a way of showing dedication to God that can be beneficial in many ways.

“It makes me feel a lot of solidarity with other Muslims in the world who are suffering, who don’t have the abundance that we have over here,” Manci said.

Evans agreed with Mahmoud and Manci.

“Fasting is a very cleansing process, it’s almost like a rebirth,” Evans said.

Evans said since the dates for the month of Ramadan are based on a lunar calendar, the fast gets about 10 days earlier every year. This means that by 2015, Ramadan will span from mid-June to mid-July, when the sun will be up for around 14 hours every day.

Manci said he is not looking forward to that month.

“That will be very, very hard. I’m probably going to have to shut down during that month.”

Evans said she knows she will still be excited for Ramadan, even when it falls in June.

“We’ll be fasting until 10-something at night and that’s going to be difficult, but I’m looking forward to it, because when you meet the challenges you feel better,” she said.