In the Spring of 2022, I spent the last nights of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha in Havana, Cuba.
I made it to Mezquita Abdallah, the only mosque in the whole country, before the sun went down — I’d missed the Eid prayer entirely, but I was able to sit around a table and talk with some of the women there.
They told me what it was like to be Muslim in Cuba; many of them were converts like me, and few had Muslim families aside from the ones they made from scratch. Since I left Cuba in 2022, life there has gotten a lot worse.
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International Women’s Day is coming up on March 8th. Around the world, women and families are bearing the brunt of brutal U.S. sanctions and militarism, and Cuba is no different. I’ve kept in touch with the women of the Havana mosque through a collection of WhatsApp messages, phone calls, and voice notes. This year, in the days leading up to the holy month of Ramadan, I conducted a series of interviews with them. In the wake of Trump’s complete blockade of oil to the island, these women face an intensifying struggle to survive and provide for their families. Muslims in Cuba are entering one of the most beloved times of the year while grappling with a level of scarcity that is unimaginable to most. The women I talked to will ring in International Women’s Day trying to balance the strains of living under a blockade while fasting for Ramadan.
For Cuba’s tiny Muslim community, the electricity blackouts, the food shortages, and the sharp reduction of public transportation make it increasingly difficult to participate in all the traditions that come with Ramadan.
“For most people, it’s very difficult to access the mosque during Ramadan,” said a 36-year-old mother. “There is no reliable transportation due to the lack of fuel. Many of us will have to stay home to break our fast because we live far away from the mosque. Without transportation, it becomes almost impossible to get there.”
Muslims who don’t live at the center of Havana’s old city (and most of them don’t) can’t pray at the mosque during the holiest month of the year. Lack of access to food on the island as a whole naturally leads to less access to non-pork options and halal meats, and the mosque is generally a place where halal foods would be distributed.
A single woman from the Mosque remarked that oftentimes, Muslims in Cuba practice their faith without any family support.
Source: Global Research
