As a number of Muslim students are celebrating Ramadan this year, ASU’s Muslim Students’ Association is hoping to expand its membership further.

“Last year we had 80 members,” the association’s president, Ali Alnamani, said. “We’re still collecting membership this year, so we might have 150.”

Members have met with Muslims from all over the Valley to observe the holiday at the Islamic Community Center (ICC) in Tempe since it began Aug. 22. Members gather at the community center’s mosque each evening before sunset.

The club’s members honor Ramadan, which is 30 days of daily fasting, prayer and readings of the Islamic holy book, the Quran.

“We’re always collecting new members throughout the year,” Alnamani said, adding that the club collected more than 10 new students last week.

Alnamani, a bioengineering graduate student, said Ramadan is a time to cleanse the body and mind so that Muslims can better themselves in their principles of faith. He said the 30 days of fasting is a true test of their religion.

“Many people are hungry in the world. It is different when you experience the hunger,” he said.

Alnamani, who frequents the ICC daily to pray, also helps manage a booth outside of the Memorial Union, raising awareness for the Muslim Students’ Association.

In addition to MSA providing a network for Muslim students at ASU, the group also prides itself on doing charity work and educating those in the Tempe area who wish to know more about Islam and Muslim culture, he said.

MSA’s biggest event of the year is called Fast-A-Thon, an event for students who want to experience Ramadan for one day.

“We invite non-Muslims to try [fasting] for a day. No eating, no drinking down until sunset and then they tell us about their experience,” Alnamani said.

It is held every year in the third week of Ramadan and will fall on Sept. 11 this semester.

Several local Muslim stores will donate one dollar for each non-Muslim person who participates, and the proceeds will benefit food banks in the Tempe area.

MSA receives a large portion of its support from the ICC, which was established in 1984.

ICC office manager and former MSA president Nazeef Ebrahim continues to be involved with MSA, though he graduated several years ago.

“Every year it varies. It can be simply funding or hosting activities to doing national conferences together,” Ebrahim said. “If it is something they’re doing through the community, we’re doing it through MSA to make sure everything aligns and comes into place.”

Ebrahim said he takes pride in working at the mosque and said MSA and the ICC have always been connected.

Ebrahim’s father designed the first blueprints to the mosque in the early 1980s.

“This is the first mosque I’ve really started practicing at and coming to, so this kind of became a home,” Ebrahim said.

As with Ebrahim, the ICC is a big part of other local Muslims’ lives — Friday services during Ramadan can draw anywhere from 300 to 500 people.

Ahmed Owais, the Imam, or leader of worship at the ICC, said between 50 and 100 people attend each of his five daily prayer services throughout the holiday.

“During Ramadan our numbers are higher,” Owais said. The ICC is convenient for those in the Tempe Muslim community, especially for those who attend ASU, he said.

“Pleasing everyone is challenging because of the pressures from dealing with so many different cultures,” Owais said. “But everyone usually tells me that they like the service.”

Reach the reporter at dbjoraas@asu.edu.