Tarawih Break
"Ramadan nights are for prayer. But between the long tarawih sessions, there are breaks. His neighbor uses those breaks to teach him something other than Quran."
The tarawih prayers are long.
Twenty rakats, some nights. Thirty during the last ten days. Hours of standing, bowing, prostrating while the imam recites the Quran in the ancient way.
Most of the congregation stays the whole time.
Mama Khadija and I take breaks.
She lives next door.
Fifty-three, widowed, alone in a house too big for one person. During Ramadan, she comes to our house for iftar—my mother invites her, says no one should break fast alone.
After iftar, we walk to the mosque together. The men go to the main hall, the women to their section, and for hours we stand shoulder to shoulder with strangers, praying.
But the body is weak.
Hers and mine both.
The first break happens on the fourth night.
I slip out after the eighth rakat, needing air, needing to stretch legs that have been standing too long. In the courtyard of the mosque, I find her—Mama Khadija, leaning against a pillar, breathing hard.
"Yusuf." She looks embarrassed. "I couldn't—the standing—my legs—"
"It's long tonight."
"It's long every night." She shifts, her body massive beneath her abaya—two-fifty at least, heavy and tired. "I used to manage. Before my husband died. Now..."
"Now?"
"Now I take breaks. The scholars say it's permissible. The prayers are voluntary." She looks at me. "What's your excuse?"
"Same as yours. The standing."
She laughs. "You're young. Strong. What's really going on?"
I don't answer. I don't know how to say that I've been watching her for months—through the walls between our houses, through the gaps in the conversation at iftar. That I take breaks because I know she takes breaks.
"Walk with me," she says. "Around the compound. Just until we're ready to go back."
I walk with her.
The walks become ritual.
Every night, after the eighth rakat, we slip out. Circle the mosque compound. Talk about nothing—the weather, the Quran recitation, the length of the prayers.
But the talking is getting shorter.
And the silences are getting longer.
The tenth night, she stumbles.
Her leg gives out—exhaustion, maybe, or the fasting—and I catch her. My arms wrap around her, her weight pressing against me, and for a moment we're frozen.
"Thank you." Her voice is strange.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Just—tired." She doesn't pull away. "The fasting. The prayers. Everything."
"Maybe you should go home."
"Maybe." She still doesn't pull away. "But then I wouldn't have this."
"This?"
"These breaks. With you." She finally steps back, looks at me. "You're the only good part of Ramadan this year."
"Mama Khadija—"
"Don't." She shakes her head. "Don't call me that. Not when you look at me the way you do."
"The way I—"
"I'm a widow, Yusuf. Not blind."
We don't go back to the mosque that night.
Instead, we walk to her house—just next door, close enough that no one notices. The prayers continue without us, the imam's voice drifting through the night air.
Inside, she removes her hijab.
"This is wrong," she says. "It's Ramadan. The holiest month."
"I know."
"We're supposed to be fasting from all desires. Not just food."
"I know."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because you asked me to walk with you." I step closer. "And I'm still walking."
She kisses me first.
Her mouth tastes like dates and desperation—the iftar we shared hours ago, the hunger she's been carrying for years. Her body presses against mine, soft and heavy, and I feel her need like a physical force.
"The fast is broken at Maghrib," she whispers. "Food, water, physical pleasure—all permissible until Fajr."
"I know."
"So this—what we're doing—technically—"
"Is between sunset and sunrise." I pull her closer. "We're not breaking any rules."
"We're breaking all the rules." But she doesn't stop. "Just not the fasting ones."
I take her to her bedroom.
The same house where she's lived alone since her husband died. The same bed where she's slept alone every night. I lay her down, unwrap her abaya, reveal the body that's been hidden under widow's clothes for years.
Fifty-three. Two hundred and fifty pounds. Soft with age and loneliness. Her breasts hang heavy, her belly rounds outward, her thighs spread wide beneath me.
"I'm not beautiful," she says.
"You're exactly beautiful."
"You're young. You could have anyone—"
"I want you." I kiss her neck, her shoulders, her massive breasts. "I've wanted you since Ramadan started."
"Before Ramadan."
"Before Ramadan." I move lower, kissing her belly, her thighs. "Since long before Ramadan."
I worship her in the night between prayers.
My mouth on her until she comes, then again until she's shaking. When I finally enter her, she gasps—years since she's felt this, a lifetime since she's felt wanted.
"The prayers—" she manages. "They're still going—"
"Let them go." I thrust slowly. "This is our prayer."
"Haram."
"Beautiful."
She wraps her legs around me, pulls me deeper. In the distance, the imam's voice recites Al-Mulk. Inside this room, we recite something else entirely.
We finish just before the prayers end.
Dress quickly. Return to our respective homes. When the congregation disperses, no one knows we were gone.
"Tomorrow night," she whispers at her door. "After the eighth rakat."
"Tomorrow night."
The breaks become our Ramadan.
Every night, after the early prayers, we slip away. To her house. To her bed. We take what the rules technically allow—the night hours, the physical pleasures permitted between iftar and suhoor.
"We're not breaking fast," she rationalizes. "We're not eating or drinking during the day."
"We're breaking something else."
"The spirit of the law." She traces circles on my chest. "But not the letter."
"Does the distinction matter?"
"To Allah?" She's quiet for a moment. "I don't know. To me?" She kisses me. "This is the first Ramadan I haven't wanted to end."
The last ten nights approach.
The holiest nights. The nights when Laylat al-Qadr might fall—the Night of Power, worth a thousand months. The nights when everyone prays hardest, longest, most sincerely.
"We should stop," she says. "For the last ten nights."
"If you want."
"I don't want." She pulls me close. "But we should."
We try.
We last three nights.
On the twenty-fourth, we break again—harder, more desperate, knowing Ramadan is ending and our excuse with it.
"What happens after Eid?" I ask.
"I don't know." She's heavy on my chest, her body warm against mine. "This was supposed to be—just for Ramadan. Just for the breaks."
"And now?"
"Now I don't want it to end."
Ramadan ends.
Eid comes and goes. The tarawih prayers stop. The excuse for our breaks disappears.
We find new excuses.
"I need help with my roof." She doesn't.
"I'm bringing my mother's food." I am, but I stay longer than necessary.
"I saw a light on." I did. It was the light in her bedroom.
Months later, I marry her.
Quietly. Privately. The community whispers—she's so much older, they say. She was his neighbor, his mother's friend. What kind of match is that?
They don't know about the tarawih breaks.
They don't know that we found each other in the holy month, in the space between prayers, in the hours when desire is permitted.
"Do you think Allah forgives us?" she asks on our wedding night. The first night we're together legally, officially, without excuses.
"I think Allah brought us together." I pull her close. "In the holiest month. In the holiest prayers. Maybe that means something."
"Maybe it means we're damned."
"Or blessed." I kiss her. "I choose to believe blessed."
Tarawih.
Night prayers.
With breaks for something holier.
Something just for us.