Ramadan 2023: how the cost of living crisis will affect Muslims fasting this year

The cost of living crisis has left many people unable to afford basic necessities, such as food, household bills and petrol. With prices skyrocketing and inflation soaring, the way people observe religious events is also changing.

For many, Ramadan begins on Thursday 23 March and will last for the full 30 days, with Eid predicted to take place on 21 April. Muslims around the world will be observing a dry fast from sunrise to sunset in line with the Islamic faith. For most Muslims, this means changes in the way meals are prepared, how often they go out to the mosque and even turning around their social life.

But how is the cost of living crisis impacting on the lives of Muslims in the UK as they prepare for Ramadan?

‘It’s a difficult time’

Yusha Jung, 24, is a student at SOAS university. He thinks the economic climate will have an effect this year. “Ramadan is a time of community and being with family for Muslims. Even if that’s not necessarily the main purpose of it, it definitely tends to be that way anyway. During this month, people tend to feast as they eat together, and this year that will have to be toned down a bit.

“I’ll have to go out for meals less and try to stick to more and more simple meals as I can only afford a certain number of evenings out at restaurants. Even with my friends, we will lean towards cheaper options because everyone knows it’s a difficult time. So you don’t want to suggest something extravagant knowing that some of your friends might be struggling a little bit with their finances.

“However, in other ways, we will save some money too. Because we’re not eating during the day we can plan our meals more easily - we know our eating times, and that makes it easier if anything, as there is less surprise spending.”

Ramadan is one of the busiest times of year for Muslims. It involves weeks of preparation, with some people gearing up to fulfil more religious or spiritual goals or bulk-buying dry food to make preparing meals for Iftar easier after a long day. However, with the preparation comes increased costs.

Shazia Arshad from Islamic Relief explains: “Ramadan does mean increased costs because families are spending money on celebrating the month of Ramadan with their families and their communities. But because of the increasing cost of food and the increasing cost of energy, they’re going to be having to watch their pennies and struggling to make ends meet when they should be celebrating and enjoying the spirit of Ramadan.”

Omar Hajaj, 32, is the director of Yaseen Youth Development. He is feeling the brunt of the increased costs, but not just on food prices: “The cost of living crisis affects me personally with the prices of food and transport increasing. Rent is also a big issue. I have been renting a one-bedroom flat for the last four year - and there are four of us - me, my wife and our two children. I can’t move as I get rejected from referencing and I have looked into property.

“It’s affected us because at home, it’s crowded, and we wanted to focus on our worship and having family time but we can’t. Ramadan is a busy time for me so I’ll be travelling across the country to fundraise for our youth organisation so I don’t have enough time to look into property, and do viewings.”

Muslims increasingly turning to food banks 

The cost of living crisis has pushed the most vulnerable in society towards using food banks, although the support isn’t always there, according to Shazia. “We work with food bank partners around the country, and they’re consistently telling us that food bank usage is going up, the number of referrals that they’re having is going up, but they’re not getting the support that they need and they’re not getting the donations that they need.

“We hope Muslim families are able to access food banks during Ramadan, but that’s only going to be possible if the food banks themselves are able to run.”

Omar adds: “I imagine that many more people will go to the mosque to break their fast with a free Iftar meal if they can. In previous years this would have been more of a social thing, but now people need more help."

He continues: “This year, we’ll be linking our donations to the youth group back to Givematch. The match-funding service offered by the platform means we can make twice the impact – and that’s vital when so many people need our support.”

Despite the challenges, getting people to talk about how the cost of living crisis is affecting them this Ramadan is proving to be difficult, as Shazia explains: “There are a lot of families out there struggling but sadly, they don’t want to share their story and we’ll talk about it but they don’t want to talk about it publicly. But this is not just a problem for them, this is a wider problem going on in their community and in society so it’s something that they can’t escape.

“There are families I’ve spoken to in the past where mothers say ‘Well, I’m not going to eat because I’m going to make sure that my children have some food. Maybe I won’t eat and what I’ll do is just have a little bit of food in the morning before I start fasting.’ To hear stories like that in 21st century Britain is really, really concerning.”

How will Eid be affected? 

Eid al Fitr is well known for its gifts. It is during this time that children especially receive a lot of sweets and small gifts. This year could be different however, as Omar explains: “My family is quite large, and each gift costs a lot so that is something that might have to be considered. We’ll have to consider shortening the list”

Shazia also thinks the custom will be affected: “We’ve come out of the pandemic, we’ve walked into the cost of living crisis and families are facing really horrible decisions about how they’re going to make ends meet. The last thing they’re able to do is think about ‘how do I get an Eid gift for my child?’ which is ordinarily something they could do in previous times. We send out Eid gifts to those who won’t be receiving any but it’s a really stark reminder that there’s just so many people in desperate need.”