Ramadan in aisle 7
How corporate inclusion flattens a sacred month
The lead-up to Ramadan has always felt sacred to me.
I used to find the holiday in the bustling bazaar set up inside my local mosque. Walking in meant being hit with the rich scent of oud perfume, hearing Maher Zain (the Mariah Carey of Ramadan) playing on low-quality speakers, and seeing strings of lights, decorative trays and toys tugged by impatient kids. Vendors boasted abayas from Turkey, spices from Syria and dates from Palestine. And don’t even get me started on the endless trays of sweets.
It was in all of this that I found Ramadan, a season built by community and sustained by diverse small businesses.
So when I walked into a Walmart a few years ago and found a shelf decorated with crescent moons and lanterns, I couldn’t help but feel defensive.
Ramadan is a holiday celebrated by approximately two billion Muslims worldwide. For a month during the year, we fast from sunrise to sunset, practicing patience, steadfastness and charity, to empathize with the less fortunate and to strengthen our faith.
While waiting for the sun to go down, we don’t spend our time buying or flaunting expensive decorations. Instead, we share it with family, friends and fellow Muslims at the mosque, praying shoulder to shoulder and stretching the night a little longer together at a café afterward.
That’s why watching major corporations package the holiday into purple-and-gold colour schemes and moon-and-star motifs feels hollow.
Companies like Walmart and IKEA don’t care about the depth that Ramadan gives us Muslims. They package their seasonal decorations with a “Ramadan mubarak” slogan, hoping it distracts Muslims from the non-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) date brands, and call it a day.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen problematic or westernized attempts of Muslim representation, given its sheer volume. But I can count how many times I’ve seen good Muslim and/or Arab representation in Western media on one hand.
Some people see these displays as progress, proof that Islam is becoming “normalized.” But normalization through consumerism is not the same as meaningful inclusion.
This doesn’t mean all visibility is bad.
A grocery store carrying a halal meat section is practical and genuinely useful. More children’s books about Ramadan, prayer and mosque life would have meant the world to many of us growing up, especially those of us who got used to answering the annual schoolyard question: “Not even water?” (No. Not even water.)
I do not want a pre-packaged holiday kit that Western companies deem sellable. As much as I would love for the SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) region and Islam to have more representation in the mainstream media, this approach feels shallow.
Maybe adjustment is inevitable. Seeing Ramadan go from invisible to hyper-visible in Western retail spaces is a cultural whiplash many Muslims are still processing. But if we’re not careful, the desire to feel included can be used against us, turning faith into a seasonal sales category.
Ramadan deserves more than to become just another themed aisle.
