In 2008, Husayn Abdullah, as a rookie, he fasted without telling anyone. For Minnesota Vikings defensive back Husain Abdullah, the most important clock inside the Metrodome was not the one keeping time for his team’s recent preseason game with the Seattle Seahawks. Another, showing the time of day, held greater significance for him and for the Vikings’ training staff.
Abdullah, a third-year safety, is a Muslim who keeps the traditional fast during the holy month of Ramadan; he cannot eat or drink from sunup to sundown. So while his teammates slugged down water and sports drinks on the sideline during the first quarter, Abdullah had to abstain until sunset, at 7:57 p.m. Abdullah went by the clock because the game was indoors.
“So I told them, as soon as it’s 8 o’clock, remind me so I can pour some down,” Abdullah said. “We did a kickoff, had a long drive on defense, and then they scored a field goal. On the sideline they said: ‘It’s 8 o’clock. Start pounding.’ ”
The physical demands of an N.F.L. training camp, which entail two practices on some days, can tax even the best-hydrated and well-fed players. Yet Abdullah, 25, and his brother Hamza, a 27-year-old defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, are committed to fasting throughout Ramadan, which ends at sundown Thursday — the night the Vikings open the season in New Orleans.
An N.F.L. spokesman was not aware of any other Muslim players who were fasting.
The fast is not required if a person is ill or it poses an undue hardship, according to Hamza Abdullah, who skipped several days in 2008 because of an injured hip and made them up later. Denver offensive tackle Ryan Harris, a converted Muslim and Hamza Abdullah’s former teammate, is not fasting, according to a Broncos spokesman.
“It’s hard to be a professional athlete, and it’s hard to fast,” Hamza Abdullah said in a telephone interview from the Cardinals’ complex in the Phoenix area.
But it means so much to Husain Abdullah that he has fasted every year since he was 7, even during football season while at Washington State and with Minnesota. That reflects the influence of his parents, who raised 12 children in the Muslim faith in Southern California. All are fasting, Hamza Abdullah said.
“A lot of people may look at things differently, but I feel it is required for us to fast,” Husain Abdullah said, basing his conviction on his reading of the Koran. “And we’ve been fasting my whole life, pretty much. I try to protect my fasting because it really means a lot to me.”
To do so, Abdullah needed help from the Vikings because Ramadan coincided with training camp. Abdullah fasted as a rookie in 2008, when Ramadan began and ended in September, but he never told anyone in the organization.
“I’m a quiet person,” said Abdullah, who led the Vikings in special teams tackles as an undrafted free agent.
Last year, Ramadan started Aug. 22, the day after the Vikings’ second preseason game. Abdullah told only Derek Mason, the assistant defensive backs coach, about his fasting. Coach Brad Childress learned about it in early September, when he wondered why Abdullah lacked energy and could not keep up his weight. The 6-foot Abdullah usually plays at 200 to 202 pounds, he said, but dropped to 194 during Ramadan.
So last April, the team’s nutrition consultant, Carrie Peterson, devised a Ramadan meal plan for Abdullah, based on a 3,800-calorie diet.
Every day, Abdullah wakes briefly at 2 a.m. to consume a protein and carbohydrate shake.
“I hate to make the guy get up at 2 a.m., but that’s about 400 calories he’s getting,” Peterson said. “That’s about a pound a week he’d lose if he didn’t get up to have that shake.”
He rises again at 5 with his wife, Zhavon, to pray and eat a predawn meal, known as suhoor. Dietary choices include scrambled eggs with vegetables, a nonpork breakfast meat (pork is forbidden in a Muslim diet), oatmeal with fruit and various liquids. Abdullah tops it off with another shake. Then nothing until the evening meal at sundown.
“My weight has always fluctuated, but of course during Ramadan, it fluctuates a little more,” he said after a recent practice. “When I come out here and work out, I probably lose two or three pounds during a practice. During Ramadan, it’s probably around four or so.
“Even if I tap out, drain myself, the next morning, after I’ve eaten at night and eaten in the morning, I’m right back to my normal weight. I weighed in today at 200.
“This year, I’m doing a whole lot better maintaining with the plan I put in place.”
The Vikings’ defensive backs coach, Joe Woods, said he never coached a fasting Muslim before Abdullah, a versatile athlete who fills in at both safety positions and at nickel back.
“It’s hard to imagine somebody being able to do that, out here practicing, 50 reps a day, and not have any water,” Woods said. “But he’s done it. He has a very good plan.”
Both Abdullahs say their teammates have been supportive and inquisitive. Muslims traditionally break the daily fast by eating a date, and Hamza Abdullah said a bag of dates he brought to a night practice this summer drew puzzled looks.
“Some of my teammates were looking at the bag, like, what is that weird-looking fruit?” he said. “It was pretty funny.”
To those who know Husain Abdullah, his commitment to fasting is nothing to joke about. “It’s really a testament to how important his religion is in his life,” Peterson said. “It’s amazing. He’s kind of an inspiration to me in a lot of ways.”
A version of this article appeared in print on September 6, 2010, on page D1 of the New York edition.
Source: The New York Times
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