In Pakistan most people lamented over that Donald Trump’s government has not held an iftar dinner for the end of Ramadan, breaking a Muslim tradition held at the White House for more than two centuries.
White House officials reportedly spend months planning the event, which has been held every year under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, but 2017 took a different path.
Earlier this year Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly said the government would not host the dinner. In May, Reuters reported that the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, had refused a recommendation by the state department’s office of religion and global affairs – which typically initiates such events – to host a reception marking Eid al-Fitr.
Former President Thomas Jefferson, a staunch advocate of religious freedom, famously hosted a White House iftar in December 1805 in honour of Tunisian ambassador Sidi Soliman Mellimelli during the American conflict with what were known as the Barbary States.
The White House tradition started with earnest in 1996, when First Lady Hillary Clinton hosted 150 people after learning more about the ritual from her daughter Chelsea, who had reportedly studied Islamic history in school, as reported by Muslim Voices.
President George W Bush hosted the dinner every year for his two terms, including just after the 9/11 attacks. He said at the dinner that the fight was against terrorism, not Islam.
Barack Obama hosted his first Ramadan dinner in 2009, and subsequently every year of his presidency. He visited a mosque in Baltimore last year and spoke out against Muslim stereotypes in TV dramas.
Talib Shareef, imam of the Nation’s Mosque in Washington, told Newsweek magazine: “It is disappointing because that’s been a good tradition. To stop it doesn’t send a good message. You get the chance to go golfing and all this other kind of stuff. How come you don’t have time for a population of your society that needs some assistance? The message that it sends is that we’re not that important.”