David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
McMillan in Yale-New Haven prayer room as Ramadan began.
Ali McMillan ducked out of a patient ward at Yale New Haven-Hospital for a quick trip to the nearby prayer room. He dragged a rug to the corner and kneeled on the floor as he prayed in a whisper. And as his stomach growled.
When his phone suddenly began to ring, McMillan deftly silenced it, reaching into the pocket of his bright blue uniform without ever glancing away from the floor beneath him.
McMillan, a New Haven native who works as a nurse at the hospital, was completing the fourth of five daily prayers observed by millions of Muslims worldwide. On this particular afternoon, as he contemplated the remainder of his shift, he was also fending off pangs of hunger.
This is the first week of Ramadan, a holy month in which Muslims fast from dawn until dusk every day.
A month of fasting would represent a demanding task all on its own. It’s especially demanding when Ramadan falls during the longest days of the year, as it does this time around.
And in New Haven, where summer temperatures can climb into the 90s, the heat adds an extra element of discomfort.
“I work on the computer,” McMillan said. “A lot of the times on the computer you get tired normally, so when you’re hungry, you have less energy.”
McMillan has had plenty of practice making it through 40 fast days at a time — decades worth of practice.
A Spike Lee Point
Contributed Photo
McMillan with one of his sons at Brooksvale Park.
McMillan got interested in Islam in seventh grade, after a school trip to see the Spike Lee movie Malcolm X.
“Just seeing his level of discipline and commitment is what kind of inspired me,” McMillan said. “And seeing the respect he commanded without saying anything — just with his presence. I wanted to be that.”
McMillan, who at that point went by the name Edward, spent the next year poring through Final Call, the official newspaper of the Nation of Islam. He stopped Muslims he saw on the streets to ask about their faith.
During his freshman year of high school, two years after the class trip to the movie theater, he formally converted to Islam, adopting the name Ali, after a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad who declared his acceptance of the faith as a child. “He was only 10 years old at the time. I was 16,” McMillan said.
“A Sense of Peace”
The Masjid Al-Islam mosque on George Street.
McMillan, now 37, recalled his teenage conversion experience outside the Masjid Al-Islam mosque on George Street, while he prepared to pray during a day off from work this week. The mosque was established in the 1980s; it has occupied the same gray paneled, house-like structure since 1995. McMillan has been praying there since his conversion more than two decades ago.
As he entered the mosque, McMillan — a short, energetic man who bears a startling resemblance to the comedian Kevin Hart — gestured toward a rack of sneakers positioned by the door.
“Just take your shoes off,” he said, joking, “and there’s a $20 admission fee. You can just give that to me.”
McMillan — shoes off but no richer than before — moved to the corner of the ornately carpeted room, alongside around two dozen other worshippers gathered for afternoon prayer. He dropped to his knees, rose, dropped down again to press his face to the floor, all in careful accordance with the choreography of Muslim prayer.
“When you put your face down on the ground, there’s a sense of peace that comes over you,” McMillan said. “I try to capture that.”
“I’m Not Gonna Party Anymore”
Prayer at the mosque.
McMillan grew up in New Haven, graduating from Wilbur Cross High School in 1997. After his conversion, he faced pushback from his mother, a Pentecostal Christian who grew to accept his new lifestyle only after the birth of his first child. (He now has eight children.)
As a teenager finding his way in a new faith, McMillan also struggled to resist the daily temptations that punctuate adolescence.
“It’s difficult to say, ‘I’m not gonna party anymore. I’m not gonna talk to girls.’ You try, but at the same time, you’re 16,” McMillan said.
“It was more the girls issue,” he added. “I ask God for forgiveness, and keep moving.”
McMillan now lives in his grandmother’s old house on Scranton Street. He works as a patient care associate at Yale-New Haven, monitoring vital signs and taking care of patients’ sanitary needs.
At work, McMillan said, people “have their own opinions” about Muslims. He tries to avoid getting into arguments. He has not encountered much prejudice, despite the occasional hostility of the broader political climate.
“In the city, people are used to seeing Muslims, especially in the black community,” he said. “It hasn’t been a big deal as far as being in the neighborhood.”
The Muslim population of New Haven has grown in recent years, helped in part by the advocacy work of organizations like the Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services. A family of three Syrian refugees settled in the Elm City last November after the governor of Indiana refused to take them in.
McMillan, of course, has his own family to take care of. “There’s always somebody going here or doing this, doing that, wanting this, touching that,” he said.
He takes a break from his hectic home life five times a day, when he kneels down to pray at intervals required by the Islamic calendar. He tries to channel the feeling of magic and awe he first experienced as a 14 year old, when he watched Malcolm X meet Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a prison cell about halfway through the movie.
“I felt that feeling,” he said, eyes widening. “I still get it from time to time when I pray.”