Two years ago, Muslim students at the University of Knoxville, TN decided to share Ramadan with their non-Muslim neighbors in a unique way - hold a "fast-a-thon" where local businesses pledge money to charity for each person who fasts for one day. Asking fellow students to "go hungry for a day so someone else wonÌt have to," Knoxville students raised $500 for a local soup kitchen, educating the community about the meaning of Ramadan in the process. And so, a tradition was born. Last year, MSA National got 30 other campuses to join in, and this year, there's too many participating campuses to count. At one campus alone (University of Maryland, College Park), 1,200 students fasted from sunrise to sunset, raising nearly $10,000 and sharing a free communal dinner at the end of the day. "I got here and I ate a date, and that was just about the greatest date I've had," said David Johnson, a UMD junior. "I ate it slowly and really appreciated it." The event manages to break away from religious or political conflict for a day, emphasizing shared values and (for the Abrahamic faiths) shared religious roots. "You can disagree with people politically, religiously, or whatever," said University of Michigan MSA official Lubna Grewal, "but you're all working towards a common cause." The fast-a-thons are also rekindling an interest among other religions in the fasting heritage of their own faiths. "Fasting," noted one observer, "is a way of shifting your total energy field from one of more concreteness (being full of food) to one of lightness (being full of spiritualness)."