The fasting is the same, but the challenges differ from year to year, Faisal says. "In high school, I made the basketball team one year, and I would run and I couldn't drink" after a workout. Yet in the past, he's usually had a friend to talk with. As a new medical student in a class of 102, "nobody knows but one close friend." It's much easier to stay focused if you have a friend going through it too, he says.

"I've never been offered so many free lunches in my life," as he has this month. "I think the class is too big for the professors to pick up on" the fact that he isn't joining in with the other students. "In many other medical schools, you'll have five or six (Muslim) students all going through it together. But when it's just one person in the class, it gets kind of lonely."

Sofia agrees, though she says that as an undergrad, her experience is different because she can depend on the camaraderie of those in the Muslim Student Association at the U., who gather at the Union building daily to pray and talk about their experience.

Faisal says he tries to find a quiet place for prayer each day at the medical school, but it's tough when people don't know or understand. He was in the middle of a prayer the other day when a group of students walked into the social lounge and began calling his name. "I couldn't respond because I was in the middle of my prayer.

"It makes you wonder 'What am I doing? Am I doing something wrong?' But when you get the chance to teach people about yourself and your faith, you learn more about them, too."

Despite the challenges, the siblings say achieving their personal goal to fast each day "makes a person humble. It makes you appreciate things more. You know you're trying to better yourself — to become a better person," Sofia says.

Faisal agrees, adding that for him, self-reflection plays a big part in his dedication to a personal goal. "I see it as personal improvement. As a kid, you are just doing it as part of our religion," but now, "it really gets you thinking."

The two have been fasting during Ramadan — at least for part of the day — since they were 7 or 8 years old, they said. Children are usually encouraged to begin fasting only half a day until they can make it from sunrise to sunset.

"If I really didn't want to, I really wouldn't have to do it," Faisal says, but he sees himself becoming a better person as a result of the self-discipline required. The fasting during Ramadan not only includes abstaining from food and drink, but from any kind of gossip, backbiting or other evil actions, thoughts or words.