Twice a day, Mehdi Noorbaksh puts aside professional duties and turns to God. In the privacy of his office at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, he unrolls a rug, bows in the direction of Mecca and prays.

Like millions of Muslims, Noorbaksh prays five times a day, but during Ramadan — Islam’s holy month — with deepened devotion. “It’s a special month,” said Noorbaksh, an associate professor of international affairs and a Muslim scholar. “Nobody can fight. Nobody can wage war. Muslims have to be very peaceful. They have to participate in an act of charity and be very affectionate. You cannot lie or gossip. This is a month of purification.”

Ramadan begins this week and continues until Sept. 9.

To adhere to their faith at work or school, Muslims, in some cases, request from employers, supervisors and school officials break periods and private rooms for prayers, separate rooms to wait out lunch periods and basins for ablution, the foot washing required as a purity ritual before prayer.

The sole Muslim at his company, Nayeemur Rahaman, a database administrator who splits time between his Harrisburg home and Washington, D.C. job, uses a conference room for prayer. “I can pray in my cubicle, but it will be more preferable if it is in the conference room,” said Rahaman, who is from India. “There is no disturbance during the payer.”

He carries out his purification ritual in the bathroom, using the sink to wash his hands, mouth, face and arms the requisite three times.

Indeed, Muslims can carry out their religious obligations at work under the radar of colleagues. “It’s not like you are trying to showcase something,” said Nathaniel Hassan, leader of Harrisburg Masjid and a retiree from the Pennsylvania Auditor General’s office. “What you are doing is asking to be excused for a few minutes.”

Noorbaksh, a frequent business traveler, prays during weeklong conferences, away from the privacy of his office “In the last decade or so I see that Americans do not look at Islam and the practice of the religion as an exotic thing,” Noorbaksh said. “They very much accommodate us.”

During Ramadan, which commemorates the time the faithful believe Allah handed Muhammad the teachings of the Quran, Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown.

Noorbaksh said Cumberland Valley School District permitted his children, now at the University of Pittsburgh, to spend the lunch hour in the school library during Ramadan.

Still, the public may not always comprehend the subtleties of the faith, and, is indeed, often swayed by preconceived notions.

“I was very skeptical when I was coming here,” said Jawad Anwar, an international student from Pakistan at Harrisburg Area Community College. “Even here I have been asked, ‘Oh, you are Muslim. Do you always get stopped by police?”

Those incidents have been rare. “Even my English is rusty and I haven’t had any embarrassing moment,” said Anwar, who arrived last year and is a general studies major. “People have been very open and accepting.”

The college is considering the petition from the Islamic student organization, the Ummah Club, to establish a separate prayer room for Muslim students. Meanwhile, students can reserve rooms for prayers.

Temple University — along with Boston University and George Washington University — is among roughly 17 universities that have installed or have under construction footbaths for Muslim students. Temple is also among at least nine universities that have designated prayer rooms for Muslim students. Others include Stanford University, Emory University and the University of Virginia.

Yet, in the past, employers, schools and universities across the country that have answered to special requests from Muslims have come under criticism from groups citing violation of state-church separation and alleging special treatment.

Four years ago, a Cincinnati-area school drew the ire of a local school board official, who accused the school of being overly accommodating, after it set aside a room for Muslim students during lunch periods for Ramadan.

The San Diego Unified School District came under scrutiny of religious and civil rights groups after allowing Muslim students at one elementary school 15 minutes a day for prayer.

And the University of Michigan-Dearborn three years ago drew outrage from critics when it used $25,000 in student fees to install footbaths in campus restrooms. With a 10-percent Muslim student population, the university installed two footbaths.

Across central Pennsylvania, Muslims say their community has encountered growing tolerance and, at times, a sincere interest from those of other faiths to expand their understanding of Islam.

PinnacleHealth System sends out a companywide e-mail informing employees about Ramadan — and other religious holidays — to raise awareness and educate. Both PinnacleHealth and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center have chapels that staff and patients can use for prayer.

State government deals with special religious requests on an individual employee basis.

“There is a big difference in accommodating someone who works in an office or correctional facility with someone who works with road crews,” said Dan Egan, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Administration.

With a growing international student body — including about 15 Muslim families — the Army War College in Carlisle has long promoted understanding and respect among faiths, and has accommodated the needs of Muslims. “It’s having a cultural understanding of the needs of any religion. But particularly for practicing Muslims not to have the capability to pray in a Muslim environment or to have a particular prayer room, I think that would cause personal and cultural discomfort,” said Col. Alpo Portelli, director of International Fellows Program. Washing facilities are just a few feet away.

Every year, faculty receive a memorandum detailing information on Ramadan observances and practices. “It’s hard to be in an academic environment and be forced to use your brain when you are fasting,” Portelli said. “Faculty get the information — that doesn’t necessarily mean they go any lighter on them, but they understand they are fasting from sunup to sundown.”

The cultural and religious respect cuts both ways, he said. “For many Americans, Islam is still not as well understood,” Portelli said. “To have these individuals here practicing, they are able to help explain Islam and the broader tenets. But also able to be wonderful representatives and spokespersons, able to explain if there is too much emphasis on radicalism within Islam. They bring a good balancing perspective of their religion. A lot of time you don’t see that balance, particularly in the U.S. media.”

Invariably, not every practicing Muslim will have available an accommodating boss or school administrator. Even they seek and find God in the sterile confines of their 9-to-5 obligations.

“If my purpose in life is to submit to my creator, we should try to find a schedule that fits that. Nowadays, people look from the perspective of how can you work and will that conflict with prayer,” said Athar Aziz, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Harrisburg in Steelton. “But try to look at it from the other way. Should work conflict with our prayer? The whole idea is submission to God.”