Ramadan is now safely two weeks in the rear-view mirror, or about 45 weeks in the future, depending on your perspective. Near the end of Ramadan, I came across two interesting articles on eating and hunger. They were not written with each other in mind, and neither seemingly had anything to do with Ramadan. However […]
What is Ramadan? A couple weeks ago at the beginning of Ramadan, we didn’t explore or discuss the key element of observing the month: fasting. Muslims who are observing Ramadan fast from sunrise to sunset. No food, no water, no gum — nada. Every day for (roughly) 30 days. We’re also supposed to use this […]
Today, hundreds of millions of Muslims suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms all at once due to acute caffeine deprivation. We do this, and abstain from all food or drink during daylight for 30 days, in the name of sacrifice, and to be better people. But pardon us if we are grumpy for the first couple days. […]
Many non-Muslims do not know that Muslims are expected to base their lives not only on the Quran, but also on the collected sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). That collection is called the Hadith, and it is meant to be a significant source of guidance for day-to-day living outside of what is in the Quran. […]
Are You Bi-Religious? As a two-religion household (Bi-religious? Multi-religious? Inter-religious? Not sure of the proper term), we celebrate twice as many religious holidays as most families. Eid-al-Fitr, Eid-al-Adha, Christmas, and Easter, are a part of our household vernacular. Despite growing up in a Muslim household, I heard a great deal about Christmas. It was impossible […]
The Beginning This is the first ever blog post. I’ve added made slight formatting changes since its original publication, but it is otherwise unchanged. Like most second-generation Pakistani-American Muslims, I went through a John Denver phase in college. Okay, maybe that phase was limited to those of us with a friend/roommate who loved John Denver […]