During Ramadan, everything turns upside down. You eat breakfast before dawn; the first signs of anger and temptation suddenly also become the first reminders of restraint; and your experiences of community, if they involve communal prayer, involve more silence than chatter.
And for some of us, your nights become your days.
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Ramadan is undoubtedly the most special time of year for Muslims around the world. Even more so for Muslims in America because we grow up surrounded by a plethora of religious holidays but without one of our own. So when Ramadan finally rolls around, it feels like it’s our turn. Our turn to skip school, feast with our families and celebrate. Eager to showcase our religious enthusiasm in the form of lights and colors, my sisters and I tried to decorate the house for Ramadan/Eid. Failed attempts include:
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By now, you and everyone you know has demanded on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to #BringBackOurGirls. The hashtag has spread virally, rightly sparking global outrage over the violence inflicted on the young Nigerian women by the militant group Boko Haram. But are there unintended consequences to this kind of hashtag activism?
June 1 marked one-and-a-half months to the day that more than 200 Nigerian girls were abducted from a secondary school in the north-eastern village of Chibokby a group of Islamist militants known as Boko Haram. An obscure news story for weeks, it suddenly became ubiquitous with the viral hashtag #BringBackOurGirls raising a global outcry.
Read MoreBy now, social media has ensured that we are all well aware of the kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram group. (Although if you’re still puzzling over why your friends have matching profile pictures, here’s a quick breakdown of the situation.) Now that this news has spread like wildfire and the West has identified the current third-world-tragedy-of-the-week, most of us find ourselves at a loss for what to do next.
Read MoreYouth Groups Connecting Through Faith and Compassion: Interfaith youth groups cement relationships which intend to enlighten members of the various religions represented. One such group, based in the Washington, D.C. metro area is made up of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Islamic members. They came together in 2011 to serve dinner at a women’s shelter in Washington, D.C. and decided to form an organization called Capital Area Interfaith Friends (CAIF) to learn about each others faiths while doing meaningful and rewarding community service throughout the D.C. metro area.
Read MoreThere had always been signs that my father’s faith was extraordinary. When I was younger, I internalized this fact through smaller, pettier things. For instance, if we were out of the house when prayer time came upon us, it didn’t matter if we were shopping or in Disney World, my dad would find a spot to fall to his knees and prostrate in prayer.
Read MoreIn the few weeks before my father was diagnosed with advanced-stage primary live cancer, I remember my first realization that something was wrong. The nature of primary liver cancer is that it progresses silently with little or no symptoms for years.
Read MoreAs a parent of two, and a full time lawyer and editor of this site, life is often a blur for me. Further weighing down on me are memories of my father–the epitome of busy-ness, who accomplished more in a day than many do in a lifetime. He left a legacy of tremendous accomplishment, with “accomplishment” defined not just in self-serving terms, but also – primarily – in giving back to the community, and living a life of gratitude and submission to God. And, somewhere in all of that, to also be a dad.
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Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson (Captain America, Lost in Translation) just announced that she is stepping down from her 8-year role as Oxfam Ambassador due to pressure from the organization to stop supporting SodaStream, a company whose factories operate illegally in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine territories.
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Following on the heels of Mindy Kaling’s black-and-white Elle cover controversy is Lupita Nyong’o’s Vanity Fair cover debate. Within minutes of these two images being released, one Twitter user after another began to point out that these fashion magazines had lightened the skin color of their cover girls.
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