Around the world, Muslims observe Ramadan beginning with the sighting of the new crescent moon. The customs of the Islamic holy month are familiar to its faithful, but what do non-Muslims need to know about the month of fasting? Take a look back at a favorite post from AltMuslimah.com editors, Asma…
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Question #1 Dear Salma, I have a teenage daughter and am concerned about how to explain interfaith marriage to her. We have a growing number of Muslims in our community–both men and women–marrying outside of Islam. She and I will talk about these sorts of things and I’ve explained to…
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I’m not one for humid, oppressively hot weather, but there I was standing on the grassy knoll opposite the White House, squinting into the noon-day sun. And I wasn’t alone. Roughly 10,000 people–give or take a few hundred—milled around me on Lafayette Square, spilling onto Pennsylvania Avenue.
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 MoreI’ve been attending a halaqa (Islamic study circle) for nearly two years now – a small intimate group of ladies with whom I’ve grown very close to. Our halaqa is simple – we are studying, surah by surah the 30th juz (chapter) of the Quran, and we are studying, hadith by hadith, the Forty Hadith of Imam Al-Nawawi.
Read MoreBeirut – Kholoud Sukkarieh, a Sunni Lebanese woman and Nidal Darwish, a Shi’a Lebanese man, recently decided to get a civil marriage in Lebanon. As this institution doesn’t exist in the country, unsurprisingly, the Lebanese government did not recognise the civil union. But the couple succeeded in getting the attention of the country’s politicians and religious leaders.
Read MoreReena and I have been the best of friends since the moment we talked 23 years ago. While she is Sikh and I am a Muslim, we both share a Punjabi ancestory. I consider Reena the sister that I never had. We are about the same height and size, and with rhyming names—Reena/Sheena—many confuse us for sisters.
Read More << This piece complements Mariam Sheikh's piece, "The Reawakening.” >>
By the time I gathered the courage to email my friend Mariam for recommendations on local mosques, I had been keeping my secret for weeks. I was a half-closeted Muslim. My conversion to Islam came about with blinding speed and by accident.
There are those who would learn that Catholic University of America, a private, Catholic institution, has doubled its Muslim student enrollment in just four years, and think happy thoughts about interfaith cooperation and growing religious harmony. Then there are those who see potential lawsuits, dollar signs, and fame.
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