spirituality

Reflections on women’s space in mosques

I visited perhaps my favorite place in Istanbul today, the Sultan Ayyoub Ansari mosque and shrine … I came away feeling a bit destroyed instead of spiritually renewed. It was early in the day, before dhur prayer. There was no prayer going on, but the imam was giving a lecture….

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Who are YOU?

“Who are YOU?” asked the Caterpillar of Alice. It is a question that creeps into the minds of married women and mothers everywhere. “Who am I?” Like Alice, we struggle to find an answer. We swell and contract into so many sizes—both literally and figuratively—to meet the needs of our…

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Islamic Spiritual Masculinity

My father-in-law told me something wise one day: He said the problems the Muslims have today is because Muslim males do not know how to be men. Properly developed men are those who are best to their families. Abu Hurairah (ra) narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Among the Muslims…

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Mecca on Snapchat

    Snapchat’s decision to dedicate its live stream to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia has set social media alight, with hundreds of thousands of tweets on the topic. Digital analytics site Topsy recorded more than one million mentions on Twitter alone, as Muslim users first…

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Meet me in the middle

Cancer took my grandmother when I was 17-years-old. Actually God did. At the time, I was a high school social butterfly, fully immersed in the world and all its distractions, but within a year of my grandmother’s death, I underwent a metamorphosis. My grandmother’s health began to fail in 2011…

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The Ramadan of My Discontent

How To Ramadan:  Strategize a game plan to rack up the spiritual highs. Break it up in three ten-day segments.  First find mercy. Abstain from food and drink for 17 hours. Make your prayers – and on time.  Next, seek forgiveness. Think about where you will be making Taraweeh prayers….

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“Fasting” – a poem by Rumi

There’s a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box is stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. The fog clears,…

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#RamadanHalaqa Twitter chat recap

On June 16, 2015 at 5:00pm ET/2pm PT, altMuslimah (“altM”) hosted the #RamadanHalaqa Twitter chat with three female Shaykhs (Shaykhas). The Twalaqa (Twitter halaqa) was on the topic of spiritual preparation for the blessed month of Ramadan. Our lively Twalaqa panel included Shaykhas Maryam Amirebrahimi (@maryam_amire), Tamara Gray (@tamaralgray), and…

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