Tweet Notes from America With all the turmoil around the world and poisonous relationships between the two biggest monolithic religion, it is a welcoming news. Muslims and Christians celebrate their holidays together. Christmas is celebrated during Muslims holy month of Ramadan. As a Muslim American who has been married to an American woman for 20 years, I wanted to celebrate Ramadan and Christmas at the same time. Wow, I thought to myself, what an occasion: our two religious celebrations combined into one magic evening in my house, an evening of transformation that would symbolize our great, diverse life in America. A Ramadan-Christmas dinner would bring a real meaning to our two…
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Notes from America: Ramadan – a personal reflection
TweetNotes from America: Ramadan – a personal reflection By Ahmed Tharwat The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began last week. This fasting month is observed by millions of Muslims around the world, unless you are in China, where anti-fasting cops resort to force feeding observing Muslims in public. The number of hours that Muslims must fast will vary based on where they live. In a country in the northern hemisphere, like Denmark, there is a whopping 22 hours of fasting time. I fear there will be some very angry Muslims over there. However, in the southern hemisphere, Argentina has the shortest fasting day with only 10 hours. In my own…
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Beards and Politics….!
Tweet Notes From America “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.” ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing Facial hair in Islam is complicated and the politics of wearing a beard brings lots of heated debate and political wrangling. Besides the religious and Sharia one the beard-wearing debate also has important cultural components to it, which it may entangle in and complicate the religious one. The Arab Spring and the election of President Mohamed Morse and the Muslim Brotherhood’s success in securing political power brought a new brand of Arab leader to the public arena…
