Over a billion and a half Muslims worldwide started their fasting month of Ramadan, a month when Muslims unapologetically celebrate their traditions and religion. Through the years, Muslims in America celebrate their holy month with family and friends, in community gatherings under tents, in restaurants, and mosques. Since the 9/11 tragedy, Muslims have been in self-cultural exile. Living in America as a Muslim has been a challenging ride and a constant struggle, every day stumbling over the bumps of the Islamophobia landscape, racism, and the MAGA version of domestic terrorism. Through the years, Muslims celebrated the holy month of Ramadan in Times Square in New York. , a Ramadan Muslim parade in New York, a city that is associated with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Thousands of Muslims unapologetically descended on the iconic New York square to celebrate their Ramadan tradition. They pried the “Taraweeh” Ramadan evening prayer surrounded by the flashy, gigantic Madison Avenue voluptuous billboard ads.
Now, Muslims have gone mainstream, here in Minneapolis, the call for prayer (Azan) is allowed for the first time in mosques during Ramadan, bringing the community together to pray freely. This Ramadan, however, comes under a cloud of the slaughtering of Palestinians in Gaza. For more than five months now, the people of Gaza have been enduring constant bombing, ethnic cleansing, massacres, disease, hunger, and starvation masterminded by the Israeli armies and its Western allies, especially the Americans, providing the weapons, ammunition, and political coverage. The people of Gaza are trapped between Zionist ideology determined to destroy the livelihood of the Palestinians as they have been doing for over 70 years, a Western world that is accomplices to the slaughtering of Palestinians, and an Arab world that is sitting on the sideline waiting for the Israeli to finish the job and finish Hamas. However, these brutalities and human travesty didn’t stop the people in Gaza from celebrating their Ramadan traditions. If the world has abandoned the Palestinians and left them to savages to do whatever they wish, Ramadan traditions could help the Palestinians to survive, save Palestinians, and raise their spirits to resist extermination and world call. In Gaza, you can see people gathered with family members, whatever was safe, sitting in front of their destroyed homes, decorating crumpled buildings with flags and lights, sitting on the ruins and remains, preparing food for their breaking the long day fast. The call for Azan comes from atop destroyed mosques, and there are no Minarets to call for Azan to announce it is time to break your fast; according to Middle East Eyes, Israel destroyed more than 1000 mosques in Gaza. With all the starvation and darkness imposed on Gaza, people found a way to light a candle, smile, and define the forces of evil lurking around them with their tanks and snipers, buzzing Jets, and drones hovering over their heads. No place hasn’t been bombed or standing in Gaza. Still, you see kids holding Ramadan lanterns, chanting between the rubbles in the streets. In fasting Ramadan, Muslims are encouraged to feel the pain of hunger, give charity generously to the poor, and sympathize with those in need, which the people of Gaza have experienced in the last five months. The average Muslim loses 15 pounds during Ramadan, and no health club or Weight Watchers programs are needed; another Ramadan tradition, Muslims are encouraged to abstain from gossiping, spreading rummers and misinformation that is filling our news and our social media conversation, meaningless and impersonal communication, creating social illnesses,; as Jewish Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman says, creating ” a community of lonely people constantly connected “! 80% of the posts are staged or fake, fraught with baseless claims about Hamas and rapping the Israels (Jews ) in the October 7 attack, as some Israeli officials blatantly claim, which till now has not produced any carriable evidence; the problem here is when the Israelis attack the Palestinians, they are IDF, Israeli Army, or Netanyahu policy attacking Hamas; when the Palestinians resist, they are Terrorists attacking the Jewish and killing Jewish babies! The claim of raping Israelis was propagated by Israeli securities and politicians and adopted by Western media… here is Bret Stephens in the Times with the article titled, “The New Rape Denialism” “The interesting question is, why? Why the refusal to believe that Hamas, which butchered children in their beds, took elderly women as hostages and incinerated families in their homes, would be capable of that? Here is Guardian propagating the same rape claims; no word about almost 9,000 Palestinian women killed in Gaza, and the Guardian is talking about gender vase violence by Hamas. But how can the Ramadan tradition can help bring peace in Gaza, Ramadan, you are encouraged to stop holding grudges; a social illness causes significant psychological damage and unwarranted breakups; time to forgive and forget, and time to start a new page in your relationships. Islamic tradition, Muslims are called on to put their swords down during Ramadan unless they are attacked or invaded. A perfect time for a ceasefire, a breather from war, gives the two parties time to reflect and reassess their conflict and disagreement; another Ramadan tradition is Giving Charity to the Poor, which is a call to everyone peace-loving to give and help relieve the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. In Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to avoid Meaningless, lewd language and hurtful conversations!! This can significantly reduce 90% of Media hypes, social Tic Tok videos, and social media postings, keep hate speech down and tune down the political rhetorics. Ramadan Kareem Everyone
Ahmed Tharwat, host and producer of the local Arab American TV show “BelAhdan with Ahmed,” writes for local and international publications. He blogs at Notes From America: www.Ahmediatv.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ahmediaTV
