Call for Submissions – Send Us Your Ramadan Stories and Reflections

Are you Ramadan ready? Or if you are not a Muslim, are you ready for the deluge of fasting Muslims, heightened worship and Ramadan traditions and customs? If there is ever a month that unifies (as best as possible) billions of Muslims around the world, it’s Ramadan. Muslims around the world are preparing for this holy month of fasting and reflection, partaking in online Ramadan prep classes, making their plans for how to maximize the spiritual benefits of the month, and preparing for the long fasts to come.

And by long, we mean long.

The social networks are flooded with Ramadan events, status updates, and tweets, calling people’s attention to various posts and articles on how to prepare, how to fast, how to workout while fasting, how to handle parenting with fasting and how to better one’s ibadat (worship) – how to make the most of this special time. Here at Altmuslim, we are preparing for the holy month by doing what is so popular in this socially-networking world we live in – we are crowdsourcing a special request:

Altmuslim was created as a “crucial introspective voice that promotes critical (and self-critical) analysis and commentary on issues regarding the Muslim world.” We want to continue in that vein for Ramadan. Starting now and throughout the month, send us your stories, your reflections, your analysis, and your praise and criticisms of what you are seeing and experiencing in Ramadan. Whether it’s personal or on a larger scale, we are interested in your voices and your Ramadan thoughts and experiences.

Do you have a non-Muslim friend fasting with you this month? Share your story. Are you finding some aspects of this month to be a challenge. We want to hear about it. Is there something you find uplifting? Tell us. Do you have some news or political analysis amplified by the acts of Ramadan? Send it to us.

We can’t promise to publish everything we receive, but we will do our best to provide a compelling literary (and video) Ramadan experience. There is no time like Ramadan for the Muslim Ummah to come together, to focus on our spiritual selves, to cleanse ourselves and to emerge as better people. By sharing your stories and experiences, Insha’Allah we can learn and grow from each other help others learn more about us and have a more meaningful Ramadan — one where the goodness of the month can live beyond 30 days.

If you’re not a Muslim, but you have a piece to submit on Ramadan as well (perhaps your interactions with your Muslim neighbors, or something you’ve learned or experienced), we welcome that, too.

Here’s the important stuff you need to know: Please send your submissions to Dilshad D. Ali (managing editor of the Muslim Channel and editor of Altmuslim at Patheos) at [email protected]. As a guideline, please try and keep submissions no longer than 800 words. We will be editing your pieces as needed. We will also need a short two-line bio about yourself (with any relevant links or social networking links). If the piece you submit has been published elsewhere, please provide the original link.

Ramadan Mubarak! Ramadan Kareem! Happy Ramadan!