I grew up in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, and when I was younger, my schooling had been a secular as Nigerian schooling can get (which is not really secular at all). When it was time for me to go to secondary school, my mother decided it was best to enrol me in a Catholic school that was run by Jesuits from the United States. At that time, my mother was not thinking about religion; she was not worried that... Read more
Since images often speak louder than words, from this week on I will include every week a news picture, which features Muslim women, with a special focus on women that usually do not receive a lot of “face time”. An image from Iran, where a major earthquake struck last Saturday, starts us off. May Allah ease the suffering of those left behind and give them the strength to rebuild their lifes. In its new constitution, Somalia has banned female genital... Read more
“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To a Young Poet, Letter Four (16 July 1903) My earlier post on Ramadan was a nostalgic look back to simpler times, when I was young and issues of spirituality and identity simmered on the back-burner…only to crop up again during my “quarter life crisis.” I always assumed... Read more
For most of us, Ramadan has always been linked to achieving spiritual goals, or spending some time with the family for Iftar or Suhoor. One very special memory that the first day of Ramadan holds for me is beginning to wear hijab, three years ago. I had been thinking of putting it on since I was in college, which is around seven years ago, and I had read and watched people talking about this issue. One interesting show was running... Read more
My mother and I are in the kitchen on a bright Sunday afternoon right before Ramadan. Spices overwhelm our shared counterspace as my mother toasts and grinds spices for her garam masala, the ubiquitous Indian spice blend. I’m squishing tamarind pulp that’s been soaking in warm water through my fingers—my mother assures me that the food processor won’t give the same results. After years of avoiding learning from my mother’s kitchen skills, I find myself this year asking her to... Read more
Now that I’ve gotten over my pre-Ramadan funk and am well into the thick of this month, it’s a good time to reflect on how my Ramadan is going. Unlike my expected pre-Ramadan moping, this Ramadan has been anything but predictable; in fact, it’s been downright diasporic. In June I had to make a last-minute cross-country move from Southern California to New York. Thanks to my husband’s oh so “stable” career choice (doctor) and his not-so-organized academic institution, I’m not... Read more
Up until this year, my Ramadans had all been spent in Canada. While I often hear people around me reminiscing about the festivities and exuberance of Ramadan “back home,” I have come to appreciate the quiet suhoor mornings by myself, and intimate iftars with friends that have become part of my own Ramadan traditions. But when I was making plans to attend a conference in Turkey in mid-July, I knew that I wanted to stick around to taste at least... Read more
A Catholic-run school in Zamboanga, a Muslim-Christian city in the southern Philippines, bans the headscarf, causing controversy in the country. Last week it was announced in Iran that female students will be banned from 77 areas of study at 34 universities, in fields like accounting, counseling and chemistry. The parents of Shafilea Ahmed, who was murdered in 2003, have been found guilty of killing their daughter by suffocation, after an argument about her dress. They will serve a life sentence in... Read more
I wanted to go back to one of the points I made in my first Ramadan post, namely that how we carry ourselves during Ramadan is in itself a form of dawah. Telling people about Islam isn’t just street preaching and teaching at the masjid; it is also the image of Islam we project to the world. That doesn’t mean we do Ramadan for other people – we do Ramadan to please God (at least, in theory) – but if... Read more
I like the long dark winter months in Sweden. This is something that tends to make people question my sanity. But even I will admit summers here are special, as everything seems to burst into exuberant life, Mother Nature in a hurry to her work done before the cold weather returns. Though the summer is short, the days are long: in the north, the sun never sets. Where we live, there were about four hours of night on the first... Read more
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