This post was written by guest contributor Sya, and originally posted at her blog, as well as in Dutch in “Ramadan” Al-Nisa, Islamitisch maandblad voor vrouwen (Islamic monthly for women), 31st year, No. 7/8, Jul/Aug 2012. I am a Malay Singaporean who has been living in the Netherlands for almost two years now. There are […]

For me, growing up as an expat, Ramadan has been largely about celebrating my Pakistani heritage.  Living in Buenos Aires, in the late 80s when Muslim communities were still a rarity, the act of observing and celebrating such an occasion was often relegated to a handful of Pakistanis who were able to brave sundown in […]

My conversion experience deeply informs my Muslim experience. We (converts) have varied experiences in our journeys and paths to Islam. Some have it easy—finding the transition relatively seamless—and others have a bumpy ride peppered with moments of angst and frustration. As an Egyptian-American convert, mine is the latter, driven by the disownment of my own […]

I’m in a weird place this Ramadan. Not just spiritually but geographically as well. Almost exactly a year ago I finished my MA thesis and moved back home: home being wherever so my parents were living, regardless of roots and attachments. A few months before my less-than-triumphant return to the moist womb, my parents had […]

Ramadan for me personally has always been a month of compassion, congregation and contemplation. However, last year in Ramadan, my entire days and nights revolved around caring for my then-one-month-old twins. Time passed by like a whirlwind; I have vague memories of feeding, burping, changing, and rocking babies to sleep – all the while trying […]

Hello all, and Ramadan kareem to those celebrating it. I hope you’ve been enjoying the Ramadan post series so far!  We’ve got lots more posts on the way for you.   I’m linking the stories that we’ve posted so far at the bottom of this post, and will be adding to those links as the month […]

Ramadan in Cairo, Egypt is always special in its very traditional way. You wait for the Lunar confirmation that next day is first day of Ramadan, then you hear the Taraweeh Prayer calls in all mosques. A few hours later, the first Sohour begins, with a special guy (we call him “Messaharati”) banging on a […]

I am usually not good at taking pictures of food because I tend to have eaten halfway through before remembering to take a photo. Therefore, this is a rare photo of a typical iftar at home, that is, at my mother’s. Starting from the cup of water, which is at the bottom right, and moving […]

This year is my thirteenth Ramadan, and I have spent ten of them working full time. While my husband was always able to organize his annual leave to be off for two weeks in Ramadan, a collection of luck and circumstances meant that I usually had to work – a board meeting, a month-end close, […]

As most people reading this probably know, it’s Ramadan, which brings some combination of fasting, iftars, overeating, praying, partying, and so on.  In the world of online media, many of us have come to expect the yearly collections of photographs (such as those from the Washington Post and the Boston Globe), as well as written […]