Brass Crescent Awards are Coming

A Mosque Story: Wajahat Ali | Spiritual Appetite. This man, a former convict who was selling $3 Ramadan Cards with his friend who had served 37 years, stood up and gave one of the most beautiful adhaans I had the pleasure of hearing in years.  His voice soared – beyond the bricks and mortars of a building that would not dare confine such a gift. We were all blessed and grateful to hitch-hike this voice that probably flirted with the Heavens, if even for the briefest of moments.  As I sat and listened, I shocked myself by spontaneously uttering something…

On Religion – Muslim Prayer Room Was Part of Life at Twin Towers – NYTimes.com. On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.  Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room.…

Given by a female writer friend to a male friend, both of whom wish to remain anonymous: A little lingering eye contact (ended when you carefully look away, as though remembering that you are in fact a dutiful Muslim brother even though you contain deep uncharted oceans of complexity and longing, a fact of which she will be thoroughly appraised by said lingering eye contact) should do it. humor, humor