Category: Intra-faith

My Ramadan musings are up at City of Brass. Who is Ali (as), the universal hero of Islam? – City of Brass. As we begin the first night of Ramadan, I think of the first promise we made to God. We bear witness that God is our Lord (7:172). From God’s desire to lead us, he left us nubuwwah and then Imamah. To be the mu’min, the one with faith, means following the guidance of the Qur’an, the Prophet, and the Imams. To me, that ethical message, particularly of service, rings the loudest. This Ramadan is a chance for me…

Seeking Perfection: Wajahat Ali | Spiritual Appetite. We Muslims sure like to pretend we are perfect. At the very least, we love promoting the myth.

Beliefnet Voices – Aziz Poonawalla – City of Brass. “When we are born adhaan is given but no salat. When we pass away salat is prayed but no adhaan. The adhaan given at the time of our birth is the adhaan for the salat prayed at the time of our death. That’s how short life is, the time between adhaan and salat. So hate none, love all, pray sincerely, forgive genuinely and pray your salats’ before the salat is prayed for you.”

Young Muslim-American Leaders on the Rise | USA | English. This year marks the tenth anniversary of September 11, and as the tragic date draws closer, some surveys show Americans still remain conflicted over their views on the Muslim world.  The Arab Spring uprisings have raised a positive image of Muslims striving for democratic values, yet events like the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy and the contentious Peter King hearings only reiterate the fact that a negative spotlight still shines on the followers of the Islamic faith.  But these perceptions have not stopped Muslim Americans, specifically the youth, from taking the…

BBC – BBC World Service Programmes – Heart And Soul, The Mourides of Senegal. Many of the African street sellers in cities like Paris or Rome are Mourides – members of a Senegalese Muslim brotherhood. It is a very organised and supportive movement that stresses the importance of work and wields great political and economic power in Senegal.

A Journey From Islam to Same-Sex Marriage – NYTimes.com. Ms. Khan, a Puerto Rican grandmother from Brooklyn, married her longtime girlfriend, Mersedita Sanchez, 45, on Sunday. The moment had particular resonance, Ms. Khan said, as she had converted to Islam more than 20 years ago after marrying a Pakistani man, and had been wearing a hijab and praying several times a day.

The Eighth Annual Brass Crescent Awards – Honoring the Best of the Muslim Blogosphere. The Brass Crescent Awards, a joint project of altmuslim and City of Brass, is an annual awards ceremony that honors the best writers and thinkers of the emerging Muslim blogosphere (aka the Islamsphere). Nominations are taken from blog readers, who then vote for the winners.

THE CHAMP IS HERE | 30mosques. Being teased about his appearance was tormenting, he said.  Until he was seven years old when an African American woman at school told him something that he still remembers to this day.  “She said ‘You look that way because you’re special,’” he said. “’If God wanted you to be like everybody else and just be normal, he would have made you that way. But he made you look special because you’re supposed to be special. If you’re going to be special, all the stuff you’re going through is training for that.’  “And the thing…

Beliefnet Voices – Aziz Poonawalla – City of Brass. It is in these 6:42am moments, as I am woken by the blinding sun, hungry and incapacitated that I know there is no magic in the minute, no need to count fasting by the number of hours completed. It is the simplicity of routine, the humility borne from discipline that I always seem to leave out of my lofty Ramadan plans. It is my favorite lesson to rediscover and it leaves me forever thankful that Ramadan graces us, and especially me, every year.