On Sunday, June 11, Cordoba House hosted a potluck Iftar for its Sunday School community of students and parents. The event featured presentations on Ramadan around the world, a melodious salawat with parents and children, a beautiful group dhiker, and delicious food provided by community families. We extend our warmest thanks to the volunteers that helped me the event a great success! Learn more about our education program for children here. ...
Ramadan in the USA
At first, I stopped fasting. I had come to the US in 1971, a newly wed bride. In Pakistan I would fast regularly, but here in NY, the communal sense that goes with fasting was missing. No iftar gatherings, no one around you fasting, no Muslim community, no sounds of adhan announcing the beginning and ending of the fast, no Ramadan Mubarak signs adorning the stores... So my husband and I just stopped fasting, and it went on for a decade. It was only when my children started growing up, that we ...
Op-Ed by Imam Feisal: The American Fear of Sharia Law
In this op-ed in the New York Daily News, Imam Feisal argues that the fear of Sharia law in the United States is baseless, both because the First Amendment protects against the establishment of religious laws and because, like Christians, Jews, and other faiths groups, Muslims already are able to engage with religious laws in limited aways, for instance through marriage ceremonies that are both religious and civil. Imam Feisal points to Israel as an example of a nation whose civil laws integrate ...
Imam Feisal: Reflecting on Alienation during Ramadan
We enter Ramadan reflecting on the tragic loss of life in Manchester. We pray for the souls of the victims, for the recovery of survivors, and for strength of heart for all the families affected. There is small comfort in efforts to understand the terrorist mind, but perhaps some hope for the future lies there. The evils we understand we can perhaps avert. In a recent op-ed piece for the New York Times, columnist David Brooks used an illuminating word: alienation. Under the title for his ...