Ramadan in pictures

Masha'Allah, Boston.com have a wonderful compilation of Ramadan across many Muslim nations through photographs. Its a wonderful glimpse of how many different cultures and regions act in unison to celebrate this most joyous month.

Just a little bit disappointing that it is not possible to get these on Cooliris (a Firefox addon for photo display), it would have been awesome to see these photos with amazing presentation software like Cooliris.

It is amazing how little things like these go so far in educating people, as one person wrote in the comments section: "Wow, its almost my first time viewing a happy Islam pictures, most of the time I see only "Bad" Islam in pictures and newspapers (I am a Jew, that live in Israel)".

Just click on the boston.com logo above or use the link below:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/observing_ramadan.html

Salam

Ramadan Greetings!

It seems just like yesterday when we had Ramadan & here it is again. The most wonderful & joyous month in the Islamic calendar. Here is brief introduction to Ramadan:

Ramadan is the ninth month (out of twelve) of Islamic calendar. Muslims give special significance to this month as this is the month in which Angel Gabriel (Jibrael in Arabic) brought the message of The Quran to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). During this month, Muslims get up before the sun rise & prepare themselves for the fast, i.e. they eat and drink and pray the early morning prayer. The fast lasts from before sunrise to sunset, at which point Muslims break their fast & immediately offer the fourth prayer of the day. Its worth mentioning that fasting is only obligation upon those who have the strength to fulfill this task, i.e. the sick & weak elderly do not have to fast.

Fasting in the month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. As such, fasting is a cause for celebration because it allows a muslim to carry out a very important and obligatory task for Allah & at the same time, it is an opportunity to beg for forgiveness of Allah & redeem ourselves. (We also get to eat wonderful meals at the end of the day with the whole family :)).