#Coronadiaries: Ramadan 2020 under quarantine

The blessed Holy Month of Ramadan starts tomorrow night, during this time Muslims are encouraged to practice several forms of personal discipline and acts of charity to support those in need which helps them reflect on all the blessings they have such as food, material wealth, health, safety, and others.

When you're practicing intermittent fasting from food and drink from sunrise to sunset the purpose isn't that you'd be experiencing hunger and thirst, or that you suffer, but most importantly it's training yourself on self-restraint, not eating all the time, any time, and all you want, not having access to the things you desire right away and being okay with that.


When you give the needy from what God has blessed you with, you're simply showing thanks and gratitude for what you've been given initially, you come to appreciate God's provision and not take it for granted.

While many might be disappointed this year, it's actually a whole lot better and more spiritual to be spending Ramadan while quarantined, you get to worship and reflect without showing off or feeling proud, you're not being seen by others when you stand in night prayers, everything you choose to do remains between you and your Lord.

Sometimes the social aspects and folklore distract us or get in the way of our sincerity and why we are doing what we are doing. Think about this self-isolation as a blessing in disguise and an act of worship. I wish you all a blessed Ramadan, please reach out to me if you want to talk, vent or need advice.

اللهم بارك لنا في رمضان وأعنا على ذكرك وشكرك وحسن عبادتك فيه وارزقنا العبادة دون شرك ولا رياء ولا فخر 

Mosque closure in the US: A marginalized Muslim perspective

I wanted to share an unpopular perspective regarding the closure of mosques coming from someone who came to terms finally with accepting not having access to a fulfilling communal Muslim experience after trying for so long and failing.

I'm actually not sad about mosque closure in the US mainly because I simply had access to none for the longest time in my life and had to find spiritual alternatives to stay connected to my faith.

I, for one, am not upset about the closure of many of those ethnocentric spaces/male hangout clubs, nor the suspension of out of touch, out of reality, and often time misogynistic sermons and practices I've seen around where I live and in my travels around the US.

I think many Muslims have been struggling and they deserve something better than that. And I hope and pray it can be an opportunity for other Muslims -particularly those in leadership positions- to listen, reflect, and re-examine the disparity of accessibility, the lack of touch with reality, and the toxicity that's prevalent in many spaces even though they may not experience it themselves because of certain privileges.

Many converts have lonely Ramadan experiences because they don't have family and aren't easily integrated or accepted into the larger so-called Muslim community, and many immigrants who leave family behind permanently and don't have a support system experience the same at varying degrees. Many Muslims have been deprived of being in the mosque and aren't just lazy or less righteous.

My husband and I had an incredible Ramadan in Cairo in 2015 but the past few years have been really tough especially for me having to constantly compare my life experience and expectation of the holy month as someone who grew up in a busy traditional produce market in a poor packed neighborhood of beloved Cairo, Egypt, it can't get any spiritual, festive, and joyous as it'd back there. I can't compare praying in a non-ventilated tiny basement-like what they to offer women and children in mosques around me in the US to having the choice of praying in different open-air masterpieces from the 12th century in the heart of the city of 1000 minaret, for example.

Our disintegration from a larger Muslim body here over the years has been very eye-opening and transformative on so many levels, and I'm grateful for it. I'm also grateful for all of the incredible opportunities and people who made things easier at times.

This year I thought to myself a few months ago that I should probably not think about what Ramadan will look like, I blocked the ideas completely to spare myself the worry, and then subhanAllah, Allah had this planned for us on the largest scale possible. 

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Photos: 

-Women section in a 3-stories-mosque in Downtown Chicago, Illinois. 

A female political science scholar giving a lecture in one of Cairo's historical mosques' main area a few years back.