Day 29 - Kari Ansari: “Waiting for One More Ramadan”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 2:07]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our 29th voice is an American-born woman who says that her conversion to Islam has made her a better feminist. Kari Ansari is editor-in-chief of “America’s Muslim Family Magazine” and lives with her husband and four children in suburban Chicago.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 28 - Saeed Purcell: “The Last Ten Days”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 6:19]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our 28th voice in this series is a man who converted to Islam more than 15 years ago. Saeed Purcell “passed through” other faiths before becoming a Muslim. The turning point? When he read Malcolm X’s autobiography, which led him to read the Qur’an.
Here, Saeed recollects one of his first Ramadans when he spent the last ten days alone in a mosque praying and fasting and spiritually cleansing himself.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 27 - Sakina Al-Amin: “Sharing Qur’an and Samosas”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 6:41]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
On this 27th day of Ramadan: Sakina Al-Amin, a young African-American woman who recently graduated from the University of Michigan. For the first nine years of her life, she was raised in a idyllic Muslim village nestled into the mountains of New Mexico, just north of Los Alamos. She shares two stories: one about celebrating Ramadan under the stars of the Southwest and the other of breaking fast with three strangers at a dollar store.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 26 - Mary Hope Schwoebel: “My Work Reflects My Beliefs”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 4:18]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Mary Hope Schwoebel, our 26th voice in this series, was raised Presbyterian in Oxford, Mississippi and later moved to Philadelphia. But, with the social justice movements of the 1960’s, her parents and she grew more secular. While in college, she began reading feminist authors, including a leading Muslim scholar on the veil, and a Somali man who embodied these principles. She later converted and is now a teacher and educator of peace conflict studies in Africa.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 25 - Miles Davis: “A Father’s Impact”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 5:46]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our 25th voice, Miles Davis, grew up in inner-city Philadelphia and is now a professor at Shenandoah University in Leesburg, Virginia. Through the formative influence of his father, Islam provided the framework to escape the drugs and crime of most of his childhood friends.
One of his first Ramadan celebrations also allowed him to see the many colors of Muslims he worshiped with. And now, decades later, his daughter is teaching him new things about faith during Islam’s holiest month.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 24 - Hilarie Clement: “A First Year Alone in Dubai”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 4:32]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
On this 24th day of Ramadan, a teacher who grew up in Syracuse, New York and now lives in Chicago with her family. Hilarie Clement recalls celebrating one of her first Ramadans while teaching third-graders in Dubai, and how “scared” she was at first and how “horrible” her first day of fasting was. Like most other things in Islam, she says, it takes time to learn how to be a practicing Muslim.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 23 - Eli Smart: “Ramadan in Dearborn”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 5:13]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
The 23rd voice in this series, Eli Smart, grew up in California and converted to Islam in his early 20s. Now 37, he lives in Michigan — along with his mother and family — and says that Dearborn’s centralized Muslim community gives him a sense of what it’s like living in a Muslim country during Ramadan.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 22 - Ilana Alazzeh: “Singing in a Car”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 4:14]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our 22nd voice in this series is Ilana Alazzeh, a student at Smith College in Massachusetts. Growing up in California, Texas, and Virginia, she talks about spending Ramadan with a family rich in religious diversity, and driving while singing Jewish and Christmas songs during Ramadan.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 21 - Anisa Abd el Fattah: “Laughter and Tears”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 6:38]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our 21st voice on this last day of August is Anisa Abd el Fattah. She is an African-American woman from the Midwest who was raised in a family of Baptist ministers and converted to Islam 20 years ago. She’s the founder of the National Association of Muslim American Women, and tells two Ramadan stories about an iftar faux pas and the beautiful recitation of her 7-year-old son.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
Day 20 - Muna Jondy: “After Faith, It’s Character”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 4:14]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Muna Jondy is the 20th voice in this series. She’s an immigration attorney who runs her own private practice in Michigan. Muna, who was born in the U.S., is one of nine children of immigrant parents. She says the simplicity of her faith streamlines her life, but that the society around her can make it difficult to raise her children in an Islamic manner — instilling values of kindness, consideration, and community.
Check back on this blog each day or on our Facebook page to hear a new voice in our “Revealing Ramadan” series. If you’re the on demand type or simply need a more automated form of listening, we’ve produced a special podcast feed that’s available now. Oh, and a special show too!
