Day 11 - Nicole Queen: “From Party Girl to Belonging”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 3:13]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
On this eleventh day of Ramadan, Nicole Queen, a native-born Texan who was raised Southern Baptist, speaks about the initial isolation of being a convert to Islam. While learning about the tradition, she found strength in the ideas and teachings of Yusuf Estes, a fellow Texan convert. Now in her late 20s, she is a practicing Muslim and is active in her community in Dallas. She continues to photograph and blog about Islamic subjects.
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 10 - Tayyaba Syed: “Maybe Next Year”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 2:43]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
On this tenth day of Ramadan, we speak with a Tayyaba Syed. She’s a Pakistani-American living in suburban Chicago. “In my faith,” she wrote to us, “parents are highly regarded; we have to honor and respect them unreservedly and treat them with utter kindness.” Her Ramadan story revolves around her father, who passed away since we spoke with her.
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 9 - Feruze Faison: “The Sweetest Sip of Water”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 3:24]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Feruze Faison, our ninth voice in this special series, grew up in Istanbul and now lives and teaches elementary school in New York. After an early marriage in the U.S., she met her current partner, a woman with whom she’s raising three children. Her relationship is a source of estrangement between her and other family members. The Sufism of her native Turkey influences her personal faith and her memories of 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 8 - Sahar Ullah: “A Field Trip and McDonald’s”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 3:28]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our eighth voice in this series is a delightful young woman from Florida who comes from a Bengali family. Sahar Ullah recently completed graduate work in Middle Eastern studies, and, here, shares a childhood memory about fasting during a field trip to a fast-food restaurant.
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 7 - Adnan Onart: “Ramadan in Dunkin Donuts”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 2:46]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Today, we round out the first week of Ramadan with a personal account of a Turkish Muslim living in Boston, Massachusetts. Adnan Onart and his wife are active members of a Unitarian-Universalist congregation where, he says, they can best live out their Muslim faith. He recites his poem “Ramadan in Dunkin Donuts” on this seventh day of 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 6 - Maria Romero: “The Most Difficult Ramadan”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 3:06]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
On this sixth day of Ramadan, we hear from Maria Romero, a Mexican-American lawyer living with her daughter in Seattle. She grew up Roman Catholic and married an Arab Muslim man. Only after their divorce did she convert to Islam. The Ramadan story she tells is one of pain and fortitude, one of isolation and new 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!
Day 5 - Wajahat Ali: “Ramadan Is a State of Mind”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 5:39]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Wajahat Ali, the fifth voice on this fifth day of Ramadan, is a practicing playwright and writer who first trained as an attorney. He’s a first-generation, Pakistani-American who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Unlike our first Ramadan story with Samar Jarrah, one of his fondest memories takes place outside the United States, in Mecca, with hundreds of simple gestures of kindness and beauty.
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 4 - Allee Ramadhan: “A Diabetic Celebrates in Other Ways”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 2:56]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
To celebrate this fourth day of Ramadan, a wise voice that helps us recall a silent history within the United States. Allee Ramadhan was born a Muslim in the U.S. more than 65 years ago. Growing up black and Muslim meant, as he puts it, having three strikes against him before he got to bat. The father of 11 children, he recently retired as a federal prosecutor and lives in New York.
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 3 - Yanina Vashchenko: “A Gradual Transition to Islam through Ramadan”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 5:45]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our third voice for this third day of Ramadan is a recent convert to Islam. Yanina Vashchenko is in her mid-20s and emigrated from Russia to Dallas, Texas when she was eight years old. She grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church and spent several years as a non-denominational Christian. In the audio above, she shares several memories, including how the act of fasting and praying during Ramadan led her to declare herself officially 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 2 - Ibrahim Al-Marashi: “Ice Cream and Fasting in Class”
Revealing Ramadan: 30 Days, 30 Voices [mp3, 2:57]
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Our this second day of Ramadan, a second voice: Ibrahim Al-Marashi. He’s a scholar of modern history with a focus on the Middle East and political communications. His profile was heightened when an article he wrote in 2002 was plagiarized by the British and American governments to justify the invasion of Iraq. An Iraqi-American, he grew up and studied in California and has taught in the U.S., Turkey, and currently in Spain. The curiosity that took him to Madrid flows into the Ramadan story he likes to tell.
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!
