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Tweeting the Qur’an #Quran #ttQuran #Ramadan 2016/1437

Traditionally, Muslims read the Qur’an in its entirety over this time, in a section a day. The Qur’an is split into thirty sections, called juz’, and one section is read each night. 

This year is the 8th year I am inviting people to tweet the Qur’an for Ramadan. I will be tweeting @islamoyankee.

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To see how the call has (not) evolved, here are the six call outs:

2009 Windsor Star Article

2010 (despite the title, which says 2011)

2011 USA Today Article

2012

2013 Storify (including press stories)

2014 A piece I did on Immanent Frame

 

The Background [from the 2009 post]

This year, I have been thinking it would be fun to tweet the Qur’an for Ramadan. Coincidentally, Shavuot came, and several people I follow on Twitter tweeted the Torah. Since that experience seemed to be successful, it further cemented my belief that this would be a good idea.

I remain grateful to Aziz Poonawala (@azizhp), who helps me refine our guidelines and provide technical feedback every year.

Our guidelines from last year:

  1. Anyone is welcome. You do not have to be Muslim.
  2. The point is to provide greater access to the Qur’an, so please tweet in English, regardless of the language you read in. Multiple language tweets are welcome.
  3. You should tweet verses that appeal to you each night, not the entire juz’. Some of you may wish to do the whole juz’, but the idea is that we find comfort in the word of God, and we approach it and understand differently every time we come to it. Each night, there are certain verses that will have more power/resonance. Simply tweet those.
  4. Include chapter and verse numbers using “Arabic” numerals, eg. 1:1, 33:72, etc.
  5. Some verses may be too long for 140 characters. Split the tweet. Summarize. As you will, but make sure you make it clear what you are doing, and include the verse number.
  6. You should feel free to offer commentary on why you chose that verse. If you know some tafsir, please include as well, if relevant.
  7. Tags: please include #ttQuran .
  8. You do not need to commit to reading/Tweeting every night. However, when you do Tweet, please make sure you are on the same juz as everyone else.

If there are are other guidelines you believe should be included, please leave them in comments and I’ll move up some to the main post.

This year, I plan on using the new translation of the Qur’an called The Study Qur’an

 

Wall Street Journal Coverage of America to Zanzibar

Here is a Wall Street Journal article on the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far, at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for which I was the lead academic advisor. Alas, the piece is behind a paywall.

The show is the fourth in the Upper West Side museum’s Global Cultural Exhibition Series, intended — as the name suggests — to create global citizens. And I can attest, from both observation and ancient personal experience, that the best way to broaden horizons isn’t by lecturing kids about being better people but by letting them climb into, over and through things.

 

Photos

You may use these photos for non-commercial purposes with attribution. They may also be used for publicity purposes for talks in which I am presenting. For all other uses, please contact me.

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image courtesy of Ali Ansary, 2010 (Image taken at Ariane de Rothchild Fellowship banquet)

Hussein Rashid at CAMP 2011

Image courtesy of Taha Kazi, 2011 (Image taken at CAMP Conference)


Additional photos can be found on my Flickr account, linked below in the thumbnail sheet.

www.flickr.com

A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr A photo on Flickr

Article with Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer on 9/11

September 11, 2010: A Time for Turning

September 11. The date, the words are still so evocative. Hate, anger, fear, sorrow, loss. Nine years after the event, emotions can still be as intense as they were in 2001. For some Americans, September 11 is the anniversary of their loved one’s death. Along with the annual memorials, this year the day will also include public demonstrations both in support of and in opposition to Park51, misnamed the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

Both of us will be marking that day as part of our holy season. For Jews, the 11th is Shabbat Shuva, literally the Sabbath of turning, or repentance, wedged between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. For Muslims, it is Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of fasting during the month of Ramadan, the month when Muslims are spiritually reborn. Each year, we see this time, each in our own way, as one of deep inner work whose result, God willing, is the making of new commitments.

This year, it feels important that our religious soul-searching include addressing what is going on in the public square, the larger issues that the controversy about Park51 highlights. Our country’s pluralistic ideals often are at odds with the messier reality on the ground. The volume and intensity of the debate around this particular proposal has felt overwhelming at times, the escalation of hate speech frightening. At the same time, there has been a reaching out across boundaries and a growing recognition by many fair-minded Americans that we all have a lot of work to do to help our society live up to its best self.

Reprint: Orientalizing Ourselves

Patheos recently republished an article of mine from Religion Dispatches.

In the United States, a place I have argued is a new intellectual Mecca, rather than attacking a simplified version of Islam, an Islam-lite if you will, I find more and more American Muslims defining themselves by Orientalist constructions of what Islam means. I wish I could say that this is a type of double-consciousness, where we are aware of how others view us and we are struggling against it. It is, I fear, a radical internalization of an Islam-lite that debases our tradition and makes both Muslim and non-Muslims more ignorant and sheep-like.x