This year Muslims are experiencing a Ramadan like no other. The month is usually a period of both intimacy and great community. Now Muslims are improvising, as in many places the rituals of Ramadan must be experienced at home or online. This show, recorded in 2009, grew out of an invitation to Muslim listeners to reflect on what it means to be part of what often is referred to in the abstract as “the Muslim world.” We received responses from all over the world and were struck by the vivid stories about Ramadan itself, across a remarkable spectrum of life and spiritual sensibility.

Sixteen Muslims, in their own words, speak about the delights and gravity of Islam’s holiest month.

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Allee Ramadhan is a retired federal prosecutor and the father of 11 children. He lives in Maryland.

Ilana Alazzeh is a multimedia artist, photographer, and activist. She is the founder of several interfaith, diversity, and economic justice groups, including Muslims Against Homophobia and LGBT Hate.

Nadia Sheikh Bandukda is an attorney specializing in labor and employment issues.

Nicole Queen is a photographer living in Dallas. She co-hosts the podcast, Salam, Girl!

Sabiha Shariff lives in Dallas, where she volunteers with the Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation.

Steven Longden is a Mancunian who converted to Islam in 1993.

Samar Jarrah is an author, journalist, and co-host of “True Talk”, a global affairs talk show on WMNF in Tampa. She grew up in Kuwait.

Wajahat Ali is a New York Times contributing op-ed writer, a playwright, an attorney, a public speaker, and a first-generation Pakistani American. 

Yanina Vaschenko emigrated from Russia to Dallas when she was eight years old. She is a bilingual elementary school teacher. She grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Maria Romero is Mexican American, an attorney working in legal services, and a mother. She lives in Seattle.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of History at California State University in San Marcos. He has also taught in Turkey and Spain.

Sahar Ullah is an artist and academic. She’s a lecturer in Literature Humanities at Columbia University and the founder of the theater project, Hijabi Monologues.

Mary Hope Schwoebel is a former senior program officer in the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace. She is an associate professor of Conflict Resolution Studies at NOVA Southeastern University.

Adnan Onart is a poet. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is an active Muslim member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Feruze Faison grew up in Istanbul and, when we spoke with her, was teaching elementary school in New York.

Tayyaba Syed is a Pakistani American author of children’s books, including The Blessed Bananas. She is also a freelance journalist and writing coach. 

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org 

This show originally aired in September 2009.