{"id":1179,"date":"2011-08-15T19:32:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T23:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2012-07-16T09:12:04","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T13:12:04","slug":"inflection-point-reflection-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2011\/08\/inflection-point-reflection-point.html","title":{"rendered":"Inflection Point, Reflection Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Regardless of your reckoning, Ramadan is about halfway over. This means that we are now leaving, not entering Ramadan &#8211; that the divine window is closing, not opening wider. The believer must ask themselves, how have they spent Ramadan thus far? Every hour ahead is a reflection of an hour that went before, so if the inflection point is a mirror then let us seek to improve what is reflected therein. <\/p>\n<p>If I were to grade myself on my Ramadan this year, I&#8217;d give myself a B+ for prayer, falling short in that I have not yet performed any midnight <em>salaat<\/em>. I give myself a B for piety, in eschewing worldly <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2011\/08\/what-i-do-during-ramadan.html\">distractions<\/a>, and an A in fasting since I&#8217;ve not missed a single one thus far. But in Qur&#8217;an, I give myself a solid D &#8211; I&#8217;ve barely made progress in my self-assigned quota, for [excuse A] [excuse B] [excuse C]&#8230; and I have not made any progress in memorization of <em>surahs<\/em> beyond where I&#8217;ve been stalled for several years. I haven&#8217;t even <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2011\/08\/tweeting-the-quran-2.html\">tweeted<\/a> it!<\/p>\n<p>The last ten days &#8211; the third <em><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2011\/08\/3-stages-of-30-days-my-journey-through-ramadhan.html\">daska<\/a><\/em> &#8211; will be where I must make up lost ground, inshallah. The Night of Power also approaches, and I must be ready. <\/p>\n<p>Muslim, wake up! I am trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Regardless of your reckoning, Ramadan is about halfway over. This means that we are now leaving, not entering Ramadan &#8211; that the divine window is closing, not opening wider. The believer must ask themselves, how have they spent Ramadan thus far? Every hour ahead is a reflection of an hour that went before, so if&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[24,28,46],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-islam","tag-muslims","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Inflection Point, Reflection Point - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inflection Point, Reflection Point - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Regardless of your reckoning, Ramadan is about halfway over. This means that we are now leaving, not entering Ramadan &#8211; that the divine window is closing, not opening wider. The believer must ask themselves, how have they spent Ramadan thus far? 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1599,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}