{"id":448,"date":"2009-08-20T11:23:09","date_gmt":"2009-08-20T11:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/08\/rendezvous-with-ramadan.html"},"modified":"2009-08-20T11:23:09","modified_gmt":"2009-08-20T11:23:09","slug":"rendezvous-with-ramadan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/08\/rendezvous-with-ramadan.html","title":{"rendered":"Rendezvous with Ramadan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the last day, in which I can indulge my body and my mind in their petty habits and frivolities. Today is the last day in which being simply human suffices as an excuse not to seek transcendence towards an ideal, which is all the more desirable for being unattainable. Today, I will not revel or indulge myself, but I will seek to be more self-aware, so that I can prepare myself to give up the things that don&#8217;t matter for the things that do.<\/p>\n<p>Ramadan begins tonight at sunset, according to the lunar Fatimid calendar, and so tomorrow (August 21st) I will undertake my first fast. The majority of muslims, who rely on moonsighting rather than astronoical calculation, will undertake the first fast the following day, on August 22nd. Regardless of which accepted method used, it is assured that tonight, the thought of Ramadan lies both heavily and lightly upon a billion muslim minds. Heavily because of the daunting task that lies ahead, in terms of fasting but also the additional burden of piety that we all will seek to embrace willingly. Lightly, because in many ways, Ramadan is freedom, a statement of defiance from the mundane worries of the world, a release in which our concerns are focused on a higher state of being and of living than the mere mortal plane.<\/p>\n<p>Soon, it begins, and we are trembling with anticipation.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Luminous beings are we, Luke, not this crude matter&#8221; &#8211; Jedi Master Yoda<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Related &#8211; some pre-Ramadan reading: my discussion last year about the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/08\/ahlan-wa-sahlan-ya-shehre-rama.html\">perennial moonsighting vs calendrical debate<\/a> for determining the start (and end) of Ramadan. Also at Beliefnet there&#8217;s a gallery of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Faiths\/Islam\/2009\/08\/Ten-Prayers-for-Ramadan.aspx\">Ten Prayers for Ramadan<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Faiths\/Islam\/2008\/09\/10-Tips-for-Fasting-Healthfully-and-Spiritually.aspx\">Ten Tips for Fasting Healthfully and Spiritually<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the last day, in which I can indulge my body and my mind in their petty habits and frivolities. Today is the last day in which being simply human suffices as an excuse not to seek transcendence towards an ideal, which is all the more desirable for being unattainable. Today, I will not&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":[47,24,60,25,46],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-astronomy","tag-islam","tag-moonsighting","tag-news","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rendezvous with Ramadan - 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=\"Rendezvous with Ramadan - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is the last day, in which I can indulge my body and my mind in their petty habits and frivolities. Today is the last day in which being simply human suffices as an excuse not to seek transcendence towards an ideal, which is all the more desirable for being unattainable. Today, I will not&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/08\/rendezvous-with-ramadan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-20T11:23:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rendezvous with Ramadan - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rendezvous with Ramadan - City of Brass","og_description":"Today is the last day, in which I can indulge my body and my mind in their petty habits and frivolities. 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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\/448","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=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}