{"id":679,"date":"2010-09-11T08:25:52","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T12:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html"},"modified":"2012-09-11T07:51:45","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T11:51:45","slug":"observing-eid-unobserving-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html","title":{"rendered":"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies for my long hiatus here &#8211; I spent the last third of Ramadan and Eid day (which we observed on Thursday) in Houston with family, blissfully immersing myself in the rhythms of worship. I&#8217;d already decided I wouldn&#8217;t have anything more to say about the Park51 project, and didn&#8217;t have much to say about Pastor Jones and burning Qur&#8217;ans either. Ultimately these were just distractions from what was really important &#8211; faith and family.<\/p>\n<p>For the last ten days in Ramadan, I prayed 5 times a day at our local <em>masjid<\/em>. I read more of the Qur&#8217;an, I am ashamed to admit, than I do the entire rest of the year combined. I wept, for the <em>shahadat<\/em> of Imam Husain AS and Moulana Ali ibn Abi Talib AS. I woke up early and slept late, or not at all &#8211; two nights spent entirely in prayer. And of course, I fasted, which despite the long summer days and Houston heat, were almost effortless due to the total immersion I had achieved. I lost about 5 pounds and gained most of that back eating <em>nihari<\/em> on Eid day.<\/p>\n<p>It isn&#8217;t easy removing yourself from the world. And as other friends have pointed out, the controversies at the intersection of 9-11, Islam, and religious tolerance as a whole have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kvue.com\/news\/Controversies-made-it-difficult-to-concentrate-on-Ramadan-102661499.html\">very distracting indeed<\/a>. I also have felt the temptation towards distraction; my <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/08\/my-final-word-on-park51-2.html\">final post on Park51<\/a> drew me media invitations and record web traffic, but by escaping to Houston I was able to resist.<\/p>\n<p>Today is 9-11, which was an American tragedy, and a Muslim tragedy &#8211; but I am both American and Muslim, and yet the day finds me strangely disconnected. Perhaps the acrimony over the &#8220;ground zero mosque&#8221; debate has left me cold, or perhaps it&#8217;s the way in which 9-11 long ago ceased to be anything but a political football. It&#8217;s practically <em>Al Qaeda ex machina<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I think that to properly learn from an experience &#8211; be it Ramadan, or 9-11 &#8211; we have to allow ourselves to rediscover the center, to immerse ourselves and cast aside all the distractions. Physically, or emotionally, we must exclude the outside and try to seek the essence. Now that Ramadan will no longer overlap 9-11 next year, and next year being the 10-year anniversary, I think that it will be easier to reconnect with both.<\/p>\n<p>As far as my writing here goes, I am also going to find my center. For typical blogging and commentary, I can&#8217;t recommend <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/\">Talk Islam<\/a> more highly, and of course there&#8217;s my Twitter feed (@<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/azizhp\">azizhp<\/a>). But here at City of Brass, I intend to take a more introspective view from here on out &#8211; less frequent, more thoughtful. If I can&#8217;t add value to the debate, I don&#8217;t think I need to say anything. Only then will anything I say have any value at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies for my long hiatus here &#8211; I spent the last third of Ramadan and Eid day (which we observed on Thursday) in Houston with family, blissfully immersing myself in the rhythms of worship. I&#8217;d already decided I wouldn&#8217;t have anything more to say about the Park51 project, and didn&#8217;t have much to say about&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":[160,99,24,27,25,26,46],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-9-11","tag-eid","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>observing Eid, unobserving 9-11 - 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=\"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11 - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Apologies for my long hiatus here &#8211; I spent the last third of Ramadan and Eid day (which we observed on Thursday) in Houston with family, blissfully immersing myself in the rhythms of worship. I&#8217;d already decided I wouldn&#8217;t have anything more to say about the Park51 project, and didn&#8217;t have much to say about&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-11T12:25:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-09-11T11:51:45+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":"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11 - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11 - City of Brass","og_description":"Apologies for my long hiatus here &#8211; I spent the last third of Ramadan and Eid day (which we observed on Thursday) in Houston with family, blissfully immersing myself in the rhythms of worship. I&#8217;d already decided I wouldn&#8217;t have anything more to say about the Park51 project, and didn&#8217;t have much to say about&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2010-09-11T12:25:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-09-11T11:51:45+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html","name":"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11 - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-11T12:25:52+00:00","dateModified":"2012-09-11T11:51:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/09\/observing-eid-unobserving-9-11.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"observing Eid, unobserving 9-11"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. 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\/679","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=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}