"It's about sacrifice. It's about spirituality. It's about getting closer to God.” “Ramadan is a time to better yourself — a new beginning for many things.”

This is a replay of a past episode from April 2022

Ramadan Mubarak (رمضان مبارك)! Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by 1.8 BILLION Muslims worldwide. It is ~30 days of fasting, prayer, reflection and community — lasting from one crescent moon to the next. And as beautiful a culture and religion as Islam is, we know far too little about it, nor what Ramadan really means for its people. For this holy month of Ramadan we wanted to go deeper on one of the biggest holidays in the world. So we decided to fire up the Rabat-signal to get a little help from our FrieMMds — past guests Seif Hamid, our favorite Egyptian American musician by way of Cleveland (Soof!), and Lena Shareef, our favorite Pakistani American comics podcaster (Grounded Geeks). We asked them everything from how they celebrated as Ramadan as kids in the midwest and back in their respective motherlands of Egypt and Pakistan, what fasting means for them, Ramadan’s role in the culture, and even learned what all of us can do to celebrate Ramadan.

LEARN ABOUT SEIF / SOOF

• MUSIC: Soof.studio

• instagram.com/seifaldin

LEARN ABOUT LENA:

• PODCAST: anchor.fm/grounded-geeks

• instagram.com/lenashareef/

RESOURCES / MENTIONS:

• Ramadan 101: wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan

• Designing for Ramadan - https://www.gouldstudio.com/insights/designing-for-ramadan

• Accommodating Muslim colleagues during Ramadan: instagram.com/p/CbXkP9BrCBx

• TV: We are Lady Parts - imdb.com/title/tt10846104

• TV: Rami - imdb.com/title/tt7649694

• BOOK: It's Ramadan, Curious George - goodreads.com/en/book/show/25897838