Ramadhan Online
Ramadhan Online
Ellen Whyte Columnist ellenwhyte@lepak.com
The first verses of the sacred Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad during the month of Ramadhan.
This occasion is commemorated today with a month of fasting from dawn to dusk, followed by the Idul Fitri holiday that starts when the new moon is sighted at the end of the month.
This year, Ramadhan started around Oct. 25 in Jakarta, and Idul Fitri will fall around November 25th. This week we'll take a look at some of the sites that celebrate this holy season.
Introducing Ramadhan
If you do not celebrate this holiday, a nice set of very short texts telling the story of Ramadhan and introducing Islam can be found at Ramadhan on the Net at www.holidays.net/Ramadan
The site explains the very basics, including a description of how the Koran was revealed to Muhammad and The Five Pillars of Faith that every Muslim observes.
A more detailed resource with articles discussing the history and tenets of Islam is ReligiousTolerance.org at www.religioustolerance.org/islam.htm
The site features introductory information, such as the famous The Truth about Islam, which describes the fundamentals of this faith in just 600 words, quotations from the Koran, and the sayings of Muhammad, known as Hadith.
Additional information includes articles discussing the significance of the holy pilgrimage to Mecca, or the haj, the definition of jihad, Islamic attitudes to non-marital sex, the practice of female genital mutilation and a comparative piece on Islam and Christianity.
Holiday Recipes
If you are cooking your first Ramadhan meal, visit All Recipes at holiday.allrecipes.com/ramadan/home.asp and click on Ramadhan Meal Ideas for complete morning and evening menus.
The recipes for this special celebratory meal include step-by step instructions for making fig and date bread, black glutinous rice porridge, sambousa, fig and lemon chicken and figs stuffed with goat cheese. Delicious!
For a more unusual cuisine, check out the 110 Iranian/Persian recipes that have been collected by University of Surrey students and available on the Net at tinyurl.com/q4c7 Recipes include filling soups, cooling yogurt dips such as Maast-o-Khiar, light vegetarian fare such as the spinach-based Nargesi Esfanaaj, rich supper fare based on a variety of beef and lamb cuts, as well as sumptuous sweets and pastries.
As these recipes will suit a variety of palates, budgets and occasions, this site is well worth checking out whenever you plan to entertain.
E-Cards
Free electronic greeting cards for this festive season are widely available. One of the biggest resources is Arab Electronic Postcards at ecards.fares.net
This site boasts hundreds of birthday, holiday, graduation, friendship and other thematic cards for special occasions. Click on Arabic & Islamic for more than 120 Ramadhan and Idul Fitri cards.
If you just want to say hello, there are also cards adorned with Arabic poems, nature scenes, sports stars and famous sites around the world.
For more options, visit 123 Greetings, which has a very pretty selection of plain and Flash-enhanced Ramadhan, Idul Fitri and general Islamic greeting cards at www.123greetings.com/events/Ramadan, or try Blue Mountain at www.bluemountain.com Click on Religion/Islamic for Ramadhan and Idul Fitri. They also have greetings celebrating everyday enlightenment, the Muharram festival -- which celebrates the first month of the Islamic year -- and Maulid al-Nabi, which marks the Prophet Muhammad's birthday.
Interesting Islamic Sites
Empire of Faith at www.pbs.org/empires/islam introduces Islam and then delves into the art, architecture, literature and scientific contributions made by Muslim artists and scholars over the centuries.
There's some great information here about the development of mathematics, engineering and medicine during the time of the Caliphs, whose empire flourished between 661 A.D. to 1258 A.D., and biographies of great Muslim heroes such as Saladin, who fought the Crusaders.
Click on the images in the margin for video clips, free greeting cards, class notes for teachers and a very complicated interactive timeline.
Muslim Heritage at www.muslimheritage.com is a similar, but much bigger, site with lots of illustrated articles describing contributions made to art and science by Muslims between 600 A.D. and 1600 A.D. Topics include town design, eye surgery, coffee drinking, cryptography, algebra, wind power and dam construction.
Although this is a large site, it's easy to navigate. As a bonus, each article comes with lots of references.
If you are interested in ancient scripts, visit the Internet History Sourcebooks Project at www.fordham.edu/halsall and click on Islamic to find historical texts from the time of Muhammad, the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire, as well as modern times.
Documents include personal accounts describing the Crusades, weddings, parties and travels, as well as traditional stories and detailed information of various treaties.
There are also links leading researchers to more websites.
Happy Ramadhan!