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!