Ramadan

Check out Hungry for Ramadan - My American Ramadan Blog by Shahed Amanullah, a frequent Beliefnet contributor. It is at once touching and informative. Don't miss it if you are at all curious about the significance of Ramadan, or the lives of American Muslims. Or check it out simply to savour the clarity of Amanullah's writing.

Ablution :: Nzingha's Soapbox

Quoting:

I assured my mother that I would be the one to wash her after she died.

I said it with ease and surety although when the time came I was apprehensive and worried. I believe such would be the normal feelings of anyone going in to wash the body of a loved one who has passed. I was told by others that it is a good experience, good for the one washing. Besides the 'blessings' we are sure to receive, it brings an amount of peace and closure with it as well. As I walked into the funeral home and saw the other sisters who would be helping me and I knew my mothers body lay on the other side of a door I didn't know how to react....

Keep reading.

Does a woman need a man?

womenone.org:

A Malaysian women’s minister has said that a rising trend of unwed mothers taking hormone pills to encourage lactation to breastfeed their adopted children was worrying, reports said on Wednesday.
...
“Their intentions might be good, but Islam encourages marriages and a woman will benefit much if she gets to serve her husband,” Mastura Badzis, vice president of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement, was quoted as saying by the Malay-language Berita Harian daily.
...
While it prides itself on being progressive, many critics of the government of mainly-Muslim Malaysia say that the country’s Islamic laws - specifically the marriage laws - need to be revamped as many of them infringe on women’s rights.

Proving once again, men are redundant.