Month: April 2020

Islam does not have that many holidays in comparison to many other religions. One of the biggest holidays as known as Ramadan, where Muslims are obligated to fast. The main reason for the fast empathy of the less fortunate, and reflection on their own lives. During the fast, they are not allowed to drink or eat from dawn to sunset.

I was able to FaceTime one of my good friends to talk about her experience as a Muslim during Ramadan. As one may feel that it would be hard experience, my friend describes it as a rewarding time. She plays soccer all year around at a competitive club level and said the hardest part of Ramadan was being energized for games and practices without being able to fuel up beforehand. On some big games she said she broke fasting in order to gain energy and focus for the team. Due to this she decided to fast on “make-up” days after the holiday was over.

As a Catholic, I practicing not eating meat on Friday’s during lent. Even though this fasting is not as extensive as Muslim’s during Ramadan, it is a change from my typical eating habits. Having this change effects my life by having to be conscious of what I am eating. My friend related to this by stating how conscious she to be of her actions during the holiday. Since Ramadan is condensed, my friend said it turned more into a routine as the days went on. Similar to Easter (a celebration at the end of lent), Ramadan has a celebration with a big feast at the end.

As I have discussed in previous posts, there have been a lot of developing difficulties for the Muslim community regarding the holy month of Ramadan in the era of Covid-19 and social distancing. The article from the Wall Street Journal details the stories of how several people and communities are trying to cope with not being able to actually physically gather, and what some of the leaders of these communities and events are doing to try to get people together during these important times for the entire Muslim community. These people feel that during Ramadan families and friends need to be able to see each other and be together somehow, even if it is over the internet, or some sort of e-meeting platform. Another idea that the article presents is the idea of BYOI (Bring Your Own Iftar), on the e-platforms so that dinners and dishes can be shared among friends and family in these holy times. Some people are more on board than others as there are some people that are against it, “Not everyone is on board. Some say the lack of sometimes-gluttonous group dinners offers a chance to focus on the spiritual aspects of the month, including special nightly prayers called tarawih and reading from the Quran. Others worry about the risk of iftar envy: wishing you were eating what is on the other side of the screen”. While there are some that are against these ideas, I feel that these are a great alternative to larger in person gatherings, we need to be taking every precaution possible.

While reading No god but God, I was intrigued by many of the particular statements Aslan made. Aslan’s perspective on Islam in chronological order provided me with an understanding like no other. From this reading, I have gained an interesting perspective on Islam as a whole that I will carry with me outside of this class.

Although Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have many monotheistic commonalities, Aslan points out from the beginning that they are constantly and wrongfully portrayed in very different ways. In hopes of breaking away from many of these misunderstandings, Aslan points out that Muslims do believe that Jesus was an important spiritual leader and messenger. The key difference is in Christianity’s supplemental belief that Jesus is the Son of God. Through explaining this in relation to the concept of jihad, I gained a better understanding for jihad as simply striving for what is just. Although extremist groups have taken this concept out of perspective, Aslan focused in on the importance of understanding its true meaning.

Additionally, I gained a lot of insight from Aslan’s perspective on Muslim woman within the modern era. Within chapter three of No god but God, Aslan discusses Muhammad’s approach to marriage. During Muhammad’s time in Medina, he was married to a total of nine different woman. Eventually, Muhammad’s wives began wearing a veil to signify their relationship with him. I was most surprised after learning that Muhammad had married some woman who were not Muslim. However, Aslan continues to point out Muhammad’s exemplar of both a compassionate and family style union. Muslim women and families are now guided by many of Muhammad’s foundational principles.

Just recently I finished up my final project fro my ICR. Although it was disappointing not to be able to do more and help more on site the final project that I was assigned was still very interesting, and gave me a new perspective that I had never really given too much thought to. For my final project I was assigned to research mental health issues in Muslim communities along with specific examples of what different Muslim communities were doing to combat these problems. At first I was a little overwhelmed by this project because this was a subject that I knew very little about. Although I had been at the mosque to volunteer a decent amount, mental health of the community was a thing that rarely crossed my mind. However, as I researched I found that this was a very interesting topic and there was lots of good information to be found. As I researched I found lots of information on what mental health issues were most prevalent in Muslim communities. It turned out that a lot of Muslims dealt with adjustment disorder, and this was the top disorder in almost every age group. This was a bit unexpected to me but there were plenty of other more expected examples that showed up a lot, such as anxiety, depression, and insomnia. However, I also found a decent amount of unique ways that different Muslim communities combated these issues. Although a lot of Muslims aren’t typically comfortable with normal or group therapy there appeared to be many alternate options for help. I found examples such as music therapy, aromatherapy, and mediation. All of these methods are found to have good mental and physical benefits and they all adhere to any Islamic guidelines. Overall, this was a very interesting research paper for me. I really never considered how different faith communities could be effected by mental illnesses and how they could combat them. I think it was a very helpful thing for me to research and learn more about, and it really opened my eyes to the different problems that these communities may suffer from.

This semester for my ICR I collaborated with the Indiana Association of Chinese Americans, which goes by the acronym IACA. During my time on campus I learned about the association through two members and Chinese Americans, Kwan and Benny. They also shared about their own lives and experiences living in Indianapolis. Since we are unable to continue our ICR and complete the required amount of hours on campus, we were assigned three projects. The first project was to make a flyer for the IACA to share with the Butler Community. Below is my flyer including main ideas from the organization’s mission and activities they run that students can be apart of! The IACA is a great part of the Indiana Community and I loved creating this poster to share that!

[embeddoc url=”http://blogs.butler.edu/ghs208spring2020/files/2020/04/Indiana-Association-of-Chinese-Americans-2.pdf” download=”all”]

For my ICR this semester, I partnered with the Indianapolis Association of Chinese Americans (IACA). While on campus, we were able to learn more about their organization as a whole. Both Kwan and Benny provided us with an insight into their own lives as well. Through chatting with both of them, I learned a lot about what it has been like for them to live within Indianapolis themselves. I was inspired by their motivation to really learn about and get involved in the culture they currently live in. Although I am greatly saddened by the fact that we are not able to complete the rest of our ICR hours on campus, I found the first part of our ICR final project to be quite interesting. I enjoyed the opportunity to give back to the IACA in a way that can hopefully provide incoming Butler University students with the same experiences that I was able to have while patterning with them myself. While creating this flyer for the IACA, I did my best to exhibit the opportunities that I had encountered in the hope that it would convince someone else to do the same.

As everyone knows, everything in the world seems to be closing down, and some of the most popular holy sites in the world are obviously no exception. According to this Al Jazeera article, “Saudi Arabia has asked Muslims to wait until there is more clarity about the coronavirus pandemic before planning to attend the annual Hajj pilgrimage, the Minister for Hajj and Umrah said on state TV on Tuesday”. I’ve spoken on earlier blogs about the difficult decisions some countries have had to make in closing their mosques, and the difficulties other countries have faced when people have disobeyed those orders and gone to prayer anyway. I can not imagine the amount of difficulty that will be faced by the Saudi government in trying to get people to not go on the Hajj and come to see Mecca. Especially if the coronavirus stay at home and closing precautions continue into the coming months. The Saudi government is going to have an incredibly difficult time keeping people away from their holy cities in my opinion. “Some 2.5 million pilgrims from around the world usually flock to Mecca and Medina cities for the week-long ritual scheduled to begin in late July. The pilgrimage is also a significant source of income for the kingdom”. I think there is no possible way to keep that many people from trying to come, and the economic difficulties that keeping it closed will cause may cause further problems for the nation other than the health of the whole.

I think that the title of this post says it all, but I will go into some more depth. The Covid-19 outbreak has obviously put religious people all over the world into quite the bind, as services in most places of worship are no longer being held with some services being moved to online platforms etc. I wrote on a previous post about Muslims being faced with the most difficult decision about closing, being that we are very close to Ramadan, but most mosques are doing the responsible thing and closing. However, in Pakistan, there is a rift; a large disagreement between the government and the religious officials running the mosques. The article from Al Jazeera details it all, many mosques across Pakistan have decided that they would rather remain open despite the advice of all of the social distancing guidelines and orders from their own government. “[Lockdowns are] not the answer to these problems,” Aziz had told Al Jazeera. “We believe the people should not be made to fear things right now, they should have faith in God at this time, and to place their hope in him … If death is written for you, then it will come”. Pakistan has seen more than 7,000 cases thus far, but in my opinion, if mosques remain open with or without any social distancing protocols, that number will skyrocket in the coming weeks.

On an earlier post I had discussed India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and his support of radical ideas that would tear the nation apart on religious grounds. He as well as many of his staff and many people throughout India believe that India should be a nation with only one religion and Muslims do not belong. However, it has been difficult to find something to pin on them to justify their harsh policies. With Covid-19 they have found the answer they were looking for. This New York Times article details exactly what has been happening lately with the anti-Muslim sentiment in India. Muslims have been being beaten and discriminated against all across India. Hate has been sprouting up all over the internet, and a “wave of apparently fake videos” have been coming up all over the internet, “telling Muslims not to wear masks, not to practice social distancing, not to worry about the virus at all, as if the makers of the videos wanted Muslims to get sick”. All of these things are happening because of the already brimming hate of Muslims that the Indian government has allowed to happen, and, “After India’s health ministry repeatedly blamed an Islamic seminary for spreading the coronavirus — and governing party officials spoke of “human bombs” and “corona jihad” — a spree of anti-Muslim attacks has broken out across the country”. Now with this global pandemic sweeping across India and the rest of the world, the people in India that believe Muslims should not be there finally have their excuse to beat them and drive them out of the country, and that is absolutely despicable.

Although Olympic officials insist that the coronavirus will not disrupt this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, the virus is already threatening to keep some Chinese athletes out of competition. The gymnastics World Cup is in Melbourne this week and China is not sending anyone, which may jeopardize two athletes’ spots in Tokyo. In addition, the women’s handball team withdrew from next month’s Olympic Qualification Tournament. Also the men’s water polo team waits on a decision to see if they will be able to compete in next month’s Olympic qualifying tournament. The Asian championships were originally scheduled for last week in Kazakhstan but were canceled due to the virus. 

Quarantine in parts of China has caused some Chinese athletes, who were hoping to attend the Olympics, have their training disrupted. Even athletes that did not have their training disrupted are having challenges getting to competitions since many counties, including the United States, have temporarily barred entry to non-citizens who have been in China. There are several Chinese teams and athletes that have already qualified and secured their places to compete in the Tokyo Olympics. But other athlete’s hopes for attending the Olympics this summer are determined by qualifying competitions yet to take place. The qualifying events have been scheduled for months, but with the Olympics only five months away and experts unable to predict how long the coronavirus outbreak will last, the international sports federation and Tokyo organizers are put in a tough spot. They have promised that the Summer Olympics will go on as planned, but for some Chinese athletes that may not be able to get to the competitions to qualify, that will be little consolation. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2020/02/19/coronavirus-puts-tokyo-olympics-jeopardy-some-chinese-athletes/4809513002/