Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia describes the rituals and spiritual significance of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day festival marking the end of the month-long Ramadan fast.
Author Archives: Fred Yi
Bring a Friend to Mosque
Some mosques use the month of Ramadan as an opportunity to educate friends and neighbors about Islam. The Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia encourages members of its congregation to bring non-Muslim friends to their iftar dinners, the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan. Imam Johari Abdul-Malik describes how the program ties the community together.
Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School
In Newark, New Jersey, a city struggling with poverty, crime, and low academic performance, a school for boys led by Benedictine monks has helped 95 percent of its senior class go on to college by emphasizing personal responsibility, Christian community, and the Rule of St. Benedict.
Payday Lenders
This week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed new rules to crack down on the payday loan industry. Store-front lenders promising easy money are a familiar sight in poor neighborhoods, and nationwide, about 12 million Americans spend more than $7 billion on payday loans each year. Payday loans offer quick access to cash when banks or credit unions can’t help, and the very poor who need the money often find they have no other recourse. But critics, among them church leaders, say the practice is predatory and forces debt on those who are least able to afford it. Now churches have started programs to help the poor escape their debt. Correspondent Lucky Severson reports from Birmingham, Alabama on lenders who target and trap the most vulnerable.
Women’s Mosque of America
American Muslim women can feel marginalized at worship services in traditional mosques. Only men are allowed to lead the prayers and preach the sermons, and women are usually seated in separate areas. But at the new Women’s Mosque of America, believed to be the first female-only mosque in the U.S., women are in charge, and participants hope to influence the larger Muslim community to be more inclusive.
Religion in Cuba
Next week President Obama travels to Cuba on March 21-22 to try to move the US-Cuba relationship past a half-century of Cold War antagonisms. With the recent approval of plans to build the first new Catholic church in over 50 years and Pope Francis’s visit to the island last fall, there are signs of increasing openness to religious life in Cuba after decades of repressive Communist rule.
India’s Artificial Limb Enterprise
Jaipur Foot provides free orthopedic care to poor people with disabilities and missing limbs. That’s important in a country where disability still carries a deep stigma, according to the group’s founder D.R. Mehta. “They can go and work back in their field, factory, or shop, earn their living. They acquire social respect, and they acquire self-confidence again.”
Holy Week
We travel to Santa Fe, Taos, and Chimayo, New Mexico to witness the solemn rites and processions of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday leading up to Easter. During Holy Week “pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for life,” says Rev. Kenneth Semon of the Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe. “We’re following our Lord, who goes before us.”
The Aga Khan
Around the world there are approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims, who belong to the Shia branch of Islam. Their spiritual leader is the Aga Khan, who traces his ancestors directly back to the Prophet Muhammad. A wealthy philanthropist, he has made it his mission, based on his faith, to fight poverty, encourage peace, and promote religious understanding. We spoke with him in Toronto, where the Aga Khan Museum, the first art museum in North America devoted to Islamic art and culture, recently opened to the public last year.
Pope Francis and Family Issues
Next weekend, Pope Francis may release his greatly anticipated response to a key bishops’ meeting on family issues that took place last fall. At that meeting, bishops discussed the church’s response to a host of issues, including some that are very controversial. The bishops were especially divided over whether the church should change its rules against communion for divorced Catholics who have remarried. Many American Catholics have been pushing for that change and others. Correspondent Deborah Potter reported on some of the difficult family issues facing the church.
