Eight Ramadan’S Ago

An invitation for Iftar is towards the end.

It was the first day of Ramadan in 2013; I got up at 4 AM and started drafting my article for the Iftar for that evening. The Iftar was going to be in the Mosque in Richardson, Texas. Then a serious situation occurred, the story follows after two paragraphs.

In the previous three years, I had scheduled an Iftar in each Mosque for 29/30 evenings. Fortunately, Dallas/ Fort Worth had 30 mosques, including two Shia, One each of Ahmadi, Sufi, WD Muhammad, Bohra, and a variety of Sunni Mosques. In 2010, I did my Iftar in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as well. The only place I did not make it was the Ismaili Jamat Khana; although I walked into it, but walked right back as my friends wanted to invite me another day. It was an enriching experience to learn to respect and accept different practices in each denomination. I have chronicled the experience in each Mosque and listed with pictures at http://ramadanexclusive.blogspot.com/

So, I partially drafted the article, and it was fill in the blanks after two years. Then I started sweating cold, never had that happened before; I turned the AC down to 60 degrees, I was still sweating, and I was soaking wet. I could not figure out what was going on. I called my friend Adil Khan; he is my buddy and usually would jump and come as I would, but he said he was driving towards Marshall, Texas, and asked me to Google it or call 911.

I thought it was silly to call 911, but then I was dripping with ice-cold sweat and decided to Google, and that panicked the hell out of me and called 911. The Ambulance came within two minutes, and they gave me nitro something and told me that I had a heart attack and took me to the Baylor Irving Hospital; the emergency door opened, the Doctors, Nurses, and the tech team were standing at the door. Within a few minutes, the Doc talked to me about placing the stents, and the very next minute, he said it was done. What a stunt! My daughter Jasmina walked in.

They moved me to the room, and I started writing the notes. That I had a plumbing problem, the Doc ran a snake through it, opened the pipe, and put a washer to hold the hole open. I have never seen my daughter get angry at me, she went and got the Doc and asked him to tell me how severe the problem was, and he laid it on me, tried to frighten me, but I laughed it off. I am still laughing.

On Sunday, April 25, if Muslims from every denomination want to join me, we can rent a small bus and visit a mosque as a team. On the way back, we can share our experience and perhaps videotape it. I want to make sure we have both Hijabi and non-Hijabi women on the bus, children, and seniors.

Insha’Allah, once I have a kidney donor, we will rent a bus for the entire month and do an iftar in each Mosque as a team and film it for the record. Most Muslims don’t know much about other Muslims, and I hope we have enough Muslims who want to know and respect each tradition. That is the Islam I know.

Please send an email to MikeGhouse@gmail.com

A few pictures of Imam Bukhari’s manuscripts below and his wife made us Suhoor.

RAMADAN FOR NON-MUSLIM FRIENDS
Everything you always wanted to know about Ramadan

You may feel a sense of connection with the spirit of Ramadan, whether you are an Atheist, Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Native American, Pagan, Shinto, Sikh, Wicca, and Zoroastrian or from any other tradition, you can see the meaning of Ramadan. If you like it, please share. Thank you.

Mike Ghouse