Two years ago, I participated in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. I blogged about my experiences, and you can read them here: Looking forward to Ramadan, Ramadan - Week One, Ramadan - Week Two, Ramadan - Week Three, An Open Letter to Pastor Terry Jones, and Ramadan - Week Four. Well, I intend to participate again this year, and I intend to blog about my experiences in a similar format as I did two years ago- once per week, summarizing how the week went.
Two years ago, I had three reasons for participating:
- Raise awareness about the Islam faith and promote religious tolerance.
- Grow closer to my God.
- Turn my personal weaknesses into strengths.
This year will be no different for me. The same three reasons above will apply. However, instead of reading the Holy Quran, as Muslims typically do, I will be reading one of my holy books, The Book of Mormon, from cover to cover. As I mentioned two years ago, I am a Christian belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Mormon, along with the Holy Bible, we regard has Holy Scripture. The Book of Mormon is a bit more lengthy than the Quran, with approximately 270,000 words, where as the Quran has approximately 80,000 words. I felt rushed reading the Quran in one month, so I can only imagine how I'm going to feel reading 3x the amount of literature in the same time span. Should be interesting. I will still make attempts to attend the local mosque in Salt Lake City, at least once per week.
One interesting side note, when I fasted two years ago, I did it from sunrise to sunset. It wasn't until later that I learned that I am supposed to be fasting from dawn until sunset, which is about 30 minutes longer each day. Knowing this, I'll make sure to follow this a bit better. Also, last time, I chewed gum during the month to keep my breath smelling fresh. I learned that this was breaking the fast, so no chewing gum this year. Because the month is July 19 through August 18 this year, the days are longer than they were two years ago, which means this will certainly be more challenging. We start with a fast lasting roughly 16 hours on July 19.
See you then.
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