Ramadan!

Today has been an interesting day. I didn’t do much this morning except for study and do homework. But this evening we celebrated Ramadan. We had a speaker come and tell us about Ramadan. That was really interesting. (Right - me in my galubia for Ramadan, holding a glass of one of the traditional drinks made out of almonds. I didn't like it, but at least I tried it!) I didn’t realize that the Muslims fasted in that month because traditionally in the month of Ramadan the Quran was revealed to the angel Gabriel by Allah. Then over the next 23 years of Muhammad’s life, he was given the Quran verse by verse. I’ll have to check on this for sure because I might have heard it wrong, but I think the speaker said that the Quran was not written down until after Muhammad died.
The fasting serves several purposes. One, it is good for your health. Two, it makes you a better person by teaching you self control. Three it makes you a better believer because you are following the fast that Allah set forth. And four, it makes a better society. I think this last one is because better people with better health who have stronger faith behave better towards those around them. I think there was another thing that Ramadan fasting improves, but I don’t remember what she said.
She also talked a little about Muslim women. That was interesting. It seems that women have the same kind of status in Islam that they do in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: that is misunderstood. (Left - here is our Ramadan spread). She says that women are held in high esteem and are treated well under Islam. The Islamic civilization was the first civilization to give women rights. Then some of the governments have corrupted it and degraded women. So basically Islam doesn’t degrade women, but governments and society do.
After that, we had an excellent dinner. It was very ethnic and very delicious. We had two special drinks. One was made of prunes, the other from almonds. I didn’t really like either, but I tried them. We also had dishes that I wish I could remember the name of. I really enjoyed it. We had assigned seating, so that was fun and interesting.
Next, we had a dancing lesson. We learned this dance called the Devka (spelling?) that is a traditional Palestinian dance. It is a kind of circle dance or line dance. You hold hands and there is a leader who directs the dancing using a few basic moves. It has become more professional in recent years, but it began as street dance for weddings and other celebrations. It was fun, but very exhausting.
Tomorrow we have our Ancient Near Eastern Studies Midterm and its going to be a beast! Hopefully I will do alright, but I will probably know before anyone has the chance to read this (due to time differences and things like that).
I didn’t have my camera with me, so pictures will be forthcoming as soon as I get copies from the people I asked to take pictures.