Dear Friends,
On the Occasion of the Blessed Month of Ramadan, we wish you and your family a very happy and blessed month, and we pray to God Almighty that this month of forgiveness, repentance, fasting, and praying brings peace, success, health, freedom, dignity, and prosperity to you, your family, our nation, the Muslim ummah, and the entire human family. Let us all renew our faith in God, fight against corruption and oppression in any place, and work together for a better and more just world for all of us and for our children.
The CSID Staff, Members, Volunteers, and Members of the Board of Directors
Ramadan starts a spiritual cycle in which we draw closer to God and family
By John Esposito
 For Muslims the month-long daytime fast of Ramadan, which is just beginning, is a special time set aside to remember God through physical and spiritual discipline: abstinence, devoting more time and attention to prayer and reflection on human frailty and dependence on God, performing good works for the poor and less fortunate.
It might seem curious in the context of fasting to speak of celebration and joy rather than suffering and endurance, but many Muslims look forward to Ramadan. Even many who are not particularly religiously observant in the rest of the year choose to observe this communal fast. It is a time for family and communal gathering, a time to go "home" to share the experience. Every night family and friends come together to share a "breakfast" at dusk. Ramadan's fasting from sunrise to sunset, followed by a breaking of the fast, evening celebrations in which families, friends and neighbours come together to enjoy very generous meals, special desserts and socialising late into the night.
Social justice, a concern for the poor, orphans and widows, and family members is a major Koranic theme. The Koran specifically condemns those who say people are meant to be poor and should be left to their own fate because God wills it.
Just as Muslims are united five times each day as they face Mecca in worship, each year believers make the physical journey to this spiritual centre of Islam, where they again experience the unity, breadth and diversity of the Islamic community.
Ramadan then is not only the beginning of a month-long fast but of a special spiritual cycle of months within which those who participate have the opportunity to draw closer to God, family and community.
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