30 Global Ramadan Projects, Apps, Video Series & Other Awesome Stuff
1. Spirituality & Catching the Ramadan Spirit
Having a good Ramadan is foundationally about connecting spiritually in this month. Since Ramadan is known as the month of the Qur’an, we highly recommend these two Qur’an translations to read during the month if you cannot read Arabic. For in depth explanation of the Qur’an in English check out Tafsir.io.
2. The Year of the Ramadan Video
There are a number of great Ramadan video collections for quick inspirations including this great series on values such as: peace, dignity, spirituality, jihad, and loneliness by Tariq Ramadan
Zaytuna College including this new series on the “Couragous 5 iconoclasts from the Qur’an” with Shaykh Abdullah Ali & Mahan Mirza
Ramadan Reminders from Ta’leef Collective featuring Usama Canon
The “People of the Qur’an” series from Bayinnah and Shaykh Omar Suleiman
and a powerful new YouTube series for Ramadan from Imam Suhaib Webb
Very honest series of 1 minutes shorts by Haroon Moghul about struggling with faith, “Confessions.”
Imam Khalid Latif is writing his daily Ramadan reflections for HuffPost Religion for the 5th year straight.
3. Respond With Love — Rebuild Black Churches
The most viral campaign in the history of LaunchGood has truly inspired us as Ummah Wide helped to raise over $20,000 in just 2.5 days to Rebuild the African American churches burned down in the South of the United States over the last two weeks. Muslims helping to rebuild churches during Ramadan, truly inspiring. If you haven’t made a contribution yet the campaign will be open until the end of Ramadan.
4. Ramadan & Productivity
One of the first questions for so many people in entering this month is how can I maintain my productivity during Ramadan? This question is especially relevant for new Muslims who have never fasted a day in their lives. Check out this great set of resources from Productive Muslim on Ramadan & Productivity, including this great article on global responses to their Ramadan Challenge on productivity.
5. Ramadan Legacy
We have never seen an app that could really be of benefit on a number of levels during Ramadan. Beautiful design, easy to use and a number of useful prayer’s and other resources, we could see this becoming a go-to app during Ramadan. Check out this full review of the app here.
6. Kids Books & Apps
There are so many great kids books that our friends at the Muslim Gift Guide compiled an entire list:
Also just released for Ramadan is the first interactive App for youth focused on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Sira — The Life of the Prophet Muhammad which is available in English & Arabic on the Apple App store. It is beautifully designed and educational.
7. The Ramadan Tent Project
Check out this amazing project which has spread to 4 cities across London, which, “invites the homeless and the public at large, Muslims and non-Muslims, to break fast together at dusk during the holy month of Ramadan each year. Creating a Ramadan atmosphere in the heart of London, sharing meals, raising awareness about Islam, connecting neighbours and ensuring charitable endeavours continue. The Ramadan Tent Project delivers a platform that fulfills both the objectives of catering for people in need and promoting greater cross-community cohesion and understanding.”
8. “Consult Your Heart: A Ramadhan Journal” by Zohayma Montaner
Check out this beautiful 450 page Ramadan journal by the graphic designer and calligraphist Zohayma Montaner. Looking too deeply reflect on what this month should mean to you? This looks like a great place to start. Check out her website here for more details:
9. Practice an Anti-Racist Ramadan — The Muslim ARC
Ramadan is meant to be a time when, beyond our fasting and personal spiritual reflections we also spend a lot of time in the mosques for iftar and evening prayers. Many of our mosques, however do not create a safe environment to live into the call in the Qur’an where it is stated,
“O humankind, We created you from a male and a female, and we made you races and tribes for you to get to know each other.”
The Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative made 10 great posters to help combat racism in our communities and to build unity in this month as a part of their Ramadan Anti-Racism tool kit. Download & Print out the tool kits from the link below and paste these posters all over your mosque.
10. The 5th Annual International Ramadan Photography Contest
You can check out glimpses of life during Ramadan from throughout the world with the annual International Ramadan Photography Competition which is curated by the architect and photographer Basel al Misshal.
11. ZamZam Water
We love drinking ZamZam Water in Mecca, and we love watching ZamZamWater.org grow. During Ramadan they are trying to raise enough money to support an entire orphanage in Afghanistan, which would house 273 young orphans. You can support their project below.
12. Good Will Prevail — LaunchGood
You want to see some of the most innovative fundraising campaigns online, head over to LaunchGood where they are featuring a different crwodufunding campaign everyday as part of their #GoodWillPrevail campaign. You can check out recaps of the first two weeks below:
13. Restless Beings — Zakat for some of the most marginalized communities in the world
Restless Beings is a unique organization that uses its global network of NGO partners to reach some of the most marginalized communitties in the world. They work on two fronts of poverty relief and human rights and have chosen the three projects they have worked on so far in Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, and with the Rohingya with these two ideas in mind. You can learn more about what they are doing to support the Rohingya crisis here:
14. Smile for Charity — Iftar on the Hudson
Another one of our favorite charities for supporting a range of different communitties in need from the formerly incarcerated to women facing domestic abuse is Smile for Charity. They held a very unique fundraiser this past weekend as they had Iftar on the Hudson River to raise money for their programs. Check out these amazing views of the New York city skyline.
15. Summer Ramadan Cooking from My Halal Kitchen
One of our favorite Halal Food blogs is Yvonne Maffei’s My Halal Kitchen and for those of fasting in these long summer months her book “Summer Ramadan Cooking” is a must read. You can also check out her Ramadan cookign tips on here website.
16. 30 Days, 30 Deeds
For the last five years Salma Hassan Ali has written about a different topic during Ramadan for 30 days straight. This year she is telling inspiring stories of good deeds, and the people behind them. You can check out all 5 years of her writings here:
17. My Mosque, My Story — A Side Entrance Ramadan
The Side Entrance has been telling stories about womens spaces (or lack thereof) in Mosques throughout the United States for years. This year the editor of the Side Entrance, Hind Makki, has expanded to feature daily writers from throughout the world in the series “My Mosque, My Story.”
18. Adam A to Z Ramdan Sketches
19. The RedTag Ramadan Cookbook
RedTag is a clothing store chain with shops primarily throughout the Middle East. For Ramadan this year they published this very cool free digital cookbook/ catalog featuring some of the worlds leading halal food bloggers: Assia Othman, Dalia Shabana, Kulsum Kunwa, Nisreen M. Shawwa, Noor Al-Qahtani, and Sawsan Abu Farha.
20. Poetry a Day
Every year a group of writers come together online to share a piece of writing or a piece of art every day during Ramadan. Many of those poems are just shared amongst the authors in a closed Facebook group, but a daily journal is being currated by Tanzila Ahmed, which you can check out here:
21. Ramadan & Technology
All the big tech players are going big on Ramadan this year. Twitter brings back its automatic Ramadan hashtag emojis:
Buzzfeed has a ton of articles about Ramadan this year as it continues to go after global eyeballs:
Google has localized eating options and tons of videos on its My Ramadan Companion pages, although we agree with Oz Sultan in that the whole thing seems a bit lazy for Google.
And SnapChat has its Ramadan filters although it has yet to feature Ramadan on its stories pages… another technology company not really taking the Muslim consumer seriously it seems.
22. Tweet the Qur’an #ttQuran
Also check out how some people are using twitter for Ramadan as part of the annual tweet the Qur’an campaign led by Hussein Rashid, where people tweet selections from and reflections on the Qur’an throughout Ramadan.
23. Global Brands Put Out Ramadan Collections
Everyone is starting to put out Ramadan collections, from DKNY to Mango, but few can say that those collections were also designed by a Muslim woman who has a real understanding of how modest fashion is lived everyday. The Japanese based clothing company, Uniqlo just launched such a collection designed by the British fashion designer Hana Tajima. Check out the video below with Tajima and the Malaysian singer/ songwriter Yuna.
24. Practice a Green Ramadan
Check out these great tips from Green Ramadan, on how to keep your Ramadan environmentally sustainable.
