This year observant Muslims will celebrate Ramadan at sunset Tuesday, 10 August 2010 and will continue for 30 days until Thursday, the 9th of September. The Islamic calendar is lunar and each new day begins at sundown of the day before. Although many of the world's one billion Muslims are celebrating Ramadan tonight, here in North America it will begin on Thursday, 12 August 2010. Ramadan is the ninth and holiest month in the Islamic calendar. For the next 30 days, believers will abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn to dusk. For Muslims, Ramadan marks the month during which God, through the angel Gibril (Gabreal), revealed the Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad. This in itself is reason enough to write a post; however, I would like to combine this joyous occasion with a brief commentary on the disturbing trend toward xenophobia by the American public and media.

I am speaking about the latest furor surrounding the construction of a New York City cultural center which will also include a mosque which is being erected at the former site of the World Trade Center known as 'Ground Zero.'