Ramadan begins *today. For Muslims around the world, this means that they are to abstain from worldly pleasures during daylight hours to remember and honor the month that the Holy Qur’an was revealed by Gabriel to Mohammed (may his name be forever blessed).

Before I quit my job, one of my cubicle-mates was Muslim (well, she still is) and so, just about everything I know about Islam (which is not that much) I learned from her.

My friend, who I like to call Al-Wal?Æ (”the friend”) in blogs, did not grow up in a devout family, nor is her husband devout. The role model she looks to, therefore, is her mother-in-law-hajjah (a suffix which acknowledges her completion of the hajj by calling her “honorable pilgrim”). I have the same issues with this choice of role model as I have with using the Virgin-Mother Mary: perfection is rarely possible.

Al-Wal?Æ struggles (in Arabic, “jihad” means to “struggle” or “fight”), as we all do, with various aspects of her faith. Her current crisis involves wearing hijab and advertising to all the (sighted) world that she is Muslim. Now, as much as I do support the French ban on overt signs of religion for children, I fully support my friend’s desire &, if I still worked there, would gladly wear hijab with her in solidarity.

Her current obstacle is not (only) discrimination, but the knowledge that her every action will be taken as representative of the Platonic Muslim. Stereotypes have their place and are not always bad, but she feels that this outward sign of her inward struggle will be used against her and others like (or presumed to be like) her. I, who am so rarely at a loss for words, have no reassurances for her. Each of us carries stereotypes on our shoulders and faces every day. Each of us forms opinions based on the information available to us, right or wrong. And each of us has a relationship with what we believe to be Divine (even if that relationship is to deny it).

Courage is hard to come by and discrimination is real. Few religions ask us to do things that are easy for us (if you know of one, sign me up!). But most religions ask us to do things that will help us in the long run. If the hijab is, as liberal Muslims claim that it is, to acknowledge the sacredness of woman, the holiness of her person, and to prove that she doesn’t need to use her *ahem* assets to succeed, well then maybe it’s something we could all use.

In Islam, there are 99 “beautiful” names for god. Not names like Jack or Linda so much as descriptions of god’s attributes. My blasphemy above is using one of those names, The Friend, to refer to my friend. What a wonderful way to think of the Divine! Someone you can tell all your problems to whenever you want! Closer even than a phone-call, The All-Knowing (Al-Al?Æm), The Listener (Al-Sam?Æ).

So this Ramadan, I wish Al-Wal?Æ the courage to stand tall as a woman and as a Muslim. I pray that she becomes the Muslim that she wants to be, husband’s, mother-in-law-hajjah’s, daughter’s, and stranger’s assumptions and expectations be damned. I know that her God will give her the courage she needs, if only she asks.

*[Or began yesterday, as Miko’s original post read. We did some research and found that authorities seem divided on the matter.]