It's not easy waking up Muslim in America anymore. After Sahoor (the morning pre-dawn meal) and Fajr (morning prayers), my Ramadan morning ritual concludes with a quick read of the New York Times.

It's not easy reading the Times anymore. It's not easy having your faith alternately debated, dissected, patronized, praised, condemned, analyzed, and questioned every single morning.

It's not easy wading through the now-daily Times special section - "A Nation Challenged" - devoted more or less to you and your world: the aftermath of 9/11, Islam, Muslims, America, Arabs, Afghanistan, fraticide, tyranny, terrorism, war, bigotry, security, insecurity, theology, heroes, and victims.

It's not easy reading about the whole new cabinet-level department devoted to you and your ilk: the Department of Homeland Security, with its Orwellian inference and Teutonic suggestion of Heimat.

It's not easy to insist that God must bless both America and Afghanistan, indeed all Aryan and non-Aryan peoples alike.

And, it won't be easy having to wait until Iftar (the fast-breaking meal) for Bird on Thanksgiving Thursday.

As I wait for my Bird on Thursday, I will try to give thanks this Ramadan Thanksgiving for all that is good. There are many, many things for which American Muslims need to be grateful.

I will be thankful that ? unlike many of my fellow Americans and countless millions of my fellow planet-dwellers, I will have a meal and the ability to satiate my hunger and thirst.

I will be thankful for drinking water, thankful that dead goats and weapons-grade bacteria don't exist in my water supply.

I will be thankful for shelter; I am neither homeless nor am I a refugee in the cold.

I will be thankful for telephone service; most of the world has never even used a telephone.

I will be thankful for public libraries, and the ability to choose the books I want to read.

I will be thankful for my ability to travel, despite the prospect that my fellow travellers may object to my presence and physical appearance.

I will be thankful that I can dream about the future.

I will be thankful that I can talk about, share, and even act on my dreams for the future.

I will be thankful that secret agents won't whisk me away ? never to be seen or heard from again - when I do dream about the future.

I will be thankful for Thomas Jefferson, a genius of liberty and a founding parent, who once held the same offices as President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Secretary of State Powell. Jefferson wanted to be known upon his death for none of those offices he once held. He wanted history to remember him for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and its message of freedom from tyranny, his founding of the University of Virginia and its tradition of freedom of conscience, and his sponsorship of the Virginia Statutes establishing religious freedom. He knew then, as we know now, that the promise of freedom is the true strength and might of the American republic.

Finally, I will be thankful for Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a genius of Islam and a theologian-poet, for being the best-selling poet in America today and for being a native son of Balkh, an ancient town near the now-famous city of Mazar Sharif in Afghanistan. Mawlana Rumi, whose message of love of God, of humanity, and of all creation transcends eight centuries of cultural barriers, continues to touch the hearts and minds of Americans and Afghans alike in ways that the terrorists of 9/11 never could.

Allahu 'alam. And God knows best. A Happy Ramadan Thanksgiving to all!

Mas'ood so aptly distills the sense of uneasiness that we as Muslims feel nowadays in our country. The response from our community to this pervasive sense of mistrust veers from the insular to the defiant, depending upon the latest occurrence to which we awkwardly react.

In the face of this unrelenting scrutiny (which I believe will last for the rest of our lives, to some degree), I am glad that Mas'ood reminds us of how ridiculously blessed we all are in America in spite of it. The conservatives will continue to covertly mistrust us, and the bigots will continue to overtly hate us; in spite of it all, there is no place I'd rather be. If I'm able to even change the minds of a few over the course of my life, then I will consider whatever meager accomplishments left by my name to have been my own Jihad, and I beg our Creator to accept them.

Thanksgiving Mubarak!

I would like to note that many of us who are not Muslim are feeling very uneasy these days about the direction our country seems to be taking. I just keep reminding myself that we still have prayer and we still have our votes, and we must use thee wisely.

And to add that I am very thankful to almuslim for being an oasis of sanity and news and perspectives I wouldn't otherwise hear amidst the vast, parochial wasteland that is American media (or most of it anyway).

And a happy Eid al-Fitr & Thanksgiving to all!

Masood
Beautifully expressed. As a writer, I especially appreciated the library thankfulness.

Br. Masood forgot to mention the following thanks.

Will he be thankful that while weapons grade bacteria don't exist in his water supply, weapons of mass destruction exist in his beloved America by the tankful.

Will he be thankful that while he has phone service, the same company also provides soft porn cable service and can bill you on the same monthly statement.

Will he be thankful that "his ability to travel" consumes so much oil that foreign nations have to be co-orced into satiating the demand for that oil.

Will he be thankful that whiile secret agents don't "whisk him away" the same agents are often trained and financed by US covert agencies abroad.

Happy Ramadan Br. Masood.