The holy month of Ramadan is coming to a close and that means Eid-Ul-Fitr is coming. This is one of the most festive times of the year for Muslims and it's why in my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" the opening scene is of a moonsighting event that will determine if it even is the end of Ramadan.
So as the holy month of Ramadan has started I wanted to talk about the role the month plays in my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon", and the answer is... it doesn't.
So as it's #WorldHijabDay, I figured it was a good opportunity to talk about my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" which, as you can see features hijabis, and actually the characters do discuss the practice.
And you might say
Zohran Mamdani1, who recently took office as Mayor of New York City is a very exceptional individual. But he's not all that unique.
So there's a lot of hate for Muslims out there and it's rising here at the end of 2025. One of the main avenues of attack is how terrible Sharia Law is, and I took these attacks very seriously when they flared up 24 years ago near the end of 2001. So much so that, unsatisfied with the social media takes on Sharia, I researched and read about its history and its mechanics.
As Islamic History Month draws to a close, I want to talk about history in general a little bit. My novel that just released "Under the Full and Crescent Moon" is a work of fiction inspired by history and I do have some credentials on the subject.
In Zohran Mamdani's remarkable speech on the 24th of October 2025 the candidate for the mayor of New York city brought to bear the rigour of his academic father to understand and define a pressing problem and the artistry of his filmmaker mother to, in less than 10 minutes, communicate it.1 Which is not only the reality of Islamophobia...
October is Islamic History Month or so I'm told and what better way to celebrate than picking up my novel that's based on Islamic history!
I consider myself to be a Progressive Muslim and that has gotten easier to explain over the years as I can just point to one of the many examples of Muslim identifying politicians in the West that are more than happy to march and mug for the cameras in Pride Parades.
Us Shia people are in the news a lot lately. What with the groups and countries that are directly resisting Israel outside of Palestine being Shia, and Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City being Shia as well. And since it's the start of the Islamic Month of Muharram, which is an incredibly important time for us. It's a good time to talk about what that means.