"It's about sacrifice. It's about spirituality. It's about getting closer to God.” “Ramadan is a time to better yourself — a new beginning for many things.” Ramadan Mubarak (رمضان مبارك)! Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by 1.8 BILLION Muslims worldwide. It is ~30 days of fasting, prayer, reflection and community — lasting from one crescent moon to the next. And as beautiful a culture and religion as Islam is, we know far too little about it, nor what Ramadan really means for its people. For this holy month of Ramadan we wanted to go deeper on one of the biggest holidays in the world. So we decided to fire up the Rabat-signal to get a little help from our FrieMMds — past guests Seif Hamid, our favorite Egyptian American musician by way of Cleveland (Soof!), and Lena Shareef, our favorite Pakistani American comics podcaster (Grounded Geeks). We asked them everything from how they celebrated as Ramadan as kids in the midwest and back in their respective motherlands of Egypt and Pakistan, what fasting means for them, Ramadan’s role in the culture, and even learned what all of us can do to celebrate Ramadan. LEARN ABOUT LENA PODCAST: anchor.fm/grounded-geeks twitter.com/LenaShareef / instagram.com/lenashareef/ LEARN ABOUT SEIF / SOOF MUSIC: Soof.studio instagram.com/seifaldin RESOURCES / MENTIONS: Ramadan 101: wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan Designing for Ramadan - https://www.gouldstudio.com/insights/designing-for-ramadan  Accommodating Muslim colleagues during Ramadan: instagram.com/p/CbXkP9BrCBx TV: We are Lady Parts - imdb.com/title/tt10846104 TV: Rami - imdb.com/title/tt7649694 BOOK: It's Ramadan, Curious George - goodreads.com/en/book/show/25897838 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices