tradition, also occurs in the night. And one of the most important Ramadan traditions of all, the Night of Power, is about spending the night in worship. I thought purple was a good color to represent the night because black and blue are too strongly tied to other North American holidays; purple, on the other hand, is not the primary color for any North American holiday. The church uses purple as the color of Lent, but I think that’s okay as anyone in North America that doesn’t know what Ramadan is can at least gather that it’s somewhat similar to Lent since they share the same color. Also, I think Disney’s Aladdin already
Paul: Why is it important for you to have a crafty Ramadan tradition? Manal: It’s important for me to start a crafty Ramadan tradition because it’s an expression of my Canadian identity. In North America, we’re accustomed to celebrating every holiday with DIYs, crafts, and decorations. It seemed natural for me to extend this element of my North American culture to the religious holidays I celebrate as well. I feel it represents who I am both as a Canadian and as a Muslim. P: How did you settle on purple and gold colors? M: I did a lot of digging into how North American holidays got their colors and I noticed a pattern. The colors of North American holidays are informed by a holiday’s traditions. For example, Halloween’s tradition is to put out jack-o-lanterns at night. Orange (representing the pumpkins) and black 90 SWEETPAULMAG.COM SUMMER 2016
(representing the night) makes sense for Halloween. Christmas’ red and green roots are a bit more obscure, but some sources suggest they stem from the red and green of holly and poinsettia plants, which were used during the Roman festivities of Saturnalia. In terms of contemporary Christmas traditions, the green represents the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree and the red represents the tradition of Santa Claus bringing presents in his big red suit. With this pattern in mind, I began to analyze Ramadan’s traditions and noticed our religious traditions are based around the theme of night. For example, the calendar dates for Ramadan and Eid are determined by spotting the crescent moon in the night. The two traditional meals of the fasting person are taken in the night, just after sunset and before dawn. Tarawih prayer, solely a Ramadan
using purple to represent Muslim culture is helpful too. Perhaps Disney chose purple because their version of Aladdin was inspired by a story in 1,001 Nights. Maybe they thought purple was a good color to represent the mystery and magic of the night as well! Along with purple to represent the night sky, I like to use gold to represent light. In Ramadan, lights turn on in homes and mosques in the dead of night and they tell a story of people spending time in prayer or getting ready to take their pre-fasting meal. I think homes and mosques with their lights switched on (represented by gold) against the night sky (represented by purple) paints a picture of how people perform Ramadan’s core traditions in the night. I also like to use white to represent the moon. During sunset, purple, gold, magenta, and blue are some of the colors I see in the sky—so I even like to add a touch of magenta or blue to represent the tradition of breaking fast at sunset. P: What’s your best childhood Ramadan memory? M: My favorite childhood Ramadan memory is dining at Pizza Hut in Pakistan at 4 a.m. When I was 8 year old, we spent a few days of Ramadan in Pakistan because it happened to fall around winter break. The Pizza Hut in Pakistan offered deals if you went to their restaurant for a sit-in meal before dawn. So my cousins, siblings, and I would wake up in the middle of the night and head on over to the restaurant. Pizza Hut has different
