It’s Ramadan and that of course means one thing… we’re waiting for Iftar!  We all know that fasting during Ramadan is required for all Muslims, so did you ever wonder what Hip Hop artist Lupe Fiasco thinks about fasting or if Queen Rania is going to flip her shit if she doesn’t eat something soon?  Well, luckily for us stalkers, tools like Twitter and Facebook make it easier to get inside their heads.  elan decided to put together a list our favorite celebrity tweets on Facebook. 

Women’s Voices from the Muslim World: A Short-Film Festival
US$35,000 IN CASH PRIZES
Categories: Documentary, Fiction, Experimental and Student.
Deadlines: Submissions are OPEN until November 24, 2010.

Who knew that the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” could perfectly sum up the irony in Afghanistan’s situation? Whatever a zigazig ah is, Afghanistan is going through it, has gone through and will continue to go through, at least according to David Greig whose short play ‘Miniskirts of Kabul’ is part of The Great Game trilogy. 

By Zayba Abdulla

When he’s not enjoying a game of badminton or rocking out to religious songs, Muhammad Asyraf Ridzuan, spends his time brainstorming ways to be an effective Imam.  The younger generation needs an Imam they can open up to and relate to.  Malaysian TV officials thought, “What better way to find this rare breed of a Muslim leader than a reality TV show?” I think they may have started a new trend.

A film about religious tolerance and diversity has received rave reviews from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s (TBFF) Shorts Film Competition and earned a position as runner-up. The film, by up and coming Muslim filmmaker Tariq Chowdhury, is entitled “Let Me Show You How My Faith Inspires Me”. Using only basic filmmaking equipment, Chowdhury captures people from different faiths revealing symbols from their faith that inspires them. 

What’s wrong with chewing on glass or swallowing a couple a bursts of flaming fire? For Saudi Arabian entertainer Maher al-Luqman, it’s just another day at the ‘office’. He has made a career out of performing death-defying feats in front of a live audience. Al-Luqman along with twelve other performers make up “Luqman’s Altineen”. The group of entertainers travels throughout the kingdom looking for opportunities to perform on stage.

Reality and talent shows are a dime a dozen in the Middle East. The vast majority are cheap knock-offs from the originals created in either Europe or America. We’ve got the Arab version of ‘The Biggest Loser,’ which pits overweight men and women against each other to lose weight with the aim to win a huge monetary prize. Then we’ve got the singing talent show “Star Academy,” a blatant “American Idol” wannabe. For the longest time, no one has come up with an original idea for a reality-based talent show that wasn’t ripped off from someone else.

Riz Ahmed, star of British jihadi comedy Four Lions, wowed audiences at London’s Fabric with his show Microscope. Comedy, live music, theatre, film and audience participation were stringed together by a tense storyline to create an experimental and highly creative gig.

In the latest turn of brilliant, socially-conscious filmmaking, production house Participant Media (An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc., Good Night and Good Luck) engaged Jordan’s Queen Noor for her input on its most recent project Countdown to Zero, a film about the global threat of nuclear arms proliferation. The Queen’s insight was particularly useful in enhancing the movie’s global appeal, so that it spoke not just to Americans or Western audiences, but to Arab and Muslim audiences as well. 

Remember when Iranis protested the movie 300 because they found it antagonizing? Well, it seems to me that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is also part of a right wing conspiracy to defame and smear Iranis, but for completely different and far more pretentious reasons.