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“As a Muslim scientist, a good deal of my community engagement involves reassuring my ummah that the government isn’t trying to chip us every time we get a vaccine — but I want to stress that this fear is not unfounded and does not deserve the ridicule it tends to receive,” Majumder explained, pointing out that Muslim Americans are extremely over-surveilled.

And it is worth visiting the museum just to find a gallery devoted to the West-African-sourced Gullah Geechee culture of the Carolina, Georgia and Florida Atlantic coast, evoked here in a full-scale chapel-like “praise house” and in a short, poetic film commissioned by the museum from the Ummah Chroma collective and directed by Julie Dash.

Ummah for Earth, an alliance-led initiative that aims to empower Muslim communities facing climate change, is urging people to pledge to adopt one eco-friendly practice during Ramadan.

“Many Muslims are not aware that there are environmental teachings in the Quran and the sayings of the prophet and that they have a role that they can play to protect the planet,” said Nouhad Awwad, Beirut-based campaigner and global outreach coordinator for the Ummah for Earth project at Greenpeace MENA.

But iftars do allow you to catch up with family and friends you haven’t seen in a while, and they offer an opportunity to savor being a part of the ummah, the Muslim community at large, one that is supposed to transcend differences of race, ethnicity, class and nationality.