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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Ramadan Reflections from the Netherlands

Ramadan Reflections from the Netherlands

By: Aamir Aziz*

In the Netherlands—the land below the sea level literally. There is a saying, “god made the world, and in the world of god, Dutch engineers made the Netherlands”. It is a saying owing its origin to Dutch engineering heroic, which resulted in half of the country lying below sea level being reclaimed from the sea through an extensive system of dikes. In this densely populated country with its controversial policies of tolerance towards homosexuality, prostitution and use of soft drugs, God also manifests in the lives of its 6% Muslim population, whose origins are traceable to the Dutch colonial history in the East Indies (Indonesia) and Surinam and immigrants from Turkey and Morocco.

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