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As the sa­cred month of Ra­madan un­folds along­side the Chris­t­ian sea­son of Lent, two promi­nent re­li­gious lead­ers are de­scrib­ing the mo­ment as both spir­i­tu­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant and so­cial­ly trans­for­ma­tive.

Mufti Mo­ham­mad Zaidur Raza, Spir­i­tu­al Head of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), and Rev­erend and au­thor Clif­ford Rawl­ins say the rare align­ment of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty for deep­er in­ter­faith un­der­stand­ing and col­lec­tive spir­i­tu­al re­flec­tion.

Mufti Raza ex­plained that Ra­madan, ob­served ac­cord­ing to the Is­lam­ic lu­nar cal­en­dar, lasts 29 or 30 days and shifts rough­ly 10 days ear­li­er each year. Lent, ob­served by Chris­tians un­der the Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar, lasts about 40 days and cul­mi­nates in East­er.