For this group holy month of Ramadan has begun. Yet Muslims in many other mosques are still debating whether or not new moon has been sighted. Sunni Muslims generally look to Saudi Arabia for answers to this, as well as many other religious matters. Although ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) has established for North American Muslims, a Shura (or consultation) council for dealing with controversial religious issues (such as moon sighting), many Imams in local mosques decide such matters on their own.

This is story number three (out of 50) from my book.

Eccl 9.12 "For man also knoweth not his time: as fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as birds that are caught in snare; so are sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them."

One night about 11:30 PM, I received a phone call from my sister who lived 200 yards from me. She said, "I've been trying to call you for 30 minutes but all I got was a man cussing me out." I immediately felt presence of evil and sensed that what she was about to tell me was something devil did not want me to hear. She said, "One of our cousins, 38 years old, suddenly fell sick at work, and he was in intensive care in local hospital." Well, I knew he had been running from God and was not prepared to meet his maker.