Welcome to the guestblog, Bassam Tariq and Aman Ali!

Last week, I blogged about "30 Mosques in 30 Days,", a project created by New York-based, Muslim-American bloggers Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq. The idea: break their daily Ramadan fast at a different mosque in New York City each day for a month. I loved the project, and I loved their voices and sensibility, and thought it would be really cool to have them join us for a special guestblog visit. More from Aman, below.

We both live in New York where Bassam works in advertising and I work as a newspaper writer. Our work has been mentioned in several national media outlets such as NPR, Time Magazine, CNN, the New York Times and USA Today.

We're both excited to be guestblogging for Boing Boing! It's time people realize Muslims are not two-dimensional characters so we'll be providing you guys with insight into our culture with some fun stories and videos from around the globe. Who knows, maybe we might provide you with a food recipe or two.

We're both South Asian and I grew up in Ohio and Bassam grew up in Texas. Our social lives revolve heavily around hanging out at South Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants here in New York and berating each other over our tastes in music. But we both can agree on singing "Torn," by Natalie Imbruglia at the top of our lungs. That or Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." Alanis Morisette, not so much.

Two Muslim guys photo-blog 30 NYC mosques in 30 days

• [Felton]

  Welcome! I look forward to your posts.

• [dculberson]

  Hello Aman and Bassam! I really look forward to your posts.

  Aman, I’m in Columbus, Ohio.. what part of Ohio did you grow up in?

• [Jesse Brown]

  Welcome, guys! Hope you have as much fun here as I’m having. Looking forward to your posts.

• [Egyptgrrrrl]

  Signy, as a Muslim woman I can assure you that I can photograph inside a Masjid, write about my experiences (and there are MANY depending on the masjid and population/cultural group) Oh and I could be a moderate media sensation.

  Be bold, but be respectful if that’s what you want to do. We have a lot of masjids here in Detroit. So I have a lot of options of where to go or NOT to go. Perhaps there are not so many choices where you are. It’s harder with immigrant populations but if you explain it right most people would probably be fairly cool about it and want to help you.

• [Egyptgrrrrl]

  Signy, as a Muslim woman I can assure you that I can photograph inside a Masjid, write about my experiences (and there are MANY depending on the masjid and population/cultural group) Oh and I could be a moderate media sensation.

  Be bold, but be respectful if that’s what you want to do. We have a lot of masjids here in Detroit. So I have a lot of options of where to go or NOT to go. Perhaps there are not so many choices where you are. It’s harder with immigrant populations but if you explain it right most people would probably be fairly cool about it and want to help you.

• [Anonymous]

  Bassam!

  Even though your older brother won’t say it, he is proud of you. I’ll try to cajole him to say thank you to you or something.

• [Aman Ali]

  Columbus is in the house! Yeah man I spent most of my childhood in Reynoldsburg and then my high school years in Gahanna. I love living in New York now, but I’ll never shed my Ohio roots.

• [JordanAR]

  Thank you, Bassam and Aman, for giving us a window into NYC’s Muslim community. We don’t get it enough. Look forward to your continued posts.

• [Anonymous]

  hi !

  being muslim and regular reader of bb posts, i look forward to read yours

  really cool projects you’re doing,
  keep it up !

  my very best.
  anon — algiers, algeria

• [Signy]

  Hi, can someone please cite the source, and preferably NOT CAIR, for the “6-8 million Muslims” statistic that was just tossed out on this site? Reliable studies, such as the one done by Pew, have a far lower estimate of Muslims, at 2.35 million. (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/483/muslim-americans)

  Also, looking forward to the day when a Muslim woman can photograph inside a masjid, write about her experiences, and become a small media sensation.

• [zikman]

  hey cool I’m muslim too

• [Anonymous]

  Wow, I wouldn’t have guessed that there were that many mosques in NYC. Maybe you can remind us how many Muslims there are in America itself.

  [I seem to recall that Nat Geo magazine had a nice map showing the distribution throughout the country, but I can't find a link....]

• [ackpht]

  A noble project and well done. Looking forward to your posts.

  Score BB.

• [J France]

  I really enjoyed the 30 mosques project, and can’t wait to whittle away my work days reading your posts.

  Way to go BB for keeping the guestblog spot not only filled, but filled with such awesome talent.

• [Aman Ali]

  Anonymous, from what I understand there are around 6-8 million Muslims living in the United States. NYC has around 800,000 on its own, making it the city with the largest Muslim population