Calendars and Crescents
February 16, 2026What are Christians to make of Ramadan?
Ramadan starts tomorrow—ish.
The timing is a little tricky, because Ramadan, the annual month-long Muslim festival of fasting, doesn’t correspond to a fixed date each year. Instead, Ramadan starts with the first sighting of the crescent moon during the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Since the lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than the solar calendar, the lunar months move around between the seasons. That means Ramadan starts about ten days earlier in the solar calendar every year. This year it is expected to begin in the evening of Tuesday, February 17, in many parts of the world.
What is Ramadan? In addition to being a month in the Islamic calendar, Ramadan is a festival during which Muslims abstain from certain activities between dawn and sunset. There are some exceptions, but in general, healthy adult Muslims are expected to refrain from eating, drinking (even water), smoking, and sexual relations during the day. In the evening, families and communities will enjoy a meal to break the daily fast. Ramadan is also an occasion for special prayers, as Muslims devote additional time to worship, recitation of the Qur’an, and spiritual reflection, often late into the night.
Ramadan fasting dates to the earliest years of Islam and has been practiced continuously since the time of Muhammad. The prohibition against eating and drinking and sexual relations during daylight hours throughout Ramadan is grounded in the Qur’an. Other restrictions, such as the rule against smoking, developed later but are now considered fundamental to the practice, which is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Many Christians wonder whether and how to relate to Muslims during Ramadan. In an article for the Lausanne blog, THF partner Dr. Emil Shehadeh suggests several ways Christians can engage with their Muslim neighbors during this season. For example, giving gifts to Muslim friends, inviting Muslims to your home for the evening meal, and asking polite and appropriate questions of Muslims are ways to encourage dialogue.
It’s also useful to remember that Ramadan is often a time of spiritual openness among Muslims. During the next month, more than 1.8 billion people all over the world will be devoting themselves to the spiritual discipline of self-denial. Yet for many Muslims, sincere devotion shown during Ramadan is accompanied by spiritual uncertainty as they wonder whether they’ve done enough to be considered righteous in the sight of Allah. Historically, Ramadan is often a time when Muslims have dreams about Jesus. Many will have questions about things like obedience, forgiveness, mercy, and eternity. Christians need to be ready to answer these questions with biblical truth.
And of course Ramadan is a reminder and an invitation to pray. Last year, THF partner Missio Nexus published a helpful guide called “7 Ways to Pray for Muslims during Ramadan.” Suggestions include praying for movements to faith in Jesus among Muslim communities, praying for the witness (and protection) of Muslim Background Believers, and praying for more workers to be raised up to lovingly communicate the gospel in Muslim contexts.
According to Dr. Shehadeh, studies have shown that personal contact with a Christian friend is the most frequent reason Muslims come to Christ. But studies also show that the majority of Muslims don’t know any Christians. So don’t be afraid to engage.
Jesus said the fields are ready for harvest. Do you believe that? If you do, why not be a spiritual harvester this Ramadan? Start a conversation. Give a gift. Initiate a relationship. Remember that God can and often does use something as simple as a dinner invitation to start a process of radical life transformation.
This Ramadan, be open to engaging with Muslims whose physical hunger just may reveal a spiritual hunger for Jesus, the true Bread of Life.
Here’s what’s happening.
Christian Publishing in Turkey
This month, THF partner Miras Publishing Ministries, the publisher of the only Christian magazine in Turkey, will release its 55th issue. Miras was founded by Gökhan and Ozge Talas in 2011 out of their conviction that Turkish people, the vast majority of whom (some estimates put the number as high as 99 percent) identify as Muslim, need access to the gospel and gospel-centered literature. For the past three years, Miras has been a partner in THF’s Ministry Sustainability Initiative and has been able to put THF financial assistance to good use by adding audio and video content to its online database, resulting in over a thousand new subscribers and many thousands of hours of total listening and viewing time. These digital offerings supplement, rather than replace, the print ministry. Magazine publishing and distribution continues in Farsi as well as Turkish, and Miras is looking to publish several books in Turkish within the next year as well, offering even more biblically faithful materials to Turkish readers who have little exposure to Christian perspectives. Of course, publishing Christian content in a Muslim-majority country is not without risk. For example, when I visited Istanbul last year, I was told that the Bible Society bookshop (the only Christian bookshop in the city) has been vandalized and attacked multiple times in recent years. Gökhan, too, has faced threats because of his faith, including very recently. He and his family and his colleagues need our prayers as they continue to follow God’s call in Turkey.
Innovative Bible Engagement
Asbury Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is already one of the largest churches in the state, and they continue to grow. Founded in 1962 with just nine members, the church today has a membership of more than 8,000 and weekly attendance around 3,300. Andrew Forrest, who has been the senior pastor since 2022, is committed to helping his congregation follow Jesus more and more closely. One of the ways he does this is by encouraging church members to read the Bible. Pastor Forrest recently appeared on an episode of Tyndale’s “The Church around the World” podcast to talk about a new church initiative focused on guiding the entire congregation through the entire Bible in a year using The One Year Bible. As part of this effort, the church partnered with drinkware company Simple Modern to create a special water bottle emblazoned with logos representing each of the 66 books of the Bible. As people finish reading a book, they can put a special sticker on the bottle to indicate their progress through God’s Word. Many THF partners around the world are similarly focused on Bible engagement, and “Bible Access and Engagement” was recently identified by solving.org as one of the world’s greatest problems for the church to address through targeted funding in the coming years. Hopefully Asbury Church’s idea for a simple and fun reading benchmark will inspire others in their efforts to get more and more people to read the Bible.
Compounding Crises in South Sudan
A newly published article from research-focused site Devpolicy Blog provides a sobering assessment of conditions in the world’s newest country. The article opens, “A convergence of conflict, climate events ranging from droughts to floods, and malnutrition amid humanitarian aid cuts have plunged South Sudan into the worst conditions people have seen since a 2018 peace agreement gave a glimmer of hope following a five-year-long civil war.” The article goes on to cite several heartbreaking statistics: 300,000 uprooted from their homes last year alone; 2,000 killed in ongoing fighting between rival factions; malnutrition, disease, and collapsing basic services creating a perfect storm of poverty and desperation. THF partners in the northern part of South Sudan report a worsening refugee crisis caused by conflict in neighboring Sudan. Hundreds of thousands have fled the conflict surrounding Darfur and now reside in refugee camps in Upper Nile State. Seasonal flooding has made conditions in many of these settlements dangerous and life-threatening. Yet amid displacement and instability, there are glimmers of hope. The Dinka Cam Bible translation is complete and being distributed. THF partner Life Publishers in Juba successfully produced four original titles last year and is on track to release six more in 2026. Church leaders in the Anglican Dioceses of Renk and Malakal are actively caring for refugees and showing the love of Christ to people in dire need. THF supports several organizations serving in different regions of the country, and all are reporting significant impact despite overwhelming needs. Please pray for resilience, stamina, safety, and resources for our partners in South Sudan.
THF Partners Recognized
ROI Ministry is a Christian impact-assessment firm that keeps a running “Top 10” list of ministry organizations that are contributing significantly to the Kingdom of God, analyzed in terms of impact per dollar. Their claim is that if you give to any of the organizations in the Top 10, you can be confident your donation will be well stewarded for a positive return on Kingdom investment. Impact assessment is one of our core commitments at THF; we spend a lot of time and energy vetting our partners and following up with them after a grant is given. So it’s gratifying when others recognize our grantees as being particularly impactful. Recently ROI Ministry identified two THF partners as being in their Top 10: Here’s Life Africa and MedSend. Here’s Life Africa targets unreached people groups in the world’s poorest nations, equipping indigenous teams to engage remote villages, share the gospel, and plant churches. Last year, Here’s Life Africa teams visited 2,660 villages and showed the Jesus Film to 3 million people. MedSend is intent on getting medical missionaries to the field with the financial freedom to focus on their mission and not on crippling debt from medical school. With supported missionaries in over 100 countries, MedSend facilitates the provision of life-saving care along with hope, faith, and the love of Christ to those in need. Please join us in thanking God for these faithful partners whose good work is being recognized as an excellent way to invest in Kingdom work.
That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and charts of future Ramadan start dates to [email protected]. Do you enjoy reading the THF Weekly Briefing? Make sure you’re subscribed to the email distribution list to get access to this resource the same day it’s published each week, and feel free to share it with others who may be interested. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.
Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation
The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone who’s interested in learning more about Tyndale’s philanthropic commitments, partners, and operations. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.