Building the Ramadan Companion
Why existing Ramadan planners fail people, and what I'm building instead — a tool designed with cultural intelligence and intentional design.
Every year, Muslims in the West face the same problem: the apps and planners built for Ramadan don't actually fit how we live.
They're either too liturgical (built for people in Muslim-majority countries with completely different schedules) or too secular (a basic calendar with prayer times bolted on). Neither works for a Muslim living in Atlanta, or Chicago, or Paris — someone navigating a full-time job, a family, and a 16-hour fast in June.
That's the gap I'm building into.
The core problem: the flexible calendar spine
Ramadan's start date shifts by 10-11 days each year against the Gregorian calendar. That's not a bug — it's by design. But it means any planner built around fixed dates is wrong from year one.
The solution isn't to hard-code the date. It's to build a system that generates the calendar dynamically based on the moon sighting — and then wraps everything else (meal planning, workout schedules, Quran reading tracker) around that flexible spine.
Simple idea. Surprisingly hard to execute well.
Why I'm the right person to build this
I'm a Muslim from Ivory Coast, living in the US, building things at the intersection of culture and technology. I've observed Ramadan across three continents. I know what it's like to fast in West Africa in summer heat, in an American office in March, and in London in December. That range isn't academic — it shapes every design decision I make.
I'm not building this for everyone. I'm building it for the person I am.
What's next
The core calendar system is working. The next phase is the interface — designing something that feels calm and intentional, not like another app screaming for attention.
I'll document the process here as I go.