12-year-old creates stunning Ramadan art using Rubik's Cubes


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For many, the Rubik's Cube is a head-scratching puzzle that invariably gets thrown across the room in frustration.  But for 12-year-old Mohamed Charara, it's an artistic medium.

Mr Charara, of Dearborn, Michigan, says he can solve most of the puzzles in under a minute.

After that, he does something truly amazing.

With the more than one thousand cubes in his collection, Mr Charara creates stunning works of art.

From pieces depicting Harry Potter and the Joker to traditional Ramadan greetings, his projects display a high level of dedication, patience and creativity.

"My personal best is 28 seconds, but I usually range between 30 and 40 seconds [per Rubik's Cube]," he told The Arab American News. 

As to the larger projects, he says, “it depends on the piece, but I can usually complete them in three to six hours."

Mr Charara says he was introduced to Rubik's Cubes by his mother, who challenged him to solve one in an attempt to reduce his screen time.

After watching a video about the puzzles and solving a few himself, he was hooked.

He even began making videos himself under the TikTok handle @rubikscuber0.  The few videos he has posted have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

In addition to being a social media sensation, Mr Charara is also a swimmer on Unis Middle School's swim team and has dreams of being a reconstructive plastic surgeon.

"I want people to know that I find a huge passion in Rubik's Cubes and I do it not only for myself to enjoy, but for the entertainment of others," he told The Arab American News. 

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Zakat definitions

Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.

Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.

Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.

Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.