Palestine

Ramadhan is a fasting month for the Muslims. The time to fast varies each year [according to Islamic calendar, the Hijri].

15th Ramadhan = 30.05.2018

5:59 a.m

This morning after I performed Subuh (morning prayer, the first of 5 prayers a day – in summer Subuh is around 3:30 to 4 a.m) and recited a few pages of Al-Quran (the holy book for the muslims), I logged into my Twitter to read about today’s news. Well Twitter is now somehow the fastest way for me to catch up with current issues. 

To my shock, I saw a tweet from a famous Malaysian singer, Faizal Tahir, saying that Gaza was now being attacked. So I googled about the news. Apparently Israel was attacking Palestine after militants in the Gaza Strip launched their biggest attack on Israel in years. 

According to the news, ‘It follows weeks of tension in the Gaza Strip since the weekly "Great March of Return" demonstrations kicked off on March 30. More than 100 Palestinians were killed and more than 13,000 injured during border protests. Israeli Defense Forces have been accused of deadly and heavy-handed tactics, while Israeli officials claimed they were merely defending the border from Hamas terrorists.’ - which we all know that the Palestinians were defending their homeland. 

I jumped out of my bed to write this, since I couldn’t continue sleeping (which I always do after sahur and performing Subuh. I’ll go back to sleep until 7:00 a.m) after I knew what had happened to my brothers and sisters in Gaza. 

May God help them overcome all the attacks and injustices in the holy month of Ramadhan. 

Let us all pray for Palestine.

It was not even him

Ramadhan is a fasting month for the Muslims. The time to fast varies each year [according to Islamic calendar, the Hijri].

11th Ramadhan = 26.05.2018

There were so many people today! It turned out that today was the day where a few strands of beard of the prophet Muhammad PBUH was brought from Turkey. (PBUH is an abbreviation of peace be upon him also often written as SAW. SAW is the abbreviation for the arabic phrase which carries the same meaning as PBUH)

I heard about it before, that during Ramadhan the beard will be rotated to mosques all over Germany to be shown to the muslims. I saw it once when I visited Topkapi in Istanbul. Having seen the prophet’s beard again brought the sense of longing for him. I am sure all of the people there felt it too. Some even shedded tears for missing the prophet so much.

As for me, to be honest, I felt embarrased about myself. It was only his beard but I stood far away from it. I was thinking, what if he was there? What if he asked me what I have done as one of his followers. I had no answer for that. I was not ready to meet him, I couldn‘t face him. I was ashamed of myself – I still am. How can I wish to meet him when I’m not ready, and most importantly when I am still too far away from being good enough to have the privilege to meet him. 

May this feeling haunts me forever and help me follow all of his teachings.

Solidarity

Ramadhan is a fasting month for the Muslims. The time to fast varies each year [according to Islamic calendar, the Hijri].

3rd Ramadhan = 18.05.2018

It was my first time going to mosque in Kempten for tarawih (extra prayers performed by the muslims at night in the month of Ramadhan). Before this I stayed quite far from the mosque so I mostly performed my tarawih alone at home.

As soon as I came in, I saw an old lady smiling at me. So I went to her, shook her hand and hugged her. We muslims always do that (hugging those from the same gender as us whenever we meet at mosque), even though it‘s the first time we meet each other. I don’t know how to really explain that, but we normally hug each other to show the brother- or sisterhood among Muslims and a sign of solidarity towards each other.

For the first time I felt like I was at home performing the 20 rak’ah of tarawih with the people from my own region, Kempten.  (Rak’ah is a single unit of islamic prayers) It only took us an hour. That sounds like a lot, but it was not difficult at all. All muslims agree with this; performing tarawih help to calm the inner spirit and that is the beauty of Ramadan.