I've been keeping this post as a draft long enough now. Been busy lately with works, as 9 months report's due date looming not far ahead of me.
We are approaching the third week of Ramadhan now, and as it is late summer here in Newcastle, I have my Imsaq at 4.00 and Iftar about 20.00 hours. Lucky thing is, the temperature hardly reach 15 C. For the first two days, I had my iftar all by my self, with self made ayam masak merah and a mug of hot chocolate. Kicap is a must, so I had that too. Thats all, no fancy murtabak, jus tembikai and all. But, I am still fortunate compare to some people in some countries, so no complaint there. Now, I usually break my fast in University Mosque, where they serve beriyani arab with kambing and ayam.
We are approaching the third week of Ramadhan now, and as it is late summer here in Newcastle, I have my Imsaq at 4.00 and Iftar about 20.00 hours. Lucky thing is, the temperature hardly reach 15 C. For the first two days, I had my iftar all by my self, with self made ayam masak merah and a mug of hot chocolate. Kicap is a must, so I had that too. Thats all, no fancy murtabak, jus tembikai and all. But, I am still fortunate compare to some people in some countries, so no complaint there. Now, I usually break my fast in University Mosque, where they serve beriyani arab with kambing and ayam.
I was also fortunate to perform my terawikh prayers in three different mosques here. Thanks to friends that came and chauffeured me since I have no means of transport yet. The first mosque, predominate by Pakistani and performs 20 rakaat of terawikh. The 'hafiz' recites the ayats to fast for my liking, and the solats were performed in lightning quick.
The second and third mosque, predominate by Arabs, and both perform 8 rakaat of Terawikh. But, the pace is slower, so slow that they finished almost at the same time with the previous mentioned masjid. I like the way the imams in both masjid perform their terawikh though, cause it seems that they put their soul into their solats.
Its amazing when in the middle of ayats, you can hear the Imam sobbing, and followed by the jemaah as well!!! I guess that the advantage of being Arab, where automatically you can understand what Imam recites. We (read: me) can only guess what the ayat is all about. I mean, we do understand that 'nar' is hell, 'firdaus' is heaven and other simple words, but that's all. And when they performed 'qunut' during 'witir' (here they start reciting qunut from the first day of terawikh), its touching your heart deeply, eventhough for people like me, again, that can only guess what the doa is all about. The way the Imam recites the doa, is so soft, touching and most of jemaah cannot stand but to cry on hearing that. And, it is a long qunut too. I don't know, I just did not have that feeling during all these years of terawikh.
Bottom line is, as a muslim, I think it is a privilege to understand arabic. Is it to late for us to learn arabic at this age? I hope not, as people said, nothing is too late in this life.
The second and third mosque, predominate by Arabs, and both perform 8 rakaat of Terawikh. But, the pace is slower, so slow that they finished almost at the same time with the previous mentioned masjid. I like the way the imams in both masjid perform their terawikh though, cause it seems that they put their soul into their solats.
Its amazing when in the middle of ayats, you can hear the Imam sobbing, and followed by the jemaah as well!!! I guess that the advantage of being Arab, where automatically you can understand what Imam recites. We (read: me) can only guess what the ayat is all about. I mean, we do understand that 'nar' is hell, 'firdaus' is heaven and other simple words, but that's all. And when they performed 'qunut' during 'witir' (here they start reciting qunut from the first day of terawikh), its touching your heart deeply, eventhough for people like me, again, that can only guess what the doa is all about. The way the Imam recites the doa, is so soft, touching and most of jemaah cannot stand but to cry on hearing that. And, it is a long qunut too. I don't know, I just did not have that feeling during all these years of terawikh.
Bottom line is, as a muslim, I think it is a privilege to understand arabic. Is it to late for us to learn arabic at this age? I hope not, as people said, nothing is too late in this life.
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