The Blog

Eid was just this Tuesday, wasn’t it? I just asked someone’s mom, during the course of a conversation, about how their son’s Eid was, even though I had not only met him but even spoke to him briefly after the Eid prayers. Imagine my embarassment when she exclaimed “…but he was at the Eid prayers..!” and didn’t I meet him? I was like, Ooops, I dunno how I forgot! I can’t believe I was so forgetful…and the trouble is, the whole thing always comes out sounding as though I don’t find the guy I forgot about memorable, ’cause I did remember going to the Eid prayers and everything else about it. I just didn’t remember him at the moment I was speaking about him. Later, as soon as I was reminded about him, I remembered him, of course. Weird, eh?
I usually have a really bad memory when it comes to remembering movies, whether or not I’ve watched a certain movie and – in particular – what the hell the movie was about. And I can NEVER remember songs. It may be a blessing though, that I don’t remember useless trivia. I, alhamdulillah, have no trouble remembering work related stuff and people at work and in our community. I think I used to be better at this memory thing when I was in school/college though. It must deteriorate, this memory thing.

Alhamdulillah its Friday again. It looks cold and gray outside, unfortunately. There is snow in our forecast for this weekend. Hopefully it won’t be too miserable, inshaAllah. We’ve all just recovered from week long colds.
Tomorrow night is the Muslim community’s Eid Potluck dinner. I will try to take some pictures, inshaAllah. I may even be able to share them on my photo blog
I think I’ve gained some weight during the month of Ramadan and the Eid festivities. Argh! I need to take control of my food intake and start taking part in the badminton, tennis, cricket – all indoor, of course – activities now that Ramadan is over. After tomorrow nights Eid dinner, inshaAllah!
I found a great web site to listen to and download Quraan Read by various Qaris and lectures by various speakers/scholars. It’s a an online treasure FREE to download! MashaAllah. May Allah reward whomever created this web site. Enjoy! أصوات الإسلام Aswat Al-Islam (Sounds of Islam)

It was a cold day this Eid, unfortunately. On the morning of Tuesday, November 25, we got all dressed up and went to the pray the Eid prayer in congregation. It was probably the biggest gathering of Muslims in our small community thus far. This was despite the fact that a couple of families were absent because they’d gone out of town to celebrate Eid with their relatives in Toronto and other places. However, this was offset by some peoples’ relatives who had decided to come as far away as Pakistan to have their Eid here in town.

The food was great: everyone brought delicious ethnic dishes and shared with the community. The Khutbah was wonderful as well: it was about brotherhood and in the ummah. All in all, it was a lot of fun. I had my digital camera with me, but I couldn’t be bothered to take a few pictures of the community gathering. I’m not used to that kind of stuff. Perhaps I’ll try to take some photographs this Saturday night when we have the Eid Potluck dinner, inshaAllah.

Tonight is the 27th night of the blessed month of Ramadan. I went to pray Tarawih at the masjid and just came back a little over an hour ago. I wanted to stay there longer and participate in the qiyaamul layl – the nightly prayers – in search for Lailatul Qadr – the Night of Power, but I have a nasty cold that doesn’t want to quit and a itchy, runny nose and a sneezy disposition. I could hardly pray Tarawih.
Too bad I got sick right in the middle of Ramadan so I couldn’t make the most of it: missed a few days of fasting and Taraweeh prayers. We had 4 Huffaaz from the UK who recited the Quraan every night in Tarawih prayers. The Quraan was completed on the 23rd of Ramadan, alhamdulillah. Today was Jumaatul Widaa’ – the last Friday of Ramadan. Tomorrow is the 27th day of fasting. Eid will probably be on Tuesday, but it will depend on the sighting of the moon.
Eid in our small community is a pretty big thing. We rent a community center to hold the Eid prayers and have a potluck Eid dinner that follows on the Saturday that follows the Eid. Almost everyone in the small community of less than 100 families attends and so you get to meet everyone at one sitting. Its quite a lot of fun Next year we’ll have the Eid prayers and the potluck dinners and other such community events at our new mosque, inshaAllah.