whats the plot

my 5th khutbah in alexandria was with sheikh 7atem farid.  sheikh 7atem is famous for his beautiful recitation of the quran.  it is said that during ramadan, an incredibly massive number of people come and pray taraweeh behind him, especially on the 27th night of ramadan.  i attended the khutbah at masjid bilal, which is a very short walk away from the mediterranean sea and is right next to san stefano.

anyhow, the khutbah was about life insurance companies and how, as muslims, we know that there is no such “insurance” except that given to us by Allah – that a muslim does good deeds, etc and Allah promises to protect them, etc (as can be seen from many verses in the Quran) – for example:

“They who believe and do not mix their belief with injustice – those will have security, and they are [rightly] guided.” (6:82).

in this masjid also, there was only one khutbah.  i asked my friend, may Allah protect him, as to the reasoning, and he explained that during the time of the Prophet (saw), sayidna Abu Bakr (ra), sayidna Omer (ra), and part of the time of sayidna Uthman (ra), there was only one athan.  however, during the time of sayidna Uthman (ra), people complained that they didn’t have enough time to get to the masjid because they wouldn’t hear the athan, etc.  as a result, sayidna Uthman (ra) ordered for a second athan to be given (before the first athan) in the market.

this practice stayed and as thus, there remain 2 athans in many masajid.  wa Allahu a3lam.

masjid al salam is the masjid next to the place i am currently staying.  most of the people who go there are the people who live or work in assid, where the masjid is located.  i am not sure if the masjid has a full time imam or not, because the same subset of n people always lead the salah – some are good, some are okay (in terms of qira2a, etc – not that i am one to judge).

anyway, the 4th khutbah i attended in alexandria was at masjid al salam because i was running late and didn’t have time to go to al hedaya.  the khutbah was about the story of sayidna musa (as), and more specifically, about the beginning years of his life.

the only different/notable things were:

1.  i walked in the masjid and found a tape player playing surat al kahf with loud volume.  i never experienced/encountered this before, but turns out it’s common in some masajid in egypt.
2.  only one athan for salah – my friend later told me why (i’ll discuss this in the next khutbah related post insha’Allah).
3.  the khateeb, at the end, after the khutbah, stood up and said that whoever doesn’t thank people doesn’t thank Allah (hadeeth i guess) – and then proceeded to thank the egyptian president for opening some route for supplies to the palestinians.  i found it odd, even though he did say something to the extent of, “in the same way that we have to point out when they’re wrong, we have to give them good feedback when they are good.”

an interesting thing happened a few weeks ago…  i was walking with my friend heading to the excellent restaurant, dahab.  on the way, we heard the adhan for maghrib and decided to stop and pray.  we saw a sign for a masjid, so we started walking in that direction.  to my surprise, as we closed on the masjid, i saw a brother with a big beard walking in the opposite direction – away from the masjid.

i was confused… “wait, this guy has a big beard, why would he be walking away from the masjid when the salah is about to start?” – so anyway, i ignored the thought and continued walking with my friend towards the masjid.  when we approached the door, the masjid seemed empty… i saw one guy inside praying maghrib (leading himself and only himself), so my friend and i went in and joined him.

the odd and eerie thing was that we were the only 2 people to pray in that masjid with him.  after prayer, i turned around, thinking, “maybe there’s a grave here?” – but i didn’t see a grave or anything suspicious.  we walked out, puzzled at what had happened, and continued our journey towards dahab.

on the way, we passed a huge gathering of people leaving another masjid – and i saw the same guy with the big beard that i had seen earlier.  i went up to him and asked him, “brother, we prayed at the masjid over there and there was no one else there – what is up with that?” – and he said, “the person that leads there is sufi and has lots of bid3a – we tried to advise him but he won’t take our admonition.  in addition, he’s not very polite with the people – for example, someone will pick up a mus7af to read and he’ll say, ‘shouldn’t you ask permission before taking that?’ – etc.  so as a result, we no longer pray there.”

well, i guess that explains that…

i love sheikh mohammad, the sheikh of mca. i also love his amazing marketing skills in bringing the youth to fajr. check out this picture of the t-shirt he gave me:

i love the “and smile” part – and i love how he signed his name at the bottom

sheikh muhammad jibreel‘s brother leads fajr at mca (the masjid close to my apartment). how cool is that?

peace. err, its been a week since i posted last.

so i found an awesome masjid not too far from where i live now. 23 acres of land, they have a school (not sure how big the school is or to what grades/levels, etc), a gym, basketball court, soccer field, etc. the founder is a very well educated guy [according to the (website)]. i heard him speak because he came to the masjid which i go to for jum3ah and he gave a really nice khutbah about the ornaments of this life.

also last week, i installed 1gb ram in my mac mini. opening the mini wasn’t too bad, but closing it was pretty bad. but i managed to do it without scratching it up, al7amdulillah. now everything seems to run a lot smoother.

i also took a little glance at an objective c tutorial. it seems as though you can write osx cocoa apps either in objective c or in java, and that there’s some means of bridging between the languages as well. pretty neat, but haven’t actually written any code with it yet.

i went apartment hunting this weekend… found nothing yet…

but anyway, that’s all for now.

greets, peace, etc. today, i decided to upload the nasheeds i have produced over time to this webpage. they’re all in the new “audio studio” section on the webpage. and yes, they’re not great nor listenable-toable, but they’re there to induce (slight) laughter. there are still some other things i want to upload to this page, but it’s a matter of time…

it was sooooooo cold today! [i learned that my camera does some cool stuff today when i looked at the book to find out how to get the camera to automatically take this picture after 10 seconds... i want to take some pictures!].

oh yeah, the other day at the masjid… *sighs* (as one could tell from my previous post, i really prefer the environment of the masajid in atlanta…) — but the other day (friday), i ran into two awkward situations (i got a whole list of these by now hehe).

so they changed the time of 3isha from 8:15 till 8:00 (desi standard time) — and i had forgotten, and i remembered around 8:05 and so i left late for the masjid. when i got there, it looked as though they hadn’t prayed, so i asked someone if they had prayed yet, and i was told that the imam hadn’t come yet. so i went up and sat down in the front row. the brother next to me, one of the first people mansoor and i met when we got there, tells me to lead the salat (3isha) because its getting late. so i lead 3isha, and when i had finished, the imam had come back, so he lead tarawee7 as normal.

so after the 20th rak3ah, the imam said, “salat ul witr” (as usual), and was faced towards the qibla, so i glanced at my watch to see what time it was (itching to go home hehe), and suddenly he turns around and looks at me and says, “can i lead witr?” — and i am like huh!? (and at the same time feeling really embarrassed, thinking to myself, “is he asking me this because he saw me looking at my watch and thinks i am being disrespectful by checking the time?”) — and he said, “can i pray witr, because you lead 3isha,” and so i said, “please, please do.” (and i was very puzzled at that).

so after finishing tarawee7, a lot of the times i just tend to leave *right* after witr. but due to that situation, i decided that i would stay for the short talk after witr to avoid further awkward situations. so as soon as witr was being completed, before i could even say my second salams, the guy next to me, a really old uncle, touched my hand. i was like, “huh? maybe an accident?” – so anyway, after witr, i sat for the short talk.

and the talk ended, and i was ready to go home. but when i came to leave, the uncle touched my hand again. and i shook hands with him and the other people and began to walk towards the exit, and he followed me, and asked me, “did the imam read only one rak3ah at any point during the tarwee7?” — and i am like, “yeah, at the very last rak3ah he did.” — and he started going off on this whole spiel about how in pakistan, all the scholars agree that a person must read at least 3 ayahs per rak3ah for the salat to be deemed valid; and how he experienced people reading less in other masajid and his conversations with them and so on. and all this time i am thinking, “why is he telling me this?”

so anyway, not knowing what to say, i say, “jazakAllah khair” and continue walking towards the door, get my shoes and put them on. and as i am about to leave, the uncle starts to talk to me again and says, “you know, if you know quran, you have more right to be leading than him [the imam] because you have (and he touches my “beard”) this.” and other people start coming towards where we are; and i was taken by shock and had no chance to reply, and he says, “i’ll talk to you about this later.” — and he leaves.

two very awkward situations… so on saturday, to resolve the first situation, i went to the imam after salat and i apologized to him for having lead 3isha (thinking that maybe he got offended or something) – but apparently he wasn’t upset, he said, “no its a good thing that you listened to them and lead 3isha, because when the salat time comes we should pray at its time.”

as for the second situation, i didn’t see the old uncle on saturday, and on sunday (today), i saw him but avoided him at all costs. dang, people want to use me to overthrow the current imam.

not to mention that the statement he made is untrue — because 1. the current imam’s memorization is multiple folds better than mine, (and there is NO exaggeration in this statement whatsoever, i am a fake hehe); 2. he has a lot more knowledge than me; 3. he is older than me; and 4. i feel that he is very sincere, to the extent that although he studied deen, he then persued a degree in computer science so that he supports his family from a “non-deen” occupation so that his deen work is totally for the sake of Allah.

so yeah; the current imam is masha’Allah a very sincere and very nice guy — not to mention his memorization is insanely strong masha’Allah, and the fact that his one way drive to work is ~3 hours (!); and yet he still manages to take time out to lead tarawee7 masha’Allah (whereas during normal non-ramadan times, he would stay at a hotel throughout the week and just come home on the weekends). so sub7anAllah, that takes insane dedication.

but what can i tell you, there are always those people who will complain about a small thing that they see that a person has done that is wrong in their eyes, rather than look at the great amount of effort which a person may exert in the sake of Allah… sub7anAllah.

that’s my rant of the day. i got nothing more to say for now. peace out.