iPray

so one a bright sunny Friday afternoon, by a matter of complete co-incidence, PPY and i ended up having to pray Jumma at the WP mosque (Wilayah Persekutuan mosque for the uninitiated).

as a side note, i find it important to disclose that nothing makes me happier or sends me reeling for joy more than a guy that has the pride to wear his traditional garb. something about it is extremely appealing. i say this primarily because just as i was leaving Monash the day, i saw a dude dressed in a green kurta. and it made me really happy! on a Jumma too! 

okay back to the point. so basically Fridays mosques dont cater to females because its an all-male audience, but thankfully for this mosque, there was a level where women could pray. take note that PPY has spare chappals in the bonnet to change into because as we all know, all the world's chappals go missing at the entrance of mosques (one particular year Najib's wife's got lost too. PPY came home to tell us that!). so we make our way into the mosque, i go off to the ladies, climb a few flights of stairs and reach where im meant to be. i see a burka clad woman sitting so i place myself next to her. now there's quite some time left to go for Zohr, the prayer call, kutbah et al, so i pick up the Quran to try to do one reading of this chapter called Yasin. and as im completely hopeless in arabic numbers, i ask the woman next to me to help me out in getting to the chapter i need to be at. before i know it, she's moved over from her side to help me with my diction. which i found incredibly sweet. and with every line i'd say, she'd just say 'Masha Allah', which frankly i found really encouraging. in the midst of it however i couldnt really make out what she was saying, but i got by and assumed that she was telling me that i was making progress and that i ought to keep reading and practising. then i asked her where she's from and she said yemen. what a lovely lovely lady. i offered her two kids gum because i had nothing else at the time, and asked her if she was here in holiday, to which i think she said yes. anyway, point is, we sat around waiting for the azan after which we prayed together in a single file. 

now what i found incredibly bizarre was that there wasnt a single telekong (female praying garb) in the entire ladies section. clad only in a flimsy dupatta i was barely covered to be able to my hands, which is a little essential while praying. so imagine how touched i felt when the yemeni lady noticed that another malay lady had a spare shawl, asked her if she could borrow it, came back and put it over my shoulder so that i could pray. i was incredibly touched by her gesture to make sure that i was adequately covered! we prayed in a single file and everything done, i came down to meet papa and return home.

obviously being the yusufs, the drama dose of the day was not yet complete, so as we were stepping out, we realised that papa's chappals were gone. looking around frantically high and low, we came to the conclusion that they were gone, whether by mistake or whatever. considering we had over 2oo metres to walk on gravel, and papa's diabetic and theres a chance some odd material might poke his feet and we all know what that means, so i gave papa my chappals. and i learnt that day just how hard it is to walk on gravel barefoot. actually its not that bad. its when you stop walking that the heat and pokey-ness of the gravel hits you. and on a day where the temperature is at 36 C, yeah its pretty bad.

the point of this post, is just to highlight how much i loved going to the mosque. it affirms your sense of belief and made me feel like i belong. the fact that an absolute stranger would care that your prayers are accepted and would do something for you just made my heart soar with happiness. i remember feeling goosebumps going down my body while i was praying because since i was a kid, ive ALWAYS loved praying in congregation with others. and there is one particular moment i love more than any other. it comes at the beginning of every rakat, when you're reading Surah Al-Fatihah and everyone just says Amin in unison. something about that never fails to move me. 

that one sight and the one observation of seeing an entire hall of people just prostate towards the House of God just, i dont even have words for it, but just really humbles me. i remember when id gone over to Saudi Arabia in o8, id purposely hold back and wait till everyone else was in sajda just to see the awe-inspiring sight. and it would get me every. single. time.

that aside, where's everyone going for tarawih?