Miscellaneous

The last 10 nights of Ramadan are upon us... alhamdulillah. This weekend I had the privilege to listen to two different but both very well known reciters of Qur'an. Saturday, I was at a MAS Fund-raiser Iftar. I have mixed feelings about MAS, sometimes. Several active sisters were wondering where I've been, since I've not been doing MAS things lately. Truth be told, I don't even know what MAS is up to most of the time because, astonishingly, I'm actually not on their mailing list. I am on the MAS-Youth mailing list, even though I never do anything with them, never even really socialize with them. Nothing against them, by the way, they seem to be mashallah very well-behaved kids, whenever I have been around them (The March in DC, Night with Suhaib Webb, etc). I tend to find myself at functions with MAS people almost coincidentally, but some of the sisters who are very actively involved, like the director of the Raleigh chapter Freedom Foundation and some others, were asking me on Saturday why they don't see me around too much lately... it's kind of obvious really: I'm busy. Insanely busy actually, and that's just with school and work. But then I realized they probably have all this stuff going on I don't know about because I'm not on their mailing list... hahaha. :-) Anyway the iftaar was okay, but the taraweeh was very nice, with Abdul Kareem Eddagouch leading--you can look him up on google video if you'd like to know what I'm talking about and why I opted to listen to him Saturday instead of the other available option...

...which was Sheikh Muhammad Jebril. On Sunday, I got to pray taraweeh behind him, but he was in town both nights, Saturday and Sunday. InshaAllah he will be here on Wednesday and Thursday nights as well, which wasn't originally planned I think, but that will be very nice. And those of you who know what kind of "nice" I'm talking about are probably wondering how in the world... but apparently this is his 5th consecutive (for Ramadan) visit to Raleigh; that's right, I got to pray behind him last year too. I'm not sure how many of my readers have prayed behind him, but mashaAllah it's nice. My feet tend to kinda hurt by the end though. Since the next two nights aren't on a weekend it's likely the masjid won't be quite as crowded as it was on Sunday.

Saturday was a busy day in its own right... and I should mention this in a post devoted to the subject. Remember that post of mine, "Undercover Converts?" Well, I decided to follow it up with something real, and am implementing some of the suggestions I've heard, and some I had collected and been presented with earlier to revamp the current program at my masjid. Alhamdulillah, I've found so many people willing to help, and great suggestions. I should really elaborate on it in another post, but suffice it now to say that I had to pitch the presentation initially to a small group at the masjid on Saturday, which took some prep time, but now it's starting to roll.

Sunday was busy partly because I went to the imam's Qur'an class, and then had to cook... oh yeah and SLEEP before going over to a friend's for iftaar. There is a grad student at my university who is getting a PhD in sociology who is doing field research on Muslims, and so she wanted to go to the small Qur'an class the imam holds on Sundays. It was nice that she went, I had a nice talk with her a week or so back at an interfaith iftaar about why she is doing this research on Islam. Maybe it's a purely objective study, and maybe Allah will guide her this way, I don't know. All the same, she did wear a scarf (I gave her one on Friday, when she went to jummah, and showed her how to pin it) and thus many of the sisters kind of assumed she was a new Muslim. Maybe one day inshaaAllah. But that can be kind of awkward. I hope she keeps coming though. I hope I keep going! The class was nice in its own right, we read some ayaat in Surat al-Hajj, and one of the sheikhs that is regularly reading taraweeh now came too... and I couldn't be sure but I kind of got the impression from the imam that he might be staying around, as an assistant to the imam, and that they had interviewed him and everything for this position, so we'll see inshaaAllah...

Last night my roommate and I hosted an iftaar at our apartment, we had about 10 people total showing up which was pretty nice... one of whom was... alhamdulillah... my mother!! I asked her to come, and she did!! Now, she didn't feel comfortable except to arrive after the prayer, and knowing it was purely a social and not devotional/educational event, but she came and sat and chatted and socialized with other Muslims and that really made me happy. The other sisters were all very nice and welcoming and I don't think she felt too uncomfortable. Alhamdulillah. At the same time, I did invite both my sisters and their daughters, but I had to leave a message on their voice mail since they wouldn't answer the phone, and they never called back and of course they didn't come. But inshaaAllah my mom can explain hey it wasn't that freaky after all, we just ate food and laughed, and maybe they'll come around to a less hostile view of me and Islam.

So... there is some of what has been happening to me in the last few days. I'm not writing much but it's because I'm writing for history, studying for evil engineering exams, and alhamdulillah praying taraweeh several nights of the week as well.