It’s a common lament: we sit there in the mosque, week after week, uninspired and bored. There is nothing for us here, we sigh, listening to the unintelligible oration. But perhaps we are the lucky ones: we have attended the prayer elsewhere in other towns and listened to sermons in English so dreadful and lame …
The old Pakistani uncle at the mosque is due his seventy excuses too.1. “If a friend among your friends errs, make seventy excuses for them. If your hearts are unable to do this, then know that the shortcoming is in your own selves.” — Hamdun al-Qassar, narrated by Imam Bayhaqi in his Shu`ab al-Iman 7.522. …
Undercover Wudu Area
Tonight on Dispatches – Muslim fundamentalists claim that cleanliness is next to Godliness,
Tonight on Dispatches – Muslim fundamentalists claim that cleanliness is next to Godliness,
The Friday prayer is meant to be a joyous event in the Muslim week, something which we are all obliged to attend as one of our religious duties. So why do I leave feeling so irritated, so unrefreshed? It is alienation. More precisely it is the use of language. Ours is a diverse community: while …
At the end of the summer last year, we spent our days between visits to a clinic in Jihangir, Istanbul. While its views over the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn beyond were stunning, I was not too keen on those streets. In this secular quarter and haunt of expats, wine shops outnumbered grocery stores. In …
