Rabi' al-Thani 8,1435/February 8, 2014 # 6
| When Prophet Muhammad pbuh declared the message of Allah in Mecca and forbade the pagans from worshipping a thousand Gods and punishing their women like beasts, the pagans turned on him and his handful of followers with a vengeance. In the town of Mecca where everyone knew everyone else and where the command of the pagan Quraish ruled the roost, it was difficult if not impossible to evade the ridicule, the name-calling and sometimes the outright physical violence perpetrated against the new Muslims. |
| The immigrants, eleven men and four women trudged through the night, all from affluent and influential families leaving behind everything that connected them to their homes, their memories, their mementoes, their loved ones and there relationships in the town they grew up in and most of all their beloved Prophet Muhammad pbuh. |
| The first sign of what I had brought with me from Old Makkah came to me when I was in Maghreb Salah. I felt my entire chest and breathing apparatus heaving to expel what was within me as I went into a spasmodic episode of unremitting cough. |
| Between the Maghreb Salah and Isha Salah is a time when focus is beautiful; there is peace, connection, uncharted time the end of which will be announced by the isha adhaan, so there is timeless ebadah without a feeling of passage of time. |
| The woman on my right made nawafil rakah non stop and was more like a sprinter, while the woman on my left was more like a marathon runner who prayed nawafil, recited the Quran, did tasbeeh, and again prayed nawafil and was in the masjed whenever I went there as if she had never moved away. |