Powered By Blogger

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Shab-e-Jumma

The Spiritual & Mystifying Friday Night

One of my friends from university once told me about the gathering on Friday night (night between Thursday and Friday) commonly known as “shab-e-jumma”, at various mosques in the area. He informed about how people go to the mosques at Maghrib time, spending whole night in Prayers and preaching Islam, increasing each others knowledge. Then the next morning some of the volunteers go for Tabligh to various parts of the country in the form of little jama´ats while the rest return to their routines, all set to attend the congregation next Thursday.

One of the big mosques, for this purpose is at Ayesha Manzil,near Aga Khan School, where hundreds of people gather each week; Madni Masjid. One of my colleagues, Mehreen from the HR department lives there, and our van has to take that route to drop her. Last Thursday (13/05/2010), it was quite late when we left the office and it was around Maghrib time when we reached Mehreen´s place.

The scene there was quite mystifying, atleast for me. There was unusual rush  of people, all kinds of – wearing shalwar kameez, western dress , bearded , non-bearded, irrespective of their castes… all were heading towards the masjid for the congregation of Friday night. All were ready to purify their souls and to get the most of the night.  The pedestrian bridge was full of white colour , the colour of the purity . the cars were filled with the people heading towards the masjid. People were coming from each and every place of the city and even from the other areas and were joining the spiritual league.

When our van passed through those streets, it was a mesmerizing scene, don´t know what was so inspiring of that but it was really really looking mystic. People have set up their ´thelas´ there selling different kind of things; dates, food, icecream, chat, miswaak, souveniors, many small pieces of technology from china and what not was set up in that small place. The rush of people all clad in the colours of purity were selling and buying the things, exchanging their views about life, helping each other in better understanding Islam! Well , it may not sound as something extraordinary, but at that time it was for me. It all resembled like the bazaars of Madinah and Makkah, with people wandering in the bazaars to leave everything and go for the namaz on hearing Azaan.

 Something was surely spiritual, mystifying, mesmerizing at that place which forced me to write this, to share this thought. I can still feel the piousness of that place, the calmness and serenity that could be felt their that time, with all the people gathered to rectify themselves. Nobody was there to point fingers on others, but to correct their own selves. Maybe I cannot portray the scene exactly in its true sense, but there was definitely something extraordinary at that place that day!!!