6th Day of Ramadan at Irving Mosque

Monday, August 16, 2010
6th Day of Ramadan, Irving Mosque

My Iftaar destination was the Irving Mosque, largest Mosque in Texas headed by Imam Zia Shaikh, a friend and a scholar. He has been a part of at least three of the 5 Unity day celebrations, two of the three Holocaust and Genocides commemorations, and one of the twelve Thanksgiving Day celebrations. Events that support Q49:13 to get to know each other.

The arrangement for Iftaar (breaking the fast) reminded me of my home town Yelahanka (Bangalore), where they roll the runners on the floor and set up plates loaded with dates, fruits and finger food. I even recall the reddish clay plates at the Mosque some 45 years ago. People sit on either side of the runner and wait for the right moment to break the fast. Right on Sunset, a brief announcement is made that it is time to break the fast and people take a bite of the date, a sip of water and then back to the dates and other fruits while the Prayer call is made. “Come to the prayers, come to do good” followed by prayers. In the US (perhaps in Canada and UK) dinner is arranged after the prayers usually on the weekends, other days, it is just breaking the fast.

Imam Zia Shaikh joined in a few minutes prior to breaking the fast and we exchanged the item we were talking about on the face book. I have the best fig tree in the world (Bragging?) and Imam Zia loves those figs, and he has brought me Dates from Medina and we are going to exchange them after Ramadan.

Imam Zia and I have co-authored an article “Muslim response to Wilders” http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/01/muslim-response-to-wilders.html and are currently working on another article to be published by Washington Post.

This is a huge Mosque and gets crowded on Friday congregational prayers; they have day school and teach religion to children and adults, they even have a cricket pitch (sport) on their grounds.

After the prayer I headed back to my pad and on the way stopped at Taco Cabana, my favorite place for Salsa, Pica Digallo and a variety of sauces to go with the food.

Insha Allah, I am planning to do my fitaar at each one of the mosques of Ahmadiyya, Bohra, Ismaili, Shia, Sufi, Sunni, Warith Deen Muhammad and other Mosques in Dallas; including the Mosque at Al-Aqsa this weekend. My theme is Mosque a day - Here is my schedule. http://ramadanexclusive.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-iftaar-schedule.html This blog will carry full stories for 29/30 days of Ramadan.

Mike Ghouse is a speaker on Islam and Pluralism and offers pluralistic solutions to the media and the public on issues of the day. His work is encapsulated in 22 blogs and 3 websites listed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/
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