A little bit more that I should add：
- I think Faizly will make a fine husband to one lucky girl ine day insya Allah. For iftar on Khatam Quran day, he came to Asakusa to take care of a lot of things – preparing ayam masak merah and telur dadar mainly, and taking care of stuff otherwise including being Ujai’s babysitter every now and then. No thanks to me (who burnt the dish a little bit while Faizly was frying the telur dadar elsewhere) the ayam masak merah went a lil bit haywire – some said it looked like curry, others commented that it tasted like rending. But tengik or otherwise, it still tasted ok, alhamdulillah.
- The only time my family went out for iftar this year was when Encik Jasri, the current student counselor in Malaysian embassy came to take us out for a treat in Shagorika restaurant in Asakusa. Prior to that I had had my iftar outside a few times when I couldn’t be back home by Maghrib, but hubby had never had his iftar away from the mosque. Encik Jasri visited us a few days before Eid, to enable hubby’s friend, Ustaz Jalal from Jakim who was on one-month official duty in Japan, meeting us as well as to ask hubby for a favour. He asked if hubby could be the back-up Imam for Eidul Fitr prayer in the Malaysian embassy, which hubby had to decline since he was supposed to lead the Eid prayer in Asakusa. As for Eidul Adha, hubby would consult the ICOJ big shots and will get back to Encik Jasri later. Turned out that ICOJ actually managed to find a Pakistani imam to lead the Eidul Fitr prayer in Asakusa mosque – which we only learned about the night before Eid. Although a bit upset by the late revelation by ICOJ, hubby was relieved anyway, since the Eid prayer was done in accordance with the Hanafi custom rather than Shafie custom…
- Received one Nihonjin guest who wanted to pay Fitrah at 1 o’clock in the morning 2 days before Eid. She became a Muslim in Malaysia, when she was given the opportunity for a one-year overseas posting by her company. She is still in touch with her Malaysian adopted family who introduced her to Islam and even said that she wish she could live in Malaysia. But the exchange rate is not in her favour right now since she also has responsibility towards her parents. I asked her why didn’t she go and pay fitrah in another mosque not far from where she works, her answer was – the people there are not friendly, therefore she prefers not to go there. She said that the people there probed about a lot of things she prefers not to discuss, such as why is she not wearing the hijab, when is she going to pray five times a day at allotted times, bla, bla, bla…
- It wasn’t the first time I heard of such thing in Japan. Another Nihonjin friend of mine once remarked that the people at that particular mosque are rather “kibishi” (strict, rigid), thus she doesn’t feel comfortable going there. I was surprised to learn that compared to born Muslims, sometimes, Nihonjin muallaf could be harder on their fellow muallaf. I thought, being new Muslims themselves, they should be able to understand the trials and tribulations their fellow new Muslim has to undergo, and thus be more understanding and supporting instead of the other way round. A sad thing really.
- Oh, by the way – that 72 year old pakcik mentioned in the earlier post – he has yet to return to the mosque. One of the regulars for terawikh in our mosque said he believed the ojisan would never return – he just wanted some instant easy cash… Well, we never know, kan…
- Hubby got plenty of duit raya this year, alhamdulillah. Huzaifah got 1000 yen and RM10 so far. I didn’t get any. What I got instead was an eye infection upon waking up on the morning of Raya kedua. It was so painful and my right eye sight became so bad that I had to wait until around 4 o’clock before I was confident enough to cycle to a clinic nearby. Since then, I had gone for another check-up and my right eye seems to do okay now, alhamdulillah.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Ramadhan that was and Eid...
Some of my personal highlights of Ramadhan this year:
- Completed one month of fasting with no break for the first time ever in almost 20 years time…
- Learned from Rukayne, an ethnic Kurdish with French-Turkish dual citizenship, that in Hanafi mazhab, Muslims are not allowed to eat seafood other than certain fish. That means no shrimp, crab, squid, octopus, etc – and that really limits her choices whenever her husband and her opt to eat out in Japan.
- Rukayne kept insisting that I should further my study until the highest level possible. She had gotten her PhD in France and she would love to see more Muslim sisters achieve what she had achieved so far. “It’s a must sister. Those who could, should prove to others that we Muslim women are just as good, if not better than non Muslim women”. Since I was feeling a bit anxious about raising a child and a baby while pursuing a Masters degree, her words was very refreshing
- Received some extra words of encouragement from a friend who used to do her PhD in Bristol, since she had been in the same boat – pregnant-with-another-child-while studying. She did it, insya Allah I could too…
- Received a 72 year old Nihonjin guest one Maghrib, who confessed that he now believed in Allah as One True God. Spent a long time answering his queries as he compared Islam to Christianity with limited Nihongo vocabulary. He kept stressing that one of the reasons he found Islam appealing is because Muslims are supposed to help each other, to give charity… At the end of the discussion, he asked for 10,000 yen from the mosque to help him settle some financial matters. We did not dare to use the mosque’s money without some go ahead of ICOJ superiors, so we just gave him a small amount of our own money. We invited him for dinner too, to have what had had for iftar. He agreed – and he amazed us by eating whole date unpitted. He promised to come back a few days after Eid for formal conversion to Islam – so we’ll wait and see…
- Received good-old-traditional kad raya from Malaysia – one addressed to hubby from his elder sister and the other addressed to me from Siti Jue. Yatta!
- Meeting friends, exchanging thoughts and opinions as well as swapping stories on this and that during few occasions such as Semarak Ramadhan 1 and 2 organized by AMIR, Khatam Quran ceremony and 2 other public iftar hosted at the mosque.
- Collected my boshi tetcho – maternal and child health handbook from the Health Department of the Ward Office. But yet to go for any maternity check-up here in Japan. Still undecided on which hospital to go to… And still undecided whether it’s better to have a woman doctor who cannot speak English or a male doctor who could.
- Managed to cook nasi tomato for last day of Ramadhan as well as supervised hubby to make ayam masak merah. We ate that as well as some instant ketupat with serunding for Eid breakfast this morning, alhamdulillah.
Selamat hari raya to all.
May Allah bless you and may you have a wonderful Eid wherever you may be.
p/s: I gave the 10.40 a.m. class this morning a miss and met the sensei just before I went for my compulsory weekly meeting with my academic advisor to explain the reason for my (and other Malaysian friends') absence. His response - "Yeah, sure it's okay. Cultural diversity comes first..."
- Completed one month of fasting with no break for the first time ever in almost 20 years time…
- Learned from Rukayne, an ethnic Kurdish with French-Turkish dual citizenship, that in Hanafi mazhab, Muslims are not allowed to eat seafood other than certain fish. That means no shrimp, crab, squid, octopus, etc – and that really limits her choices whenever her husband and her opt to eat out in Japan.
- Rukayne kept insisting that I should further my study until the highest level possible. She had gotten her PhD in France and she would love to see more Muslim sisters achieve what she had achieved so far. “It’s a must sister. Those who could, should prove to others that we Muslim women are just as good, if not better than non Muslim women”. Since I was feeling a bit anxious about raising a child and a baby while pursuing a Masters degree, her words was very refreshing
- Received some extra words of encouragement from a friend who used to do her PhD in Bristol, since she had been in the same boat – pregnant-with-another-child-while studying. She did it, insya Allah I could too…
- Received a 72 year old Nihonjin guest one Maghrib, who confessed that he now believed in Allah as One True God. Spent a long time answering his queries as he compared Islam to Christianity with limited Nihongo vocabulary. He kept stressing that one of the reasons he found Islam appealing is because Muslims are supposed to help each other, to give charity… At the end of the discussion, he asked for 10,000 yen from the mosque to help him settle some financial matters. We did not dare to use the mosque’s money without some go ahead of ICOJ superiors, so we just gave him a small amount of our own money. We invited him for dinner too, to have what had had for iftar. He agreed – and he amazed us by eating whole date unpitted. He promised to come back a few days after Eid for formal conversion to Islam – so we’ll wait and see…
- Received good-old-traditional kad raya from Malaysia – one addressed to hubby from his elder sister and the other addressed to me from Siti Jue. Yatta!
- Meeting friends, exchanging thoughts and opinions as well as swapping stories on this and that during few occasions such as Semarak Ramadhan 1 and 2 organized by AMIR, Khatam Quran ceremony and 2 other public iftar hosted at the mosque.
- Collected my boshi tetcho – maternal and child health handbook from the Health Department of the Ward Office. But yet to go for any maternity check-up here in Japan. Still undecided on which hospital to go to… And still undecided whether it’s better to have a woman doctor who cannot speak English or a male doctor who could.
- Managed to cook nasi tomato for last day of Ramadhan as well as supervised hubby to make ayam masak merah. We ate that as well as some instant ketupat with serunding for Eid breakfast this morning, alhamdulillah.
Selamat hari raya to all.
May Allah bless you and may you have a wonderful Eid wherever you may be.
p/s: I gave the 10.40 a.m. class this morning a miss and met the sensei just before I went for my compulsory weekly meeting with my academic advisor to explain the reason for my (and other Malaysian friends') absence. His response - "Yeah, sure it's okay. Cultural diversity comes first..."
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
One week to go...
Insya Allah next week we will be celebrating Eid.
Alhamdulillah so far I have not ponteng puasa. There’s a lot of headaches and vomiting but since iftar is at around 5.00 p.m., I found no real reason not to fast. If I get to fast for the whole month this year, it’ll be a first for me since I hit puberty, and that’s kind of cool.
But cool or otherwise, I haven’t khatam the Quran. I initially hoped that I could khatam twice this year seeing that I have no off-day from reading the Quran, but I guess I’m just too lazy kot… I definitely have been spending too many mornings under the blanket on the futon until near midday…
The Malaysian group of students who came for semarak Ramadhan on the 1st of Ramadhan had another semarak Ramadhan program last weeked. It was good to be around Malaysians, speaking Malay, eating iftar and sahur together, chatting and laughing. It was especially great being able to perform terawih in a group while Ujai was being looked after by some other girls. After endless nights of praying alone on the ladies floor, I must say that it definitely felt good to be in a jemaah.
This past month, there were a few occasions on which we had iftar with others. Rafi, a Pakistani working in an Indian restaurant in Ueno offered to cook on Fridays at the mosque. His cousin, Islam, too has his day off on Fridays, so he joined us having iftar at the mosque too.
Ella, an Indonesian married to Abdullah, a Japanese-American lives about 10 minutes away and just delievered a beautiful baby boy named Muhammad Raihan. They held a small kenduri kesyukuran during iftar the second Sunday in Ramadhan at the mosque. Then, last Sunday, as consolation for preventing hubby and I from attending an iftar invitation in another mosque, one of the regular attenders of the mosque called up his friend and cooked up some beriyani for iftar at our mosque. So there – those were the days when hubby get to have his iftar with something different from my usual iftar stuff. Usual means mostly porridges – bubur lambuk, bubur bilis, bubur udang, bubur sosej, bla bla bla. On one occasion when he requested to have nasi lemak for iftar, I prepared the nasi lemak, but he cooked the sambal, since I could not stand the smell of simmering oil.
Anyway, with the coming of Syawal, soon we will be seeing an end of the porridge time... At least I hope so...
Alhamdulillah so far I have not ponteng puasa. There’s a lot of headaches and vomiting but since iftar is at around 5.00 p.m., I found no real reason not to fast. If I get to fast for the whole month this year, it’ll be a first for me since I hit puberty, and that’s kind of cool.
But cool or otherwise, I haven’t khatam the Quran. I initially hoped that I could khatam twice this year seeing that I have no off-day from reading the Quran, but I guess I’m just too lazy kot… I definitely have been spending too many mornings under the blanket on the futon until near midday…
The Malaysian group of students who came for semarak Ramadhan on the 1st of Ramadhan had another semarak Ramadhan program last weeked. It was good to be around Malaysians, speaking Malay, eating iftar and sahur together, chatting and laughing. It was especially great being able to perform terawih in a group while Ujai was being looked after by some other girls. After endless nights of praying alone on the ladies floor, I must say that it definitely felt good to be in a jemaah.
This past month, there were a few occasions on which we had iftar with others. Rafi, a Pakistani working in an Indian restaurant in Ueno offered to cook on Fridays at the mosque. His cousin, Islam, too has his day off on Fridays, so he joined us having iftar at the mosque too.
Ella, an Indonesian married to Abdullah, a Japanese-American lives about 10 minutes away and just delievered a beautiful baby boy named Muhammad Raihan. They held a small kenduri kesyukuran during iftar the second Sunday in Ramadhan at the mosque. Then, last Sunday, as consolation for preventing hubby and I from attending an iftar invitation in another mosque, one of the regular attenders of the mosque called up his friend and cooked up some beriyani for iftar at our mosque. So there – those were the days when hubby get to have his iftar with something different from my usual iftar stuff. Usual means mostly porridges – bubur lambuk, bubur bilis, bubur udang, bubur sosej, bla bla bla. On one occasion when he requested to have nasi lemak for iftar, I prepared the nasi lemak, but he cooked the sambal, since I could not stand the smell of simmering oil.
Anyway, with the coming of Syawal, soon we will be seeing an end of the porridge time... At least I hope so...
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Hisashiburi...
I know I have no real excuse for not writing... but hope this quick message will suffice for now :
I have registered as a first year student in Waseda GSAPS.I am going to submit my application for Mombusho scholarship extension soon. I can transfer 5 courses, so that means I have 6 more courses to finish, at least. I initially thought of finishing all 6 courses this semester - 4 in fall and 2 in winter, but now I am reconsidering this notion because of health reasons...
I feel happy and blessed because for the first time, I get to pray terawih led by my own husband who recites more than one juzuk of Quran each night in order to khatam before Ramadhan ends.
I miss praying terawih among a lot of people at the masjid though. We normally get just 3-5 guys coming and no ladies. Which mean Huzaifah and I conquer the whole ladies' floor almost every night except for the first night when a group of Malaysian students had their 'semarak Ramadhan' program here.
Huzaifah is not feeling all that well now - probably due to the changing weather.
I am not feeling all that well now too - due to a lot of reasons.
The main reason is because Huzaifah is getting an adik, insya Allah.
Please make doa for me that everything will be well...
I am scared, excited, stressed, worried but I think we'll manage somehow... Hubby has been lending loads of strength - cooking, massaging, taking care of household chores... Things are sure different now, and they are going to get a lot more different come April insya Allah, but we'll take a day at a time...
I have registered as a first year student in Waseda GSAPS.I am going to submit my application for Mombusho scholarship extension soon. I can transfer 5 courses, so that means I have 6 more courses to finish, at least. I initially thought of finishing all 6 courses this semester - 4 in fall and 2 in winter, but now I am reconsidering this notion because of health reasons...
I feel happy and blessed because for the first time, I get to pray terawih led by my own husband who recites more than one juzuk of Quran each night in order to khatam before Ramadhan ends.
I miss praying terawih among a lot of people at the masjid though. We normally get just 3-5 guys coming and no ladies. Which mean Huzaifah and I conquer the whole ladies' floor almost every night except for the first night when a group of Malaysian students had their 'semarak Ramadhan' program here.
Huzaifah is not feeling all that well now - probably due to the changing weather.
I am not feeling all that well now too - due to a lot of reasons.
The main reason is because Huzaifah is getting an adik, insya Allah.
Please make doa for me that everything will be well...
I am scared, excited, stressed, worried but I think we'll manage somehow... Hubby has been lending loads of strength - cooking, massaging, taking care of household chores... Things are sure different now, and they are going to get a lot more different come April insya Allah, but we'll take a day at a time...
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