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..."
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