Alhamdullilah tonight marked my third day performing Terawih and my first without muhrim a.k.a Mr Muddy. He's on night shift by the way. I got 2 lil "bodyguards" accompanying me anyhow so I'm quite relieved. I am so hoping and pray for strength to able to consistently perform terawih till 30th ramadhan this year Insya Allah. Allah loves small act of worship but done consistently.





My experiences during Terawih here calls for me to write this post, not to brag or gloat but to share few interesting things that I got to observed. Well, being the only "white" among the sea of black if you understand what I mean, although makes me feel a bit outcast since no familiar faces at all, gives me plenty of room to do my observation. Cuba kalau pergi dengan kawan2, sure bergebang asal ade masa free hehe. One very first thing I realized, jemaah here did not waste their time recklessly and make full use of all idle time by doing solat sunat non stop until imam utter Allahuakbar. This is contagious I must say, in a good way because I felt awkward by sitting and doing nothing but waiting while everyone else was obviously doing something beneficial so I also now, started doing solat sunat while waiting for Imam to start.



One of the challenges I face during solat, jemaah or not is to stop my mind from wandering. There's too many things playing, rewinding inside my head, obviously unnecessary thing it is. I, sometimes even "draft" my next post during solat, like seriously ! That is for sure something very embarassing and take a lots of courage for me to admit but it's nothin' but true.



What did I do to overcome this?



SO MANY THINGS !



I've tried so many method to get kusyuk in solat. I closed my eyes and try to focus to what I am currently reciting. Too focus till I forgot which rakaat I am in. I've read somewhere about this one tip which is to focus your eyes on only one part of sejadah while doing your recitation. I tried it out and guess what, sometimes it works but sometimes it brought my mind to think what kind of design was that, ooohhh this sejadah is sure very pretty, ah-haaa there's one un-synchronized curve in the pattern. Can arrrr like that?



All of this trial and error brought me to verbalize. So far this is the sole method that I found suits me and kinda work wonders. You know, when you do your recitation, u recite loud enough for you to hear yourself, soft enough to not let anyone close hear you. This sure works when you're alone at home, but how about when you're in solat jemaah. Sure you wouldn't want to disturb other person with your recitation. I can't really use that method in malaysia but in Q8, it's easier for me because most of the congregations did recite their reading pretty loud and penuh kekusyukan. Masya Allah



Moving on, I can concluded my first terawih here as eye opening and soul awakening experience.



Firstly, when I arrived, the ladies section in the mosque was like a mismanaged kindergarten. There's so many kids running around in that little space. Only 3 safs allocated for ladies in mosque near my building by the way. Crackers and biscuits are everywhere. There's few babies crying loudly and uncontrollably. It sure caused an uncomfortable environment. Then the Imam summoned the congregations for Isya' prayer and then terawih. I can't help but noticing there's some mothers pray while holding their baby. Subhanallah. Put aside the questions about how on earth could they perform and perfected their prayers while holding a restless baby. Definitely not without difficulties. I prefer to focus on their spirits, courage and patience. May Allah bless them and provide strength to them. One thing or sure, I know I don't have all THAT patience and spirits.



Secondly, terawih here was quite fast without much delay. After Isya', the imam will give away few minutes for solat sunat then straight away start the terawih. After every 2 rakaat, normally in Malaysia, there'll be short break but in here, the imam will proceed immediately. You give second salam then you got up for next 2 rakaat. This will lasted until 8th rakaat. Even for witir, there's no break in between. I noticed there's one Imam here will softly notify the jemaah that we will be doing sunnatul witir before takbir, however other Imam didn't and just continue. You need to make sure you didn't lost your count, tersalah niat, ended up doing witir while Imam and other jemaah doing Terawih, terbatal solat and having had to re-do your terawih.



Another thing is I noticed the surah pattern here. During Terawih, Imam will read longer Surah, those who I didn't recognize. My bad for not learning Arabic sooner. I always tried hard to catch the words, while enjoying the beautifully recited surah, you know to figure out the meaning but most of the time, I failed. I am sooo gonna learn Arabic soon Insya allah and I will also determine to memorize more surah. It will be nice if I can add more surahs to my databank ehhh..During Witir, Imam will recite surah lazim, you know the short-short ones, the one I normally read during my solat hehehe. By 9am mostly, terawih done. Anyhow, there's only 1 particular thing I like more about terawih in malaysia compared to Q8..............











MOREH !!!!!!



Who doesn't like moreh,.... There'll be hot coffee or tea, tasty and hearty light snacks or foods, fruits, biscuits, cakes.. It's all you can eat and it's all free. What's there not to like ?





Back on track, as we know it, Arabic was known for their harsh and rough personality. They're quite outspoken and loud I must say. During my 1st nite of Terawih, there's a huge fight between Kuwaitiyah group and Indian group. You see, Kuwaiti mostly have maids. One maid for each child so they didn't bring their kids to mosque.This scenario however doesn't applies to other foreigner. There's a group of Indian mothers who brought their kids to mosque for Teraweh and somehow, things went chaos. It's sooo noisy, the kids running around and in front jemaahs who is currently praying, they ate and make a mess, and of course they cried. like a lot. Since there's a bunch of them, they seated in groups and took almost quarter of the saf's space. This, unfortunately made some jemaah uncomfortable and experiencing hard time to concentrate to Imam. I can understand actually because I'm having had time myself to even concentrate to my Al-Fatihah when there's a kid crying loudly to my earlobe. Anyway, soon after the terawih done, this Kuwaiti ladies approached the Indi@n group and kinda scolded them loudly, publicly complete with body and hand gesture. Although I didn't really understands the details as they spoken in Arabic ( sighhhh I really need to learn Arabic lahhh ), I can pretty much guessed what was been talked about due to the finger pointing to the babies than to the ears and baby again. One of the ladies kept shouting word Quran! Quran!. Lucky there's no phsyical contact involved. Quite a scene huhhh.. In my opinion, the Arab's ladies can at least tried to be a little understanding of this situations while the Indi@n mothers at least can do some efforts, maybe try to put their kids to sleep, or give milks or pacifier. Or maybe something that could comfort and distracted their babies like bantal busuk ker, toys ker, although not all the time this will work out... And as for the older child, always try to educate them to always remain silent and respect someone who's performing solat. They won't listened the first time but they will if you keep repeating it to them. You know if both side play their parts, things will got easier and better for all. As for me, I am so lucky for my kids behave so well, adaptive and being good from the beginning till the end. Before leave the house, I kept telling them to keep quiet, stay seated and do not running around in the mosque cause Allah won't like it, and other people also won't like it. If they refused to listen to what I say and caught while being naughty and noisy, I won't help them ha ha ha ha. Alhamdulillah, they stay seated at the corner I asked them too and remained silent all the time. There's even some Kuwaiti that approached them, patted their head and praised my girls for being good. Sungguh bangga hati ini..



Anyway, there's still minor fights on the second nite but it got better on the third. Alhamdullilah..



There's few interesting things I wanted to share here, based on my observation. I had the opportunity to witnessed few different practices that vary from our norm. Different doesn't mean they did something wrong, please be clear about this.



* After takbir, we normally place right hand on top of left hand, on the area above pusat and below breast. In here, they positioned their hand on the chest, breast for ladies.

I did some surfing last night out of curiosity, and found out that based on Imam Hanafi, the correct area was on the chest but based on other opinions from other Ulama', it should be above pusar. There's no definite hadith that say the exact area :) so just do as per normal and as how you were taught but it's always better to follow how Rasullullah solat, which is by placing your right hand on top of your left on your chest. Wallahualam.



* After Ruku', during iktidal, we say takbiratul ihram, qiyam ( berdiri tegak) and place our hand to our side for a second before Sujud. It's called toma'ninah. In here, during iktidal and toma'ninah, they placed their hand on chest and make another takbir before Sujud.



* During Takbir, as I was taught, we raised both hands up level to shoulder line, palms turned towards Qiblat, while reciting Allahu Akbar. In here, some ladies raised their hands up to their ears(like men) and some, above their head. I also saw some ladies that close their both ears while takbir, u know gesture u spontaneously do when you hear something loud.



* During Tahiyat, we will raise index finger upward while reciting

" Asyhadu allaa ilaaha illallaah, Waasyhadu anna Muhammadan rasuulullaah "



and drop it down while we're done that part. However here, they will constantly move their index finger and kept tapping it.



* Their seating position for Tahiyat Awal and Tahiyat Akhir were the same, unlike us. Their Tahiyat Akhir position was the same as Tahiyat Awal.



* I was taught that maximum moves can be made before terbatal nya solat kite adelah 3 if done continuosly. However, jemaah here moves quite frequently I tell you. As all of us aware, arabic ladies pray using abaya only. There's no telekung whatsoever for them unlike us. Among their typical movements is arranging and tidying their shawl-like hijab, straighten sleeves of their abaya, re-arranging their accesories ect: bracelet and necklace and I saw some ladies kinda swung her body to the front and back while Imam reciting surah. However, there's also some "major" movements like cleaning dust or dirt in front them. I swear I didn't made this up. Jemaah beside me last nite did some cleaning before she sujud. Unfortunately there's a small plastic and piece of paper so she took her time cleaned it up, moving the dirt off her sujud area. Only few days back my hubby told me he saw jemaah near him, taking out some paper from his pocket after takbir, read it briefly, put it back and back into position heheh..



Rest assure, I couldn't sleep without finding out about this so I went online and check. From my finding, based on Mazhab Syafi'iy, you are allowed to move 3 times continuously before solat terbatal. However, according to other mazhab, there's no specific limitation of how much you can move in solat before your solat void. In short, there's no dalil that says specifically how many movements you can make in solat so it is debatable. Every follower of each mazhab will follow whatever is guided by their local ulama. This is why you can see most jemaah in middle east countries moves quite a lot during solat because they were taught that way. Please take note that movement was not part of Rukun Solat. The rukun solat must still berpandukan Al-Quran dan sunnah no matter what mazhab you followed.



* For elders or those who unfit, there's kelonggaran given in how they can perform solat. They can sit on chairs or sit totally on floor, or lie down and for worst case like paralyzed patients, they can just move their eyes. Praying using chairs here are normal view. At least there'll be 10 jemaah praying using chairs every night. Anyway, I noticed, they will stand during takbir until Imam finished reciting Al-Fatihah. Then they will sit on the chair until Imam finished or about to finish reading Surah and continue solat as usual. This will repeat every rakaat. They'll stand during Al-fatihah and seated after that till after Surah. I couldn't find any opinion on this but I feel it is safe to say that this also are part of their local culture. If any of you found some opinion or know anything about this, do share yeah...



Well I guess that's all I wanted to share for now. I'll write some more if I saw something interesting and worth to share.



May this post brings goodness and not other way around.