Visitors in Ramadan

Ramadan is sometimes described as a visitor, whose end is described as a very sad departure. For many residents of NYC, the guest also included visiting imaams and leaders from other parts of the world. The taraweeh prayers in 96th street for example, was led as it is every year, by a visiting sheik of Egypt. The friends at the 14th street Medina Mosque, had the services of a visiting sheik-ul-hadith from Bangladesh.

I found this advertisement for the daily program of a luminary of India, Moulana Palanpuri from Deoband. I was not fortunate to meet him, but I am sure that his leaving was met with sadness by his congregation. I also include a link to the website of the mosque community that hosted the sheik.

Salat/Namaz times in New York City

Second in the short series of ramadan articles, is this picture of salat/prayer times. The picture was taken in the middle of Ramadan at the 29th street mosque (5th Avenue and Broadway), also known as Musjid ur Rahman.

Times vary greatly from mosque to mosque, with some opting for a start to Isha/Esha much later than others.

In fact, I met a taxi driver who said that taxi drivers had arranged a special facility for Isha/Esha and taraweeh prayers somewhere in Queens (Northern Boulevard?) which started at 1am, after the taxi drivers shift for the nite was over. What a great idea.

Ramadan in NYC

Ramadan is over. This blog has not been too active. Let me try to revive it over the next few days with a few interesting entries.

The first is the range of interesting activities in Ramadan in NYC. On the 'big night' of the 27th Ramadan, muslims are out in very large numbers to pray and worship and local mosques prepare for this special event usually by organising that the khatme-kuraan in taraweeh takes place on the same nite, and also that special services are planned for that evening until the pre-dawn Sehri/Soohor meal.

At the 96th street mosque in Manhattan, the programme ran through the night, with a large crowd in attendance, with a brother accepting Islam and taking his shahadat, and also many women and children in the mosque.

The program (picture alongside) gives you an idea of what was planned. I didn't stay for the evening, but it looked very promising, although the program was running an hour late, without much explanation for the delay.