Masjid on the way to Quba from the Haram.
Above: Masjid Quba, alhamdolillah. Below: pictures from a date palm plantation near Masjid Quba.
Above: The same masjid from the first picture, seen on the way home. Below: A small kitten playing in the shade of the Haram grounds.
Jum'aa (friday) 5:00 am Madinah
alhamdolillah, yesterday i performed a sunnah of the Prophet, sull Allaho alayhi wa sallam. it was the first time that i ever had the hijaama.
hijaama is also known as "cupping," and it is the extraction of unhealthy blood from the body. you should be able to look it up easily on-line, but it is very different from what we think of as a medical procedure in the US.
alhamdolillah, it was also surprisingly easy to bear. there was no great lasting discomfort. and it did not make me tired.
so why do it? interestingly, i met people in the Haram who asked me where i had mine done because they wanted treatment for a specific ailment.
my main intention was to perform a sunnah that one rarely sees living in the West. but my lack of familiarity with hijaama, and with the person cutting me, made me limit myself to those cupping-sites which i knew this person had cupped many times over on other men in my group -- without mishap, alhamdolillah.
my love for this city grows, alhamdolillah, though most of my experience is in and around the Haram, and Madinah is much larger, alhamdolillah.
on saturday, inshaAllah, i will see more of it. my intention is to follow the sunnah of walking to Masjid al Quba after fajr on saturdays. after praying two rakat Doha there i will have the sunnah, inshaAllah, and the reward of an umrah.
wednesday 11:30 pm Madinah
alhamdolillah when i am in the Haram, everything is so wonderful that it defies me to describe it. inshaAllah there will be posts of pictures i took along with the texts, but no picture captures the balance of peace and energy that is found so easily in Masjid-an-Nabi.
This man from Riyadh was like many Saudis I met. He was very glad to meet Muslims from America.
alhamdolillah, i really like the classes that i have been able to take at the Haram in Madinah.
every morning in the Haram there is a tajweed halaqa. starting after fajr, people gather to sit around an awesome Sudani shaykh whose most atractive quality is his adab. he has a magnetic personality that has no sense of self-aggrandizement.
people come and sit around him. he recites surah Fatiha. then the one closest to him on his right starts reciting, and the shaykh corrects employing his knowledge of how the mouth and tongue should move, and from where should a person move his breath.
if the students are few, the shaykh wil go on to a short surah like al-Ikhlaas. otherwise the students move to what i think of as satellite instructors who teach the student using a great textbook designed to improve recitation, alhamdolillah.
new students like me may get the textbook from the shaykh after reciting for him.
Alhamdolillah, the Haram's open courtyards have massive shades which fold up tight like umbrellas. Two of them are seen here at left and right.
Detail of a rug in the Haram.
Behind the barrier is the graveyard of the martyrs of Uhud.
Part of the Uhud range.
Ma sha Allah, the shades unfolded to protect worshippers from the intense sun.
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