Travelogue Germany - Part 17

We returned to Pak Muhammadi Masjid in Frankfurt am Main for khudama' jord (the gathering of those who had spent 40 days and 4 months in the path of Allah) joining about 300-400 brothers from all over Germany during the weekend. Alhamdulillah, we had the opportunity to be in the company of personalities in the work of dakwah and tabligh such as Maulana Ibrahim Gujrati and Bhai Farook of Nizamuddin, India, together with Sheikh Yunus, the amir of France. We derived great benefits from the discourses, muzakarah and advises from those luminaries, mostly centred around the importance of love and affection among dakwah workers in particular and Muslims in general. 

We then continue our journey to Fulda, 104km north-east of Frankfurt city. We stayed at Masjid al-Andalus, Von Schildeckstrasse 9. The masjid is just beside a synagogue which seemed like it was guarded by the authority for some reason. Well, certainly there were policemen present at the synagogue at all time. 

Khaled of Palestine and Dr Khaled and Hassan of Mesr made nusrah to our jamaat together with many Malaysian brothers. There were an institution in Fulda that trained lecturers from Malaysia's Industrial Training Institute (ILP) under the Ministry of Human Resource - a 4-6 months "train the trainers" programme.  At the time, there were about 25 Malaysians attending the programme.

On 11th September 2004, our third day in Fulda, there were a lot of activities in churches within Fulda until late evening which I felt rather odd but did not think much about it. We did not realise what transpired, not until during ghast (visitations) when we met a Muslim grocery shop-owner. We were chided and abused by the shop-owner, "You people are crazy! Look at you! You come here and dress like this...It was people like you who caused the 9-11...causing all the problems. Don't you see around you!? (I supposed he meant all the activities in the churches). Go away! I do not want you here." We were used to abuses, blames and rebukes thrown at us by our fellow Muslims. Sometimes it came from our own family members, friends and neighbours. But we were deeply saddened by this event. 

So it was. Until then none of us ever thought, even for a split second about 9-11. But I am still wondering why the synagogue were guarded all the time...hmmm...