The Journey Continues

I will have to leave writing this blog for awhile to fulfil another journey for rectification of faith, an effort of rectification of my iman and my aamal, for a period of 40 days. Please make du'a for me.

Travelogue - Germany Part 20

Masjid An-Nur, Kleiner Pulver Teich 17 in Hamburg is one of the four masjids that are situated at the same stretch of road within 50 metres distant. The other masjids are Turkish, Albanian and Indonesian masjids. Masjid An-Nur and the Albanian Masjid are just next to one another. It was such a unique sight. At An-Nur Masjid itself, about 50-60 namaazis were present for each fard congregation namaaz. Nazali Sham, one of the hardworking Malaysian students in the effort of dakwah, was not a stranger to the local brothers here. Hamburg brothers from far and near gathered here daily to make local effort of dakwah and tabligh. At the time we reached Hamburg, the local brothers were about to shift the dakwah and tabligh centre from An-Nur Masjid to a new spacious masjid which was still under renovation at Bockmannstrasse 51, Hamburg.

One of the luminaries of Hamburg muslims was Ibrahim, an ahlul-bait, one of the descendants of our Prophet sallalaahu alayhi wassalam. He was one of the imam of the masjid. Ibrahim was also the one who had driven about 300km from Hamburg to Berlin, reaching Berlin at 3.00am and 4 hours later at about 7.00am drove our jamaat back to Hamburg in a van - reached Hamburg about 3 hours later. This type of nusrah or aid was simply astonishing, and commonly received by us from our untiring brothers in Germany. A brother from Hanover drove 170km to reach Hamburg with a 4-months jamaat from India at 8am and immediately drove us back to Hanover. Another brother, Kurshid, had driven 380km from Hanover to Amsterdam, Netherlands and drove back to Hanover an hour later. To us, those brothers had given the new meaning to the term "nusrah", which really reduce to the shame our meagre effort back home in Malaysia. Especially comparing them to me who is frail and sickly in driving and road travelling, the single journey that those brothers made to assist our movement is better than my whole lifetime effort on dakwah and tabligh.

Our last route in Germany was Masjid-ul Ummah, Kornstrasse 25, Hanover. Afzal Qureshi and Kurshid were well assisted by two Afghans, Salim Khan and Yunus, together with Hud, Muslim and Yusoff from Togo. It was here at Masjid Ummah that we met native German Muslims who had spent 4 months and 40 days in the path of Allah, among them Abdul Malek, Ya'cob, Abdul Hakeem and Nick Wolfgang - they were all German youths in their 20's. Abdul Malek spoke fluent English and good Arabic having spent one year in Yaman to learn the language of the Holy Quran. Going out in umumi ghast with them on the streets of Hanover, it was evidently clear the power of iman or faith overcomes every single odd. There, walking with me, were shining-faced heavily bearded German youths in all-white gamis and shalwar, their eyes fixed to the ground ignoring the temptation of the many women on the streets. Ya'cob to me once he was searching in his heart the one special amal or good deed that he would hold onto in his entire lifetime. For his concern, Almighty Allah honoured him with a dream meeting the Prophet sallalaahu alayhi wassalam who told him not to harbour ill-thoughts over other people. I listened to him in zealous for not even once I had been honoured with a dream of Rasulullah sallalaahu alayhi wassalam. Perhaps I'm not worthy of such honour.

On September 27, 2004 we left Hanover and Germany ending an episode of our journey of faith. May Almighty Allah accept our effort. 

Travelogue - Germany Part 19

After four days at Erfurt, we arrived at Berlin on September 16, 2004. We were brought to Masjid Bait-ul Mukarram, Keinitzerstrasse 98. The chairman of the Masjid was a Bangladeshi and the imam was from Sham. Almost 24 hours there were people joining us for i'tikaaf. They were brothers from Lubnan Palestine, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, etc and most of them had spent time in the path of Allah from 3 days to 4 months. We were brought to visits Muslims from the surrounding masjids.

I felt rather nostalgic arriving at Berlin since it is one of the cities that I had stopped by whilst euro-railing for one whole month during the summer holiday back in 1990 when I was studying in England. I somewhat hope that the journey in the path of Allah would in some way serve as a redemption to all the foolishness that I had made in the same city in 1990 (such as collecting fragments of the Berlin Wall as souvenirs for a symbol of regained freedom!)


We also stayed at Masjid An-Nur, Haberstrasse 3, Berlin for a couple of days. The Arab Muslim community here had bought a  desolated milk factory and turned it into a splendid huge 4-storey masjid complete with a shop, a canteen, a kitchen, IT centre, classes for children and even a gymnasium. Sadly, except for a nikah (marriage) occasion that was held here where many people-men, women and children, flocked in the masjid for a whole day and night, there were only a handful of mussalis that pray fard namaaz here.

At the occasion of nikah, we were utterly shell-shocked to see that the imam himself leading the others in singing songs (or praises) and the men then danced in the masjid in a big circle. Although the women were separated from men a the upper floor, and although the dancing and singing of praises might be an acceptable Arab culture, I personally felt that it was hideous and disgusting thing to do in any masjid. I am relating to you this story not to unnecessarily expose the repulsive and ugliness of the ummah or any specified community but rather to reflect that not all that we had seen and experience were all charming and delightful. The purpose is not to condemn but to ask forgiveness to Almighty Allah on behalf of the entire ummah in the matters that we had transgressed. And how much that I had transgressed! May Almighty Allah give taufeek to me and the entire ummah to practise only the blessed sunnah way of life of our Prophet sallalaahu alayhi wasalam.

And oh! At this masjid we managed to persuade Fairuz and Nazali Sham, the two Malaysian students that were together with us for the most part of our journey, to cut their hair short!

Travelogue - Germany Part 18

We then travelled 170km to the east of Germany to Erfurt that used to be the gateway to the former East Germany from the West before the unification. We reached Masjid Madinah, Trommsdorffstrasse after almost 2 hours on the road. Although there were exciting things and wonderful scenery that could been seen during the road journey, I, as usual, slept all the way to avoid car sickness. 

The imam of Masjid Madinah, Imam Hassan, is an energetic young man absorbed in the work of dakwah and tabligh. He read Riyadus Solihin after asar and Hayatus Sahabah after Isya'. He is fluent in English and acted as our translator, together with a couple of Malaysian students who accompanied us. From Masjid Madinah, the many dedicated brothers made intikali jaulah and tasykil at the surrounding masjids. There used to be bitter and cruel opposition against them from the wahabbi or the so-called salafi hardliners. But their constant tireless effort managed to end the harsh treatment and some of them rough wahabbis even join the effort of dakwah and tabligh and turned to soft and pleasing mannered person. 

Dr Wa'el, a Palestinian brain surgeon working at Erfut Hospital organised a masturat bayan (ladies discources) at his house. As with every other masturat bayan, it had been delivered behind a veiled door as a measure to strictly separate men from women, with Dr Wa'el himself sitting beside translating the bayan. I just do not understand why the so-called learned men of deen here in Malaysia could let the veils separating the two genders in our masjds to be wide open, inviting all sorts of fitan in the pretext of teaching deen. It is such in contrast with any masturat bayan that I and my wife had been, where there was no sound of a woman's voice behind the veil, even their shoes were concealed from any man.

Dr Wa'el later told us that he is married to an American lady who had reverted to Islam. After involving in the work of dakwah, Almighty Allah totally changed their lives, turning their concern for the narrowness of this world to the concern for everlasting aakhirah. The couple shared the hope that one day Almighty Allah will change the environment of Erfut to the environment of Madinah Munawarrah during the time of our Prophet SAW.