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.