Friday Prayers: Questions of the Soul

"God is great" in traditional Arabic calligraphy

So today I went again to another Friday Prayer, the second in a row.

I had a bad headache on the way there and somehow wasn't feeling good, maybe because I had rushed into things to get there early.. which I did, thank God.

It was empty by the time I got to the mosque (remind me next time to take a picture of the mosque from the outside) and I thought I had just missed the beginning, but it turns out that I was the one who got there early, very early - like 20 minutes early. Hmmm.. must time myself.

Squibble, squabble.

Today's Friday prayer lecture was something that frustrated me a bit. Maybe it was due to the fact that I hadn't gone to a single mosque lecture for a very long period of time so I wasn't used to being talked to without having to ask a question in the middle of a 'conversation'.

The topic was spirituality and how people's actions in this holy month of Ramadhan are relevant in such a field & how the lecturer had segregated the 'ritual' of fasting into three different groups; fasting that is known to the public; fasting of both the public type along with the spirit; and the spiritual fasting that is rarely seen these days.

The thing that frustrated me is that I had alway known fasting is just what it is; fasting. Nothing about separating it into groups or anything since fasting has it's own set of rules that you must abide by and if you can't follow those rules then it just means that you haven't been fasting - period. Rules like no cursing, no eating, no drinking; praying; following only what is good and not taking aide into things that could deter you into doing something that would anger God. Things like that.

The beauty of these lectures lies within what kind of questions they make rise out in your head about your own faith allowing you to learn about your own faith; Islam.