WELCOMING ANOTHER NEW HIJRI YEAR 1431

I made my way to the surau near my house because we were welcoming another new Hijri year, the new year according to the Islamic calendar. The Hijri calendar was actually used to mark the migration of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to Madina from Mecca, which should be one of the significant events in the development of Islam in the Arab land. So, unlike the usual new year celebration, the coming of yet another year was celebrated with religious activities such as reciting the end of year and the beginning of new year prayers. We thanked Allah for all the good things that had been given and hoping for a good life for the year to come. I got to see many familiar faces and I was greeted with similar expressions of "long time no see" - either they had missed me so much or I had been missing for quite some time. The moral of the story: go to surau when you have the time.

after everything had been cleared

As usual, after all the rituals had been carried out, the jemaah (people who come to perform the prayer together) were served with overflowing variety of food that was brought in by everybody. As usual, we had more than enough food for everybody and each and everyone was forced to bring home some.

Let's welcome the new year and pray that we will always be a better person that what we were the year before.