Beautiful Burnley
Salaam,
Hope everyone is well inshaAllah,
Well, i arrived back in Burnley on Thursday at around noon after a monster 27 hour journey which Alh, went without any problems. The biggest drag though was the 7 hr wait at Dhaka and then the 7hr wait in Dubai, which by the way has got to be the most exaggerated shopping experience ever - there's not that many shops there and the prices are pretty much the same as in the UK. The only problems i incurred were having to show around 5 guys who were coming to the UK for the first time, explaining to the airport guy why i had a pumpkin in my luggage (Bengalis will understand this) and having my hand luggage searched at every given opportunity as i had a beard, looked like an arab/bengali/pak (none of which helped) and had five guys with me who looked lost. I also realised, again, at how small the world is - on this one journey i met 3 people i knew - (For those who know/care; Amirs' dad who was going to Bd, Abdul Maliks dad who was on the same flight as me coming back to the Uk from Bd and Jay Dhodia in Dubai who was going home to Kenya..). I also met another guy from Rochdale who knew a lot of people from my area in Burnley. Bizzarre.
It was quite weird coming back though as a lot of things looked different fo some reason; on the journey from the airport back to our house i kept asking stuff like "Has that hill always been there?" and "wasn't that shop on the other side of the road?" but Alh, its good to be back...for a few days.
In the last few days in Bd, i went back to some relatives to say goodbye and spent a day with an uncle of mine who's a hafiz and has opened up a new madrasah near where he lives which i got to see. He also took me to some of the the main madrasahs in Sylhet and took me shopping in the Islamic area of the main bazaar in Sylhet centre. On this last note i was gonna say something about the religious situation in Bd, but never got the chance/had the time but which i think is quite interesting.
Unfortunately i didn't think the situation was too positive, but i think maybe i got a biased view on things. Although nationally only 10% of people in Bd are hindus, in the area i lived in, it was more like 30%, with a few shias's thrown in too...(i was quite shocked at this). And generally there didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for Islam and not much going on in terms of activities...apart that is from our Tableeghi brothers, who, as ever, were working away tirelessly in the path of Allah (seriously). Aprt from these guys, the scene seemed pretty quiet. The only other Islamic country I've been in is Egypt and there the thirst for Islam seemed much stronger. Just going off Salaat attendances, my local mosque was the main mosque in our area but at Dhur you only got around 40/50 people, with, as it seems is the case everywhere, 90% of the worshippers over 60yrs of age which doesn't leave much hope for the future.
Another thing which was quite disturbing was the amount of superstition and basically cultural/hindu beliefs which had been thrown in and made out to be from Islamic roots e some people when they give you salaam, they come and touch your feet...and a Lot of grave worshipping and "peers" (OMG..). But apart from all that the religious situation is pretty good...but seriously there is some hope as there is a growing body of scholars speaking out against these things and with an Islamic party in the coalition government there should be positive changes made from the top to encourage education about Islam. And as ever, the slaves in His path, our Tableeghi brethren, are working away.
One other thing is the increase in "militant" Islam in Bd. In the one month i was there was about 5 bombings, including the countries first suicide bombing, with about 40 people in total dead. And 6 months ago there was 360 small bombs let off simultaneously throughout the country more as a warning than anything else. The group taking responsibility is "Jihad ul Muslimeen" (or something like that). These bombings in themselves are obviously very worrying, but even more serious seems to be the rate at which they are happening. To be honest no one in Bd is really sure what these guys want, but one thing that was clear was that the vast majority of bengali's were completely against them and were in support of the govt who has employed very heavy handed techniques to try and stop these bombings. My local imam was saying that before whenever he wanted a taxi he would have taxi's coming to him offering him a ride, now even if he tries to stop one, as soon as the driver sees the beard, he drives off. Can't win anywhere now it seems.
The plan now is to take some time out in Burnley for around 2 weeks and then fly out to Jordan around xmas time to start classes on the 31st of Dec inshaAllah. Yes they've had bombings there too...
Hope everyone is well inshaAllah,
Well, i arrived back in Burnley on Thursday at around noon after a monster 27 hour journey which Alh, went without any problems. The biggest drag though was the 7 hr wait at Dhaka and then the 7hr wait in Dubai, which by the way has got to be the most exaggerated shopping experience ever - there's not that many shops there and the prices are pretty much the same as in the UK. The only problems i incurred were having to show around 5 guys who were coming to the UK for the first time, explaining to the airport guy why i had a pumpkin in my luggage (Bengalis will understand this) and having my hand luggage searched at every given opportunity as i had a beard, looked like an arab/bengali/pak (none of which helped) and had five guys with me who looked lost. I also realised, again, at how small the world is - on this one journey i met 3 people i knew - (For those who know/care; Amirs' dad who was going to Bd, Abdul Maliks dad who was on the same flight as me coming back to the Uk from Bd and Jay Dhodia in Dubai who was going home to Kenya..). I also met another guy from Rochdale who knew a lot of people from my area in Burnley. Bizzarre.
It was quite weird coming back though as a lot of things looked different fo some reason; on the journey from the airport back to our house i kept asking stuff like "Has that hill always been there?" and "wasn't that shop on the other side of the road?" but Alh, its good to be back...for a few days.
In the last few days in Bd, i went back to some relatives to say goodbye and spent a day with an uncle of mine who's a hafiz and has opened up a new madrasah near where he lives which i got to see. He also took me to some of the the main madrasahs in Sylhet and took me shopping in the Islamic area of the main bazaar in Sylhet centre. On this last note i was gonna say something about the religious situation in Bd, but never got the chance/had the time but which i think is quite interesting.
Unfortunately i didn't think the situation was too positive, but i think maybe i got a biased view on things. Although nationally only 10% of people in Bd are hindus, in the area i lived in, it was more like 30%, with a few shias's thrown in too...(i was quite shocked at this). And generally there didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for Islam and not much going on in terms of activities...apart that is from our Tableeghi brothers, who, as ever, were working away tirelessly in the path of Allah (seriously). Aprt from these guys, the scene seemed pretty quiet. The only other Islamic country I've been in is Egypt and there the thirst for Islam seemed much stronger. Just going off Salaat attendances, my local mosque was the main mosque in our area but at Dhur you only got around 40/50 people, with, as it seems is the case everywhere, 90% of the worshippers over 60yrs of age which doesn't leave much hope for the future.
Another thing which was quite disturbing was the amount of superstition and basically cultural/hindu beliefs which had been thrown in and made out to be from Islamic roots e some people when they give you salaam, they come and touch your feet...and a Lot of grave worshipping and "peers" (OMG..). But apart from all that the religious situation is pretty good...but seriously there is some hope as there is a growing body of scholars speaking out against these things and with an Islamic party in the coalition government there should be positive changes made from the top to encourage education about Islam. And as ever, the slaves in His path, our Tableeghi brethren, are working away.
One other thing is the increase in "militant" Islam in Bd. In the one month i was there was about 5 bombings, including the countries first suicide bombing, with about 40 people in total dead. And 6 months ago there was 360 small bombs let off simultaneously throughout the country more as a warning than anything else. The group taking responsibility is "Jihad ul Muslimeen" (or something like that). These bombings in themselves are obviously very worrying, but even more serious seems to be the rate at which they are happening. To be honest no one in Bd is really sure what these guys want, but one thing that was clear was that the vast majority of bengali's were completely against them and were in support of the govt who has employed very heavy handed techniques to try and stop these bombings. My local imam was saying that before whenever he wanted a taxi he would have taxi's coming to him offering him a ride, now even if he tries to stop one, as soon as the driver sees the beard, he drives off. Can't win anywhere now it seems.
The plan now is to take some time out in Burnley for around 2 weeks and then fly out to Jordan around xmas time to start classes on the 31st of Dec inshaAllah. Yes they've had bombings there too...
In the mean time i will inshaAllah (finally) put up some photos that i took whilst out there.
Salaam Wr Wb
posted by Me at
1:03 PM
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