Stuck
Salaam,
Alhamdulillah im fully into my course now having had about a week of lessons, and its going OK so far. To be honest with you its involving a lot more work than i envisaged or wanted to do...my plan was to have a good time and learn some arabic at the same time, but if i actually want to learn a decent amount, im gonna have to devote more time to it as its getting increasingly technical, especially the grammar.
Those of you from uni know that i undergo random motivational crises (that was wrt economics so fair play i think) but iv already undergone some here...! but i keep reminding myself that im spending quite a lot of money and making quite a few sacrifices to be out here so i should make the most of this time. And who knows, the arabic might in fact come in handy in the future...? But i really do think that learning qur'anic arabic should be high up on the "things to do" list of muslims as how on earth can you justify praying 5 times a day and reading your holy book and not knowing whats going on...??
With eid coming up some of the brothers here are trying to plan a trip to one of the neighbouring countries, but here we faced the wrath of arab (and almost all 3rd world countries) beauracracy. First we were thinking what would be nicer than to spend eid in jerusalam and pray in masjid al aqsa i.e. a trip to palestine... but then we basically got told this would be impossible. But not only this but it could prevent you from going to hajj for the next ten years...
Jerusalam is actually only 80 miles away from Amman but it is ridiculously difficult to get inside. Unless you are with your family (so are not going to get up to no good) or you have family there, you cant get in. Even if you do get in, your passport will get stamped by the israeli guards saying you entered israel, hence meaning you cant go on hajj as saudi arabia doesnt let anyone into the country who has visited israel... (a bit of a shot in the foot by them to be honest as it means muslims cant go to visit palestine and then go to hajj until they get a new passport).
So then we decided we'll try and go to Syria, but again got told this would be very difficult. Anyway we ended up going to the Syrian embassy, which resembled a prison more than anything as you could not enter the building and had to speak to the officials through a booth with metal bars. There we got told to go to our own repsective embassies to get a letter of recommendation and then we Might get a visa. So to the British embassy. Their we got told it was 35pounds for the letter and the syrians would charge us another 35pounds and we still might not get a visa so to go back to the syrian embassy and to see if we could gety a gurantee of a visa as the woman didnt want us to waste our money. So bask to the syrian embassy to be told by the woman "maybe you will get the visa, maybe you wont, i dont know"...
Anyway what we might do is just go to the Syrian border and illegaly enter the country...no, actually we've been told that sometimes they issue visa's there so to try our luck and see what happens. And since its only a 1 1/2 hr drive it wont be much of a waste if we get turned back.
So after all that it seems most likely il be spending eid in Jordan...but iA even if that is the case we're going to try to go to Petra/Aqaba, places which have a lot of history so should be good anyway iA.
Salaam
Alhamdulillah im fully into my course now having had about a week of lessons, and its going OK so far. To be honest with you its involving a lot more work than i envisaged or wanted to do...my plan was to have a good time and learn some arabic at the same time, but if i actually want to learn a decent amount, im gonna have to devote more time to it as its getting increasingly technical, especially the grammar.
Those of you from uni know that i undergo random motivational crises (that was wrt economics so fair play i think) but iv already undergone some here...! but i keep reminding myself that im spending quite a lot of money and making quite a few sacrifices to be out here so i should make the most of this time. And who knows, the arabic might in fact come in handy in the future...? But i really do think that learning qur'anic arabic should be high up on the "things to do" list of muslims as how on earth can you justify praying 5 times a day and reading your holy book and not knowing whats going on...??
With eid coming up some of the brothers here are trying to plan a trip to one of the neighbouring countries, but here we faced the wrath of arab (and almost all 3rd world countries) beauracracy. First we were thinking what would be nicer than to spend eid in jerusalam and pray in masjid al aqsa i.e. a trip to palestine... but then we basically got told this would be impossible. But not only this but it could prevent you from going to hajj for the next ten years...
Jerusalam is actually only 80 miles away from Amman but it is ridiculously difficult to get inside. Unless you are with your family (so are not going to get up to no good) or you have family there, you cant get in. Even if you do get in, your passport will get stamped by the israeli guards saying you entered israel, hence meaning you cant go on hajj as saudi arabia doesnt let anyone into the country who has visited israel... (a bit of a shot in the foot by them to be honest as it means muslims cant go to visit palestine and then go to hajj until they get a new passport).
So then we decided we'll try and go to Syria, but again got told this would be very difficult. Anyway we ended up going to the Syrian embassy, which resembled a prison more than anything as you could not enter the building and had to speak to the officials through a booth with metal bars. There we got told to go to our own repsective embassies to get a letter of recommendation and then we Might get a visa. So to the British embassy. Their we got told it was 35pounds for the letter and the syrians would charge us another 35pounds and we still might not get a visa so to go back to the syrian embassy and to see if we could gety a gurantee of a visa as the woman didnt want us to waste our money. So bask to the syrian embassy to be told by the woman "maybe you will get the visa, maybe you wont, i dont know"...
Anyway what we might do is just go to the Syrian border and illegaly enter the country...no, actually we've been told that sometimes they issue visa's there so to try our luck and see what happens. And since its only a 1 1/2 hr drive it wont be much of a waste if we get turned back.
So after all that it seems most likely il be spending eid in Jordan...but iA even if that is the case we're going to try to go to Petra/Aqaba, places which have a lot of history so should be good anyway iA.
Salaam
posted by Me at
11:56 AM
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