It is early! This is the last day of Ramadan. :( It always goes so fast, just when you're really getting into it - I guess that is the wisdom in preparing for Ramadan before it starts. *makes note to self* It's been great being given time off school, if only for the last ten days...I have to say, I didn't even remotely meet my goal of going to the masjid every night (that'll make Heidi laugh XD)(I didn't go at all after Laila left XD). I was thinking lots about what Jasmine said last Ramadan, about developing a relationship with and attachment to the masjid; I wanted to try to build my own relationship with it, but...well, you can see the success of it.

However! All is not doom and gloom and the scent of failure! The main reason I opted to stay at home was to watch the taraweeh from Makkah: Makkah is always surreal, but in Ramadan, it is like, surreal squared (that's surreal x surreal for the mathematically-challenged XD). What most people - and masjids - try to do during Ramadan is to finish the Qur'an once completely through the taraweeh (that is a special extra Ramadan-prayer, which can be 8 or 20 rak'aat [units of prayer] long - for instance in Masjid Salaam [our one], they do 8, and in the Masjid al-Haram in Makkah, they do 20). The qur'an is divided into several kinds of sections, one of which is in thirtieths, and each thirtieth is called a 'juz' (part). So anyhow, they do a juz a night - 30 juz, 30 nights, et le fin! Good, innit?

Anyway! So yeah, they broadcast it live (on 4353905673 channels) and they subtitle it with the English translation and it's like, so cool. My favourite recitor is one of the Imams of the Ka'bah - Sa'ud ash-Shuraim - so it's like, coolness squared. XD Also, I really like Sudais and Abdullah al-Jehany who reminds me of one of our uncles (the family-friend kind of uncle :D) and we saw Saleh at-Talib's feet! You just don't expect people like that to have feet, you know? XD XD

So yeah, the point of all that was...it was like animating the qur'an - when you read a translation on your own, it's not the same as thinking of the translation as you hear - and see - it recited. 'Qur'an' means 'recital' - when it's words on a page, it doesn't have the same living, organic quality as when it's being recited by someone who really knows how to do it - it's like the difference between 2D and 3D, where the kitaab, the book, is the 2D representation of Kalaam-Allah (the word of God), and its qira'ah (recitation) is its 3D form - and its highest form, was the living, breathing 4D exposition of Muhammad (saw) - it's just how A'ishah (ra) described him.

Wow, subhanallah.