Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

The holy month of Ramadhan has come and gone. We all know that Ramadhan is the month of barakah where all good deeds are amply rewarded.

I pray that whatever little ibadah that I have had the strength to undertake will be accepted by Allah SWT. I also pray that, having graduated from the madrasah of Ramadhan, my ibadah therefrom will live up to, and be the guided by, the standard set.

Not that it was such a high standard, of course. But I should aspire to keep it - if not further improve upon it.

But most of all, I pray that, by the grace of Allah, I would be given the opportunity to be present come next Ramadhan.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri

Mohon Maaf Zahir dan Batin

Of planning philosophy and iftar at Putrajaya new mosque

Masjid Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Precinct 3, Putrajaya
Photo courtesy of Firdaus Mahadi at Photosantai.com

Putrajaya is a beautiful city. It presents itself as a dignified and orderly town. Some say it’s too orderly and clinical. But that’s another discussion reserved for another day.

When the pioneering city planners set out to plan the city, I’m sure they must have struggled to come up with a convincing concept and a coherent philosophy for it. Try projecting our leader’s obsession for achieving a developed nation status, whilst at the same time, blending it with THE Malaysian identity – whatever that might be – and you’ll get an idea of what kind of a mishmash and hodgepodge you’d get at the end of it.

But eventually they settled on for a philosophy which gives due recognition to men’s existence as the vicegerent of the Creator and his role vis-à-vis his fellow men, the environment, and of course his place in front of God.

Heady stuff, yes. But as a guiding philosophy, certainly workable.

For a start, Putrajaya is already planned to have places of worship for every religion and spiritual belief be it Islam, Christian, Hindu and so on.

Last week end I had the opportunity to take my family to have iftar at the latest place of worship to be developed here that is the Masjid Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin.

Sometimes referred to as the “Masjid Besi” by the press, this mosque serves the people on the Core Island of Putrajaya. Especially on Fridays, this mosque is a much welcomed relief for office workers who have had to endure the heat and traffic congestions when they go for Friday prayers all over Putrajaya and some even as far away as Bangi and Dengkil.

This beautiful mosque can accommodate up to 20,000 people at one time. It has a totally different design to the more classical and Moorish-influenced Masjid Putra. Modern and with simple, clean, design it also uses a lot of steel for construction by comparison.

When we were there, there were around 400 people for iftar. The iftar fare was just nice and simple: dates with some kuih and sirap bandung. After solat Maghrib we continued with dinner. And after solat Tarawih there was moreh, too. But we didn’t wait for that as we left earlier after 8 rakaat of Tarawih.

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