Boston was beautiful! We visited Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology). The river is nice. Everyone was enjoying themselves, having
a picnic, riding their bikes, sunbathing, eating good food and appreciating the
street shows. The city itself is very youthful and lively, unlike Hartford, many
activities are available and can be seen in Boston.
We went to two mosques, Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) & Islamic Society
of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC). It is quite unique; they prefer to name it Islamic
centres instead of mosques. We met Singaporeans operating a café in ISBCC. The
place looks comfy and I saw classes and meetings going on too.
Unlike mosques in Singapore, I believe they do not have as many various activities
and services for their community, frequent night public classes or close
relationships between other mosque’s officers. However, I was really amazed by
how their jemaah (congregation) prayed. They are from various countries such as
Egypt, Pakistan, Ethiopia, America, and others but still, the way they stand in
their rows (saf), closing their gaps in between, from one end to the other,
they were all in a nice straight lines. MasyaAllah. This reminds me of the prophet’s
(pbuh) saying that this would tie our hearts together. I have never seen such complete
beautiful rows in our mosques in Singapore.
Another thing that touched me was the fact that they actually pasted
emails and letters given by both Muslim & Non-Muslim, expressing their
condolences, and best wishes with regards to the recent Boston bombing tragedy
which greatly affected the Muslim community here.
These two things makes me wonder, comparing our Muslim community in
Singapore and here in Boston, which of the two have greater ties with their
brothers in Islam? We are fortunate to enjoy the peace and freedom, at least
for now. Here, they are facing tragedies one after another, facing these challenges
together as one Muslim community despite their differences in the school of
thoughts. I wonder how our community would react if similar tragedy happens in
Singapore, may God protect us. Well, I guess that’s where our interfaith works
comes in. I guess this is why we are here, preparing ourselves.
