being a muslim here and there...

salam and hi

few days in canterbury, it's quite different as in malaysia, especially of being a muslim... there's so much challenges to face and circumstances to encounter..

in malaysia, you don't have to worry much about food.. such as what ingredients we can't take, how its made and prepared and all sorts of stuffs related to it that we need to be concern enough before we buy and munch it. almost all of those are halal to consume and it won't give you any harm at any condition insya'allah.

BUT

living in the place where muslims are the minority, everything MATTERS here. everything that is written and stamped on the wrapping paper need to be read to ensure there's none of the non-halal things being mixed in the ingredients. only those with halal-stamped logo or any vegetarian products can be consumed securely... insya'allah

that's part of the challenges we need to face here.. the patience to read all those food-codes and too much wording (somotimes it's quite tiring!) but all we do is for our own good... so hope that what we do will be granted..ameen..

next thing to be super duper concern here is about our solat. in malaysia, we have lots of mosque (prayer hall) to pray and there's always athan to remind us when we can start pray of each time.

here, it's us ourselves to remind and know when is the prayer time (we need to be be regularly updated with it) so that we won't miss any of the five times. plus, it is convenient for us muslims in cccu to have our own prayer room in the main campus. however, places like that won't be available at all region.

for the first time in my life (real experience, excluding the practical we did during WOW programme), i have started to pray outside of that prayer room regardless of time and place. we had a briefing at the augustine house and it was until in the afternoon where we might have missed our zohor prayer. so what we do was, take the wudhu' inside the toilet (carefully so that the remaining water won't wet the floor) and have our all-time kiblat compass to get the direction of the kiblat. i initiated to solat at one spot where less people walk to the area. at first, i was quite nervous to start praying (afraid of being chased out by guards or to get weird looks from other people) but as i performing, i felt that i've gained some kind of strength to finish it in khusyu', without any doubt. after the salam, i felt relief that Allah has protected me all way through.. alhamdulillah~~~~

also, i found out that the rest of my friends are following me (to solat there)... i wonder when will i be brave enough to be the imam and lead my friends later... insya'allah when the time comes....