Sunday, October 14, 2007

Eidul Fitri in San Jose

I was surprised at the large number of people - berbagai bentuk dan rupa - streaming into the Masjid Muslim Community Association (MCA) for Round 2 of Solat Eidul Fitri. The place was packed! Tens of baby strollers lined the walls of the hallway to muslimat prayer area. I read somewhere that Solat Eidul Fitri is 'wajib' for mazhab Hanafi, whilst for us pengikut Shafi'e is sunat muakad. Macam kat Mekah pulak rasa nya! Meeting Siti Rubiah & Sharifah, when I edged myself to the front, was an absolute relief. At last muka Melayu! I first met the ladies during berbuka puasa for Rubi & Hazani, ( their family is leaving for home next week) at Restaurant Zafran. Other familiar looking faces ( like ours ) are probably the Indonesians and Cham ( Vietnam muslims ). Actually me, hubby & Faizal were already at the masjid around 8.25am but we were told Round 1 had just finished with only the khutbah to top it up. So we went back to Faizal's house which is around 15 minutes away, to enjoy the nasi impit with rendang daging, rendang ayam, kuah kacang & kuah lemak lodeh which I managed to cook up the night before - with the 2 girls' help, of course! We thought it would be better and more 'meriah' celebrating pagi raya with Faizal, Salbiah, & baby Yasmin, considering the young couple were also new in San Jose and probably the first time menyambut raya di perantauan. My kuah kacang & kuah lodeh was a 'hit' - if I should say so myself.... :) Thank goodness for easily available halia & lengkuas (galanga) found in Ranch 99 at Cupertino - a famous Chinese supermarket chain in this area. A few places here and also in Los Angeles, New York and Boston celebrated raya on Friday, following Arab Saudi. But based on the calculations of sunset & moonset (which is quite mindboggling to me!) done by North America Islamic Society, Eidul Fitri jatuh pada hari Sabtu. Dengan itu, mengikut waktu setempat.. kami pun berhari raya pada hari Sabtu. I guess it's not uncommon, since a number of times Malaysia, Indonesia & Singapura berhari raya on different days. I only wished we are more unified, even nak raya pun kita tak sepakat! Anyway, Solat Eidul Fitri was at 10.45am that Saturday morning, after a bit of fund raising speech by setiausaha masjid. Topic of khutbah delivered by the young imam - seen on the closed circuit monitor in picture above - was on family values, a topic that everyone can relate to no matter which corner of the world we come from....
Raya picture at Faizal's of us and the girls...
their brother is in Boston celebrating raya with our new found family there....alhamdulillah for the internet, it really makes such days as this bearable..
Kek Raya made by Anis and Atiqah..
EID MUBARAK to our family in Perak & Kuantan...and to all our friends!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin to Ainal, Suhaimi and your two anak dara. I'm glad that u've found a good muslim community at your new place and I like the various recipes in your blog. I'll tell my daughters about the sushi recipe, they might be interested to :)

zidnee 'ilmaa said...

Mazni,
Hope yr Raya was 'fantabulous' with yr anak2. I teringat 'open houses' every weekend kat sana..oh, hari Sabtu ni ada gathering kat sini...'potluck'... sure best!..Will keep u posted.
:)

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