I made Fajr (20 minutes before sunrise... I know, I need to improve) in my dorm room, and then went back to bed... however, I woke up at 9:15am, a bit later than I planned.
Rushed breakfast, ghusl and donned my new clothing (didn’t spend much this year: £55 approx on some nice jeans, a top, new kufi and a grey/silvery kameez!) I’m still a bit nervous around the London public transport here.
If you must know, I’m in Kingston Upon Thames, which is in Southwest London. It’s got decent connections to Central via train, so I took the train to London Waterloo at Surbiton Station. Took 25 minutes. So far, so good.
Once arriving at Waterloo though, you have to take the London Underground to get to Regents
Park Mosque (formally known as the London Central Mosque), which was my destination. The plan: make it to the 11am Eid Salaah. Sounds easy, right? When you’ve only been living in London for 2 days... not really.
I’m not a big fan of the Tube, to be honest. Small, stuffy, hot... and all those different lines, overcrowding and wondering if you’re going in the right direction. Not for me, haha. However today was a real eye opener, and made me so much more in line with loving my creator, Allah subhana wa ta’ala, and the composition of the events of the day reinforced this. See, I assumed that because this masjid is in the City of Westminster, all I needed to do was get on the Jubilee Line to Westminster from Waterloo. However, I didn’t foresee the maintenance works on that particular line... so was panicking when I realised I only had 20 minutes left to make it to Salaah.
However, my initial set out to this masjid was wrong in the first place. I got directed to the northbound Bakerloo Line (is this making sense to you? No? Guess you’ll have to be a Londoner to understand!) instead.
It was here I noticed a Muslim outside the Tube train... black kufi, black juba, scissor slippers... yep, this fits the Hijab Man persona Zaufishan mentioned a while ago! I made my salaams, asked him if he was going to the masjid, which he was. An Iraqi sister (from Baghdad! Studying to be a dentist at UCL masha’Allah) was doing the same so we teamed up to find that masjid, alhamdulillah.
Oh, an easy mistake to make: Regents Park Station doesn’t actually take you right to the mosque. Heh. We realised that after Hijab Man rung his cousin (or at least I think it was his cousin) and was told going back to the station and taking the tube to Baker Street Station would get us closer to the masjid. I explained I was from Peterborough but studying at Kingston thinking it would be nice to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr around a Muslim community.
Alhamdulillah, it brought us 2 minutes away from Regents Park, and the massive presence of Muslim around there gave me a slight inkling the masjid was there. Allah’s plans are great, His guidance and power gave me the blessing to make it safe and sound. Luck has nothing to do with it.
And lo and behold, it was there, and what an incredible masjid it was! Hijab Man, me and the Iraqi sister decided to go with where the most people were... turns out we were standing outside the sisters’ entrance. (Woops)... Again, easy mistake to make, the street was chock full of Muslims, brothers and sisters alike. Sadly due to the confusion of getting around I was 10 minutes late to Eid Salaah... so missed it.
Don’t look at me like that, it was my first time around here!
The Iraqi sister made her departure and Hijab Man caught up with his family, greeted by a couple of cousins. He invited me to join his family (his aunty, uncle and cousins) for a tiny picnic at the Regents Park, close to the masjid, literally a couple of minute’s walk. I felt a bit nervous as usual, but the family were incredibly warm and inviting, alhamdulillah.
Hijab Man’s name is actually Sohaib, a Karachi-born Pakistani who moved here. He’s a college student but works at Kingston Hospital, masha’Allah. He’s told me his immediate family still live in Pakistan, but honestly, with his accent, manners and etiquette you wouldn’t have guessed where he was from!
The nice people he brought me to were incredibly hospitable, masha’Allah. Chocolates and pastries ahoy! The conversations we had ranged from family backgrounds to educational banter and even Hajj and Umrah experiences! It was nice to spend Eid with a family, especially considering it was the first Eid ever WITHOUT my family. ‘Allah works in such beautifully mysterious ways’ I muse to myself as I agree to take a family photo.
1pm approached and we could hear the Adhan from the park as me and Sohaib walked to the masjid. This was so exciting, my first time in here. The entrance is so grand, and I can’t stop staring at that pretty gold dome, oooooh. Making wudhu here was nice and the place was lively as sisters and brothers roamed the massive masjid indoors.
Check out the photo gallery with this piece, it shows the front entrance, the inside of it, the restaurant and library, as well as the beautiful prayer room! Making Zuhr Salaah here was so peaceful and serene, and the imam’s voice is beautiful, masha’Allah. After the prayer I poked around the masjid a bit more, and visited the gift shop!
Darussalam is a pretty awesome shop; packed for Eid, naturally, it stocks Muslim gear such as jubas, hijabs, Islamic books, nasheeds, Eid cards, you name it, that shop... probably has it, I don’t exactly work as a stockist or spied at the warehouses. Honest.
Anyway, I bought two VERY nice Eid Cards to send off and for myself, a prayer rug with a Qiblah compass. Nice, alhamdulillah.
After this, we left the masjid at about 3pm (I think, maybe 2:30pm... bleh, forgetfulness), back to Regents Park, presumably to continue their little picnic. Funnily enough my parents rang, wishing me an Eid Mubarak. They’re happy I’m spending Eid at least with a family (THAT is how universal the teachings and ethics of our religion goes, subhan’Allah) and Mum had a bit of banter with Sohaib’s aunty, masha’Allah! But the experienced was destined to end as Sohaib and his family had to depart.
I made my salaams and duas, heh. And yay, I made friends, insha’Allah I will stay in touch with this family especially as Sohaib’s cousin goes to the same university as me! Seeing as it was about 2:45pm when they left, I roamed around the masjid and park a bit more alone, until going back to Kingston (about a 40 minute train journey alhamdulillah) safe and sound.
Considering the rocky start at arriving at halls of residence and getting accustomed to such a different way of life from home... this was an amazing boost of Iman for me.
I returned from the trip feeling high (no, not that high), more motivated to protect myself from the fitnah of university life, to increase my khushoo during Salat, to recite Quran more... it’s that positive culture SHOCK I got that made me feel so great, I hadn’t felt like that since my Umrah in 2008! I think I’ll need to visit this masjid often if I can to recharge myself when I feel down!
Anyway, I think I’ve yabbered on enough, so I hope you enjoyed this piece, or at least the photos I’ve included too! Just a heads up, if you’ve not heard from me for a while, I haven’t disappeared, it may be university studies on priority. So make dua for my success, insha’Allah!
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