Arbaeen in Damascus

Salaams all, hope you are in good spirits, we are doing great by the Grace of Allah SWT. We have just finished Arbaeen now, and the experiences were magnificent. For those who dont know what Arbaeen is, remember how we wrote about the Grandson of the Holy Prophet was murdered in the desert of Kerbala, we actually commemorate that for 40 days, and we just finished that period of mourning. It was packed packed packed here, but amazing amazing amazing!!!!

For the last 5 days, the streets have been packed with people, for the first time we saw more Pakistani's then we did Iranians. All the stores that usually played Arabic poetry (Mataams) were now playing Urdu poems, lol, guess they know how to cater for their audience :) Also, everything is slightly more expensive. Bread that we used to buy for 35 syrian pounds, is now up to 50. Someone told me they used to buy a sandwich for 85, it is now up to 150. Crazy, IA the prices will come back down after Arbaeen. Lots of our people (khojas) here too... really cool, we have met Loads and loads of them, lol. We actually met an uncle of ours that we havent seen in over 20 years, from East Africa, last week here. There is no doubt it is due the great presence of Sayyida Zainab AS that has made all this possible for us.

We have been fortunate enough to listen to many arabic lectures here, a few at the Haram and then on Arbaeen night and the next night, our school organized lectures for us, so it was nice to listen to as much arabic as we could. We also went to an english lecture by Sayyid Ammar N. at that Safir hotel, it was aiight, we prefer the arabic lectures, lol, just cause we are thirsty for it. But the coolest part of this whole week was that on Arbaeen night, around 4 in the morning, there are buses that take people from Sayyida Zainab AS to Sayyida Ruqayya (Sakina) AS, and then the people walk from there back, in a procession to Sayyida Zainab, nearly 15 KM. (On a side note, in our community we call that a Juloos, but a Juloos in Arabic means to sit, lol!!!!!!!!!) Anyways, we actually did that walk, took about 2.5 hours, it was amazing, thousands and thousands of people did this walk, we started around 6 and got back here at 830, it was really a great experience. Tiring, but we kept thinking that the family of the Prophet walked from Kerbala to Damascus in chains and shackles, we had no excuses :)

Besides that, things are ok here, a funny thing happened a few weeks ago. Our close friends from Los Angeles called us and it was really nice talking to them. The funny part was that I was talking to my friends Grandfather, and I normally speak to him in Swahili, but as i was trying to talk to him in Swahili, only arabic words were coming out...LOL, Sabiha couldnt stop laughing at me, luckily he spoke English so i was able to resort back to it. They say that when you are learning a new language, it replaces other languages that you are not too strong in, So Alhamd its good i guess...LOL.

Anyways, written a lot, please pray for us, and we will IA do the same :)

Take care!!