Ramadhan keeps mosques busy throughout the night

Ramadhan keeps mosques busy throughout the night

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): Throughout Ramadhan, the ninth month of the
Muslim year, mosques bustle with numerous activities that
continue round the clock and revolve around fasting, a ritual
that is one of the five pillars of Islam. At this time of the
year the busiest part of the day at mosques and in many homes is
always nighttime.

In most of Jakarta's 2,000 mosques daytime means congregating
to pray, imparting nonstop lessons for children on the essence of
Islam and organizing special sermons for older people. But come
maghrib (sunset prayer) and after the prayer, intense
spirituality practiced during the day gives way to gay festivity
for a while as the faithful sip their first drink in 14 hours and
share with each other their main meal of the day.

At the grand Istiqlal Mosque, Muslims from all walks of life
start streaming in just before dusk when they are distributed
drinks and food packages donated anonymously. Once the prayers
are over and the stomach full, children play on the long
walkways, as mothers share profane talk and the men light up
kretek (clove cigarettes).

Peddlers surrounding the mosque do brisk business as they pop
open one bottle of soft drink after another, sometimes all night
long. Cigarettes and snacks are also sold like hotcakes.

Soon after eating, some stretch out on the cool marble floors
of the mosque itself and sleep until the call of prayer wakes
them up again at dawn for another day of fasting. Others, like
Nunung Indrawati, return home. Nunung walks all the way back to
her kampong in Bekasi with her four children, neighbors and
friends each evening after every free meal at the mosque. On the
way, the older children are encouraged to earn a little extra
money by begging at every traffic light. The money is collected
to eventually buy clothes and food for the Idul Fitri
celebrations, the festival that ends the month-long ritual of
fasting.

A walk around the sprawling premises of the mosque shows
people everywhere throughout the day involved in a host of
activities that are as varied as the crowd itself. Along the
connecting walkways on all five levels of the mosque there are
people either at pray, asleep, reading or just sitting. The scene
on the floor of the one-hectare large central hall is similar and
most of the 660 taps on the ground floor spout endless streams of
water for all those indulging themselves in adulations before
each prayer.

Escorting The Jakarta Post through the labyrinthian meditation
walkways encircling the gigantic terrace, security guard Heri
Pertama paused before a mesmerizing view of the minaret and dome
of the Istiqlal that seem to stand hand-in-hand with the twin
towers of the neo-gothic Jakarta Cathedral across the road.

Pertama hopes that this picture postcard view of the country's
greatest mosque shading the nearly 100-year-old church is never
disturbed.

Teddy, a driver who visited the mosque that night, has a
similar hope. He recalled a story he heard as a child from his
soldier-father who was one of the personal guards to founding
president Sukarno. He remembers being told that president Sukarno
was in favor of building the country's national mosque in the
vicinity of the city's most important church as a symbol of
tolerance and respect of all Indonesians for non-Islamic
religions as well.

Imam Sumadi said that the number of young people visiting the
national mosque during the glorious month of Ramadhan, when the
Koran was first revealed more than 1,400 years ago, increases
tremendously.

"Nearly 2,500 people from the city and outside come to the
Istiqlal to break their fast here with us," he said. There has
been an increase in this number by 30 percent this year as the
economic crisis deprives more and more people of jobs.

Unfortunately the percentage of donations to the mosque have
failed to keep pace with the increasing number of jobless and
poverty stricken people around the country, he said.

The list of those who go to the Istiqlal to break their fast
is long and colorful. It includes names of presidents and
politicians, preachers and painters. President B.J. Habibie
visited the Istiqlal last week in connection with the
commemoration of the revelation of the Koran, and joined the
public to pray during this period of atonement.

While the Istiqlal has a capacity to accommodate almost
100,000 people and makes the most elaborate arrangements for its
visitors, some of the smaller mosques in town are used only for
prayers. Others host small groups of like-minded people who pray,
eat and talk together.

Rizal, a member of Al Azhar's Youth Islamic Study Club, said
that about 150 people are fed at dusk at the Al-Azhar mosque in
South Jakarta. The meals may include inexpensive fruit like
bananas, tea and chicken and rice.

"We are surrounded by a well-to-do neighborhood. People here
have enough to eat at home. Its only street children, small-scale
shopkeepers and some beggars who come here for food," Rizal, a
first year university student, said.

However, some students like himself often also stay back when
delayed by tasks on campus, to feast along with the poor of the
city during Ramadhan, a time to purify the heart of all pride and
prejudice.

"Besides the food served, here it's as good as that cooked at
home," Rizal smiles as he patiently waits for iftar, the meal
that will break his fast of the day.

Relaxing at the Youth Islamic Study Club at the Al-Azhar,
Rizal said that during Ramadhan charitable and social service
activities among students increases. After lessons in
understanding Islam in depth, students branch out to different
parts of the city to teach and feed children at orphanages.

"I have been to the Cawang area to distribute money, food and
education," he said.

Rizal has little clue as to what the end of Ramadhan will mean
for the future of the country when many students are expected to
return to the streets to press for reform. He would like to see
many things change here as well, not through active participation
in politics but through dedicated social work.

The blue tiled great mosque in the exclusive Pondok Indah
neighborhood plays host to about 300 visitors each evening like
the main mosques at both Kebayoran Lama and Pasar Minggu, while
authorities at Mesjid Raya Ciputat said that often there are as
many as 700 guests to feed after maghrib prayers, including those
like a child barely five years old.

Remembering the little girl relish the rice and fish served to
her on a piece of newspaper, one can only pray that the citizens
of the largest Muslim country in the world will not restrict
themselves in submitting to the will of Allah only during
Ramadhan. That the noble gestures of peace, unity, kindness and
tolerance will continue to spill over into many months, nay
years, to come.