Meet Az who lives in my apartment block, works in our company and is Muslim. Although she doesn't cover Az does observe fundamental Muslim cultural beliefs and is fasting as it's Ramadan. So she prays and eats around 4:00am and fasts through the day until iftar around 6:45 pm. Last week Az invited a group of people from our company to join her for iftar at one of the international hotels. While we were waiting she talked us through the iftar proceedure.
Normally in the privacy of her home before eating Az would go through the posturing prayer first, the standing, the kneeling and stretching her arms in front of her on the floor etc. We sat at our tables in a beautifully decorated tent, very similar to a Bedouin wedding tent, surrounded by wall mounted TV sets. At about 6:40pm the TV screened coverage of an elderly gentleman, saying the iftar prayer in the big mosque in Abu Dhabi. On completion Az then said a prayer which finishes in the Arabic words for Amen. She basically asked Allah to bless the food and to thank him for supporting her through the day of fasting. We began our meal by lifting lids on bowls on our table and began eating an assortment of dry fruits and nuts, figs, dates, prunes, walnuts etc while sipping water, drinking tea or drinking watery yoghut or a mixture of date and milk with or without honey. The date and milk was rather like a smoothie and rather gorgeous tasting. The stomach of course needs time to expand and digest a great bulk of food so we took things slowly. From then on we could help ourselves to the buffet of either traditional Arabic food, some Indian food or Western food. This was followed by Arabic or Indian desserts which are rather sweet, deep friend honey, baklava etc.
A fascinating experience and fascinating to be learn a little more about the culture in which I live.
No comments:
Post a Comment