‘Eid in park’ for new Muslims
dubai — Her first brush with Islam was when she had a car accident in Dubai. Hailing from Philippines, Salma, a Dubai resident, says that she was introduced to Islam by a police officer who helped her when she had an accident.
“After conducting the inquiry, just before leaving the scene, the officer gave me a book on Islam and said ‘promise me that you will read this book when you have time’. I took the book and kept it. It was only after two or three years, one day, I don’t know how (it was from Allah) the thought of that book came to my mind and I started looking for it.
With great difficulty, she found it and that’s how Salma began her journey of knowing and learning about Islam until last year when she decided to take the shahaada.
Salma’s story was just one of the many Muslim converts who had gathered at Al Mushrif Park on Sunday morning to celebrate Eid Al Fitr. The get-together titled ‘Eid in the Park’ was organised by the Kalemah Islamic Centre.
The gathering of over 600 people began with takbirat at 5.30am, moving on to the Eid prayers at 6am in the park. This was followed by the main sermon (khutbah) in English — given by scholar Sheikh Tim Humble. After this, Kalemah teachers taught people the way to offer salah in different languages.
Abdullah Shetty, operations manager at Kalemah, said: “Today’s gathering was organised for new Muslims as they tend to miss their families on Eid, a day of celebration. We don’t want them to feel lonely and provide them the support they need and hence this gathering is a way of telling them that we are all one family. We expected 600 people to come but much more (around 700) joined in.”