Friday Prayer / Solat Jumaat

In the past few weeks, I have been offering Friday Prayer at my workplace. There are quite a number of muslims there and since a couple of years back, Friday Prayer has been offered there. That's very convenient and practical.

However, today I am not in the office thus decided to go somewhere else. Considering our temporary accommodation in Kensington High Street, I thought of going to Malaysia Hall in Bayswater which is a short tube-ride away. Closer to 12 noon today though, another thought struck me and I ended up going to my alma-mater, Imperial College, instead; which is in fact, a lot closer. After a quick check on the website of the Islamic Society's website, Agent W and I made our way there. From our place, we took the No 9 bus and after less than 5 mins we got off at Queen's Gate. (The no 9 here is not the bus we took, this must be a specially commissioned Route Master for Royal Albert Hall - saw it next to Beit Quad).

A short walk from there brought us to Beit Quad (I still remember exactly where it is having spents numerous hours in a gym there playing basketball). For Friday Prayer, this location is new as in the past, we used to do Friday Prayer in the Southside Gym which was a lot bigger. Apparently Southside had been rebuild a few years ago and the gym is gone. As we got there quite early (before 1230 pm), I decided to show Agent W around the campus. We finally went to the Union Concert Hall at around 1245pm and there were a number of brothers busy laying down the prayer mats.

It's quite a mental effort to ponder on how this serene and calm Concert Hall looks and feels like during its normal use. Interestingly, eventhough it is a Concert Hall, it felt like being in a mosque. I remember now how everywhere on Earth is the place of prayers for muslims......indeed.


A brother there told me that khutbah will start a 1.05pm therefore Agent W and I spent the next 15 mins or so there revising his memorisation of as-Sajdah and an-Naba'. Alhamdulillah he is doing well there.

The khutbah was delivered by a young brother (well, ALL of them look young and while I still feel young, they must have noticed an 'old' guy with his son there......) around sacrifice. It was nice and his recitation of the quran during the prayer was also beautiful. Insya-Allah, will go there again next week.