Five Congregational Practices of Mosque

Assalaamu'alaikum wa Rahmatullah!

This is a recapture of the essence that I have got from the three days stay at the Sri Petaling center. It is about how a member of certain mosque congregation could live their mosque or musalla. 

It is said that the mosque during the Madinah period is 24/7 lively with activities and programs. The Tabligh-e-Jama'at ulamas had simplified it to four matters to be understood by parishioners.

1. Da'awa (calling people to Allah and practicing the teachings).

2. Learning and the teachings of religious sciences, I guess this is what they call as bayaan (explanation).

3. Acts of worship (salaat, recitation of scripture, meditation, and prayers).

4. Khidmat (services).

The first step to support the above four practices should begin with five congregational practices of mosque. They are:

1. Musyawarah or meeting about religious matters in our qaryah (parish). What had been done and what should be executed so that our parishioner would be in compliance with what Allah had told us to do. 

2. At least give some times in daily life to the mosque approximately eight hours, and 2 and 1/2 hours to execute what had been discussed in musyawarah. 

3. Hadiths recitation from the kitaab Fadhaail 'Amal (the benefits of practices) so that parish member being determined to strive in salaat, Quranic recitation, zikrullah, charity, and others. Recitation could be done in the mosque or at home, once a day about 10-30 minutes per session.  This session is called as ta'alim (learning). When they spell and pronounce it as taklim in english spelling, I thought that it means discussion, hehe.

4. Ziarah (visit) from house to house once a week for silaturrahim (love among brethren).  They call this as ghasht in Urdu.

5. Three days khuruj to other musalla once a month.  The practices of khuruj is a mean for members to learn the manner of da'awa and implanting imaan (faith) in everyone's heart.

This is a tribute and respect to Tabligh-e-Jama'at brothers and also as a mean to celebrate this movement where some of our brothers are adherents to it. Whatever is good to be practiced I would accept and support it with my life as long as it is in concordance to Quran and Sunnah without looking at who is the person that deliver the speech because I am looking at the essence of the speech and not at the person.

I pray for our brethren in faith and also to my filthy self to please not underestimate any da'awa movements although we might not agree with some of the members in the movement or due to some differences in tasawwuf approaches or cultural differences. If we find differences, we should immediately return to Quran and Sunnah as our primary and secondary sources of faith.

Allah bless our prophet Muhammad (saw), Allah bless all the 'ulamas who had imparted us the knowledge on scripture and sunnah. Allah forgive them their sins and may Allah place them in high places with those who are honored by Allah. Allah forgive us our sins, we are just weak creatures depending on You. Whatever that we see and hear could not always be true because life is a dream, but we also have to listen to our mannasukul (heart and soul) closing our eyes and think deeply. May Allah leads our heart to His Ultimate Truth, Aamin!