RAMADAN DAY 5: HOTEL-SJID? Travelling in Ramadan is interesting. You get to see how different people

RAMADAN DAY 5: HOTEL-SJID? Travelling in Ramadan is interesting. You get to see how different people celebrate the month in different places. Last night I travelled almost 500km by car. Since I started the journey pretty late in the evening, I had to break my fast at an R&R (rest area) by the highway. I decided to jama’ takhir my Maghrib prayer and so I continued the rest of the journey right afterwards. Alhamdulillah I managed to reach the hotel I was staying in, De Palma Hotel, Ampang, just in time for Isha’ prayers so I knew I’d be able to attend Tarawih in jemaah that night. At the hotel, a man explained that the hotel’s musolla offers Tarawih prayers in Ramadan. They also do solat jumaat (jummah prayers) there every week. Normally a hotel’s musolla, just like their toilets, are limited to hotel guests only. However De Palma opens it’s musolla to public so anyone working or residing in that area are free to come and pray anytime. So I checked in and went up to my room to get ready. Unlike most hotels I’ve been to, this one, despite not being a 5 star hotel, provides their muslim guests with prayer garments, a prayer time sheet & a quran. Ok maybe for a hotel to prepare a quran is pretty normal, but kain telekung? Wow, hats off. The Melayu in me was also overjoyed to see that they had kain batik and kain pelikat equipped in the room as well, although I’m most likely not going to make use of them, but still it was kinda cute. They also provided raisins and dates (not sure whether this is solely for ramadan but oh well). Anyway, although i brought my own telekung, i wore theirs instead, performed my Maghrib & Isha’ prayers and went down to attend tarawih at the musolla. The musolla was located at the third floor in front of the swimming pool. As soon as I reached the musolla the first thing that came to mind was “wow that’s a lot of people”. I was amazed. Some even had to spread their prayer mats by the pool outside the musolla just so they can follow the imam. I was impressed by how all of these people were gathered for the same purpose, to worship Allah. Lillahitaala. I was also taken aback by the number of different races that came to pray. It felt as if I was in another country. Anyway, I then made my way to the Muslimah section. Thankfully that part of the musolla was not as packed. It was air-conditioned and nicely carpeted. At the back they had shelves of quran and islamic books. There were also waqaf-ed sejadah & praying garments and at another corner, the hotel also supplied chairs for the disabled. The musolla was very clean and tidy too- i’m not quite surprised, it’s a hotel. So I got into saf, then followed the rest of the jemaah. The imam’s recitation was mashaAllah, lovely. In fact I wouldn’t mind listening to him all day. This musolla offers 20 rakaats of tarawih by the way, and since the place was very condusive, I decided to stay til the end. When I finished, I discovered that they also prepare food (moreh) for the jemaah outside the musolla. The imam would sit and eat with the jemaah as well. What a beautiful sight! But since I was tired from the journey, I thought I’d just go straight up to my room (read: lazy to queue). In short, for my first hotel-sjid experience, the musolla was great. As I said earlier, it’s open to public so feel free to go if you also want to know how it feels like. Pretty dope! On a side note, I had sahur at that very hotel the next day. Only had to pay a few bucks but the food was uh-ma-zing! Congratulations De Palma Hotel Ampang for valuing your muslim guests and honoring the month of ramadan. I’m super impressed by the example you’re setting. I pray that Allah will repay you and continue to bless everyone who has been a part of all your brilliant efforts. Say aamiin everyone!May peace be upon you x P/s: In my attempt to be istiqomah (consistent) blogging in ramadan & since I’m travelling, I emptied some storage on my phone just to download the Tumblr app so I was able to post this. P/s/s: Also would like to wish my sister Atiqah a happy birthday! Don’t have a birthday cake so you may blow this scented candle of mine instead, got it GIF-ed specially for you -- source link

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