Eid Mubarak!

Yes, it is late but Syawal month hasn’t end yet. The Holy Ramadhan month had passed. I am satisfied with what I did during the Ramadhan. Anyway, I experienced something unusual last Ramadhan when I did i’tikaf.

I’tikaf means staying in a mosque. It doesn’t have to be at night but because of the chasing of Lailatul Qadr night and the best time to be close to Allah is at night, people usually do i’tikaf at night. Last Ramadhan I did i’tikaf once. It was fun and nice. What I notice when I first came was that most of the people there was old.

I think it is quite common that those who are diligent to pray, coming to worship places, and religious are old people. What I am amaze of is their spirit. They are so excited to pray. Really… Praying in Ramadhan needs a lot of energy, not to mention the staying in the mosque all day long part. It can be really tiring. However, they looked so happy. I was kind of embarrassed.

During the night, we did Qiyamullail. We prayed at the end of the night, at about 3.00 am. People were tired and sleepy. We were half awake. Guess what, the old people, the grandmas are all wide awake and psyched to pray. Wow! Then I heard a grandma said something. Something beautiful that made me realize that praying is not what you have to do but something that you like to do, that energize you, that makes you happy. She said, come on wake up. Let’s visit the garden of heaven.

Praying is not a burden, not something that will make you tired, not something that you can choose not to do it. Praying is visiting the garden of heaven. It will make you calm, it will clear your head, it will do nice things to you. Maybe, just maybe when young people realize that as the old people do, then there are more and more young people who are diligent to pray.