Experiencing Friday after 4 months in actual sense

Vintage building, Cross cultural communication, enriched ethnicity, more opportunities at one place. I had been experiencing all this since I left my home country to get a taste of Erasmus program. Calling it an exciting journey would definitely be an understatement and why wouldn’t it be, you tend me learn so much, evolve exponentially and learn if you still have a learner inside you.

For me, Erasmus program gave me all this, and within past 5 months it made me travel to 2 countries and 3 cities. Its a euphoric feeling to be selected in one of the most prestigious programs of europe and it makes you humble. It was the Same experience was me and I was networking, made great friends both in and outside my program in Greece and France. But there was something missing. of-course you miss home and miss family and realise its importance even more esp when you are away. But I am not talking about any of this. I am talking about a feeling that really made me feel hollow in bits. As time passed I became more and more aware of its existence as it was intensifying with each seconds passed. I could not get a good hold of what exactly it is, until i came here in Paris.

I came here on Saturday, and was so loaded with my professional commitments that I had no chance of browsing paris for one week, except for 3 times when I went out for groceries. My Residence in Paris is 1 minute walk to Luxembourg Gardens, where my department is located as well. You crack jokes, but still feel sad, you laugh but have the emotions losing simultaneously and your brain suddenly becomes a gigantic ball of sun exploding gazillions of fusion reactions in less than 1 second. This was my feeling since past two days and made me really sick, until today when I had an immense need to listen to Adhan and immediately my nervous system recognised it and tagged it as the reason for my hollowness.

It was then, when I actually realised in true sense that I had not heard Adhaan, which I used to take for granted in my home country (Pakistan). Often times, it happens that you get used to something so much in your life, that you forget how much existential it can be for you. The next moment, I ran to youtube to listen to Adhan given in Kabatullah. I had a video of me sitting in front of Baitullah the moment I reached for umrah, and for this particular reason, this is so special for me. So the moment i turned it on, the emotional blockage which made me feel empty inside vanished and the next moment I found myself in tears and i could not realise how much desperate i was to hear it. Its really made me realise about a sad reality of taking our homeland for granted when it comes to the liberty of practising the our religion unless we come in a foreign country.

The next thing, as you have guessed is the search for the mosque in the vicinity and run for jumma prayer as i could not find any mosque in Patra, or in Athens (Greece) to offer Jumma.
Even when you are not a practising muslim, sometimes you do sth unconsciously that is loved by the creator so much that he blesses you and what great blessing there is besides his PROXIMITY. That feeling was so euphoric, that I ran to Mosque to offer Jumma which i couldn’t pray for past 4 months and used to pray Dhur instead. The grand mosque of Paris was miraculously opened despite COVID situation and I kept thanking ALLAH, for blessing me with opportunity to bow before him in congregation once again, not by words but by tears running down my cheeks.

This is surely a day worth remembering, for a couple of reasons. One: you are blessed even if you are able to hear Adhan on a loud speaker, Two: you are blessed if you have no fear of practising your religion in the area where you live in. I salute every single drop of blood shed for the creation of Pakistan, and salute to the efforts of every single person who fought under the leadership of the great Quaid for founding Pakistan, and above all every neck must bow before Allah for giving us a spiritual realm to practise his commandments in our own humble way. So everyone who has the luxery of doing this, I can say with all my heart, you definitely are the lucky one and lets always remember.

“To Him, we belong and to Him we will Return”