Night 15- "Potter Masjid"

I thought I could get away with attending 2 different mosques on the complete opposite side of town from me in one night,  one for Maghrib and Iftar, and another for Isha and Tarawih. I didn't get a good scope of the Islamic Community Center in Des Plaines, IL (more commonly known as Potter Masjid) by just attending maghrib salah there, so I decided to go again tonight for tarawih as well.

ICC Des Plaines

Last week my friend and I arrived here about 20 minutes before the Maghrib adhan which gave us some time to get some Quran reading in or personal prayers. He decided to get some reading done, but I noticed 2 separate groups having a dars or halaqa and decided to listen in on one of them. The group I sat closer to was composed of  an elderly man reading passages from an Urdu book called Faza'il-e-A'maal. This book contains several stories and hadith of the Prophet Muhammad Salalla alaihi wasallam,  and stories from the Family and Sahaba radhiata'ala anhum. It's a great book and I need to get my hands on an English translation of it. For some reason hearing stories and narrated hadith in Urdu seem to have a stronger effect on me versus English. The point comes across... I don't know... 'more strong,' for a lack of better words. They do this every night for a half hour before Maghrib time. 

A man approached the microphone and announced"Iftar ka waqt ho chuka hai, aap apna roza kholdiyejega," (It's now time for iftar, you may now break your fast). My friend and I have this long-time bad habit of looking at each other and letting out an ignorant chuckle/laugh when we come across things that aren't 'normal' to us. In all of the mosques I've been to, the adhan is the indicator that it's time to break our fast- not someone announcing it in Urdu. But forget all that, it's time to concentrate on these juicy, succulent medjool dates screaming EAT ME!

I find myself here a week later for tarawih. The Imam took his sweet time in leading prayers. This had been the longest thus far for tarawih. It was great that he took the time to correctly pronounce everything though. Actually, his tone kind of even sounded like Shaikh Shuraim of Makkah which was pretty cool. The men's prayer hall is oddly divided into 3 parts by glass walls and doors, but I guess this would work out in such cases when a dars is in session in one section, while others would like it quite for their prayers in the main hall.