Provided by Yasin from the Hakkani blog

Alhamdulillah, a couple of us attended a Thanksgiving night at the Church of Latter-Day Saints of Jesus Christ, also known as Mormons. We read the last section of Sura Yasin and translated it for them. In addition, our musicians played an Osmanli Nakshibendi song for the audience, who said the event was their first and one they cannot forget. Representatives of other houses of worship read from their scriptures and sang a few hymns too.

Other pictures available on his blog.

Tonight the family is travelling to the dergah upstate in recognition of these days which contain LaylatulQadr, The Night of Power.

It promises to be a beautiful day

Some excellent (in my humble opinion) audio clips of the event:

091706-PrayerVigil-ShaykhAbdulKerim-JoiningSunday.mp3
- Shaykh Effendi Abdul Kerim arrives after our detaining and speaks about it

091706-PrayerVigil-ShaykhAbdulKerim-Closing.mp3
- Shaykh Effendi Abdul Kerim’s Closing remarks (MashaAllah must listen) after our final dhikr on Sunday

 

 Shaykh Effendi Abdul Kerim's Intro before Dhikr [5:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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On the second day, Sunday, we were to arrive at approximately 7 to 7:30 to share the Azaan with the folks participating at the event.

I parked the car and began preparing my few things to bring across the street to the event. Half of us crossed and the other half returned back to grab some additional things from the cars.

Instantly, there were four police cars stopping those on the far side and three cars stopping us on our side from proceeding to the event was not very far away at all.

These were the Secret Service police on our side.

These were the Secret Service police on the other side.

They wanted all of our information, social security numbers, drivers licenses, names, etc. We had to wait for ‘The Suits’ to arrive :), and when they did they simply took more of our time with unneeded questioning. I must say this, if the Secret Service is wasting time with the Naksibendi order, it should make everyone feel a lot less safer.

While we waited we took some pictures. They didn’t want pictures taken, but they –unfortunately– got into the background while we took pictures of other things.

Bilaal and I

Yaseen and Bilal

The Patient Mureeds

They detained us for some time when finally we were allowed to attend the event.

Luqman Khwaja gave a good speech in response to this occurance and responding to the Jewish Rabbi who spoke as well.

Then the others in the event did some type of song which we provided some Tauheed to (it was probably in need of it). Mustafa enjoyed it and called out to do it again!

Shaykh arrived after that and gave a very good sohbet about peace, terrorism, and the war-mongers.

After that we had some adventures with a Christian fundamentalist who was causing some problems for the event coordinators. We invited him to eat, gave some Dawah and wrapped up.

What a trip! I will have some good audio up shortly InshaAllah. I have to internalize this trip a bit and then I will post part 3.

This is a simple recap with some pictures of the event. The event itself was the “Prayer Vigil for the Earth”. Shaykh Effendi was invited to share our Zikr with people of all different faiths.

After staying the Friday Dhikr in New York City, Shaykh and the mureeds stay overnight until Fajr before they head back upstate. This was a special day as some mureeds who rarely leave upstate were given an opportunity to travel with Shaykh down to Washington D.C. We headed out to Washington D.C. after Fajr. I left seperately in order to take my wife and gather some things.

I bought a new microphone stand, something I sorely needed, before leaving. It was intended to help with recordings in the future, whereas right now I usually put the microphone on the ground and I was keen on using it during this weekend.

My arrival in Washington D.C. was right on time. I knew this event had many Native American participants and sponsors, so the large Teepee’s along the Washington Monument park made clear where I needed to go. Alhamdulillah we found excellent parking both times.

Shaykh Effendi had just arrived as well and I began working on setting up.

Although, SubhanAllah only later did I discover that although I did have a nice shiny new stand, I was missing a key cable which prevented me from using the external microphone.

In the end the stand had a very good use, alhamdulillah, to hold the flag with the Osmanli Naksibendi symbol.

Here Bilaal and I figure out some way to hang the flag on it:

Later the flag caught air and began spinning, MashaAllah a whirling dervish of its own kind

Shaykh gave a short talk before Zikr, explaining it in very good ways that made it clear to those of different faiths watching.

Here is a picture of me with the monument.

Shaykh Effendi, Luqman Khwaja and myself

After Saturday night we went to stay as guests at a mureeds house. There Shaykh led Maghrib and gave a Sohobet, and we had dinner afterwards.

After that there was an amazing session of Illahyi’s (traditional Islamic music)

I’ll continue the strange events of Sunday in a seperate post.