Thursday 9 October 2014

Eid day 2: Sama'il

The first day of Eid I was alone, but the second day I went out to Sama'il with some friends who have relatives there.  It was fixing to rain, which I haven't seen in nearly a year.  Probably since the last time I was in Sama'il.  It doesn't rain much in Muscat.

It's not all as bleak as these pictures, since it rains a lot.  It's just that the green irrigated areas are off in the distance in another direction and these shots are of a dry river bed, which doesn't get the chance to grow much.






We had a nice time visiting, I explained why I wasn't praying traveller's prayers.  Ibadhis pray them when 18 km from home, but Shafi'is have to be 80 km from home.  People here think I should just adopt the Ibadhi ruling or become Ibadhi to take advantage of the ruling, but I like the Imam ash-Shafi'i too much and so I stay. (I just don't want to switch madhhabs and suddenly have no idea what any of the rules are).  We ate too much halwa and drank a lot of qahwa.  Being over-caffeinated and high on sugar is an Eid tradition.

I'm told that Oman's oldest masjid is in Sama'il, but I've never seen it.  My friend's family don't seem to know which one I mean, but they say that there's an old masjid near their daughter's house, so maybe that's the one.

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