Black and White- Reflections Ramadan 27

It wasn't until after the night of the 27th that I realised how absolutely beautiful the local clothing colours of black and white are. All the women wear black, and all the men wear white.

Black tends to be the colour of women's outdoor clothing (abayas and burqas) in all the countries of Middle East and Pakistan. Most other Islamic countries have other uniform colours for wearing outdoors. And Arab men, or the bedouins wear white full-sleeved one piece dresses, as everyone knows.

Non-Arab women also tend to wear the black abayas. I mostly stay away from them, although they are very beautiful. I like the Jordanian abayas better for their style and colour.

I cannot explain how beautiful it was. I wished at that point I had my camera. I wished I could have made a video.

As we walked towards the masjid, excitedly, my father pointed and said, "Humairah, just look at that!" In the gold courtyard of the Masjid, surrounded by open arched hallways,were men, all in white, sitting in tashahhud.

I walked into a congregation of women- all wearing black, standing in neat rows, conversing with Allah (swt) through their breaths.

Black and white, colours of unity. Perhaps, this is what is special about the Arabs. They all look very uniform. How simple are these two colours. Of course, there were the ocassional spots of other colours, but not enough to stand out. I never realised before how profound being the one and same can be.

The white colour overshone everything else. A glowing light not just from the whiteness of the clothes, but also from the faces of the worshippers.
The black on the other hand, was a vast veil, that we all were under, competing with the star-encrusted night sky for it's majesty, and for it's status before Allah (swt).

There was such a powerful sense of unity emanating from the congregations.

How I wished this unity reflected in everything else about us.