Friday 08.08.08 China Olympic

Let the Games Beijing

It's Friday. I love Fridays.
Today, while monitoring the yo-yo market, we watched the most elaborate, most spectacular opening ceremony for an olympic games ever. The Chinese are determined to show the world that they are a new Superpower to be reckoned with. Simply superb show!

We even rushed back from our Friday prayer, apart from a quick take out visit to the Chicken Cottage at Old St. to be back at the office to continue watching the flamboyant show.

Friday. I was told once by somebody that we, the Muslims created Friday as our "holy" day to compete with the Jews whose holy day is Saturday, and the Christians, Sunday.

Basically, this Friday business came from the 62nd surah of the Al Quran (AQ), Al Jumu'ah which means Friday. The Friday prayer came from Ayat 9 of the same Surah as follows:

[62:9] O ye who believe! When the call is heard for the prayer of the day of congregation, haste unto remembrance of Allah and leave your trading. That is better for you if ye did but know. (Marmaduke Pickthall)

(Hai orang-orang beriman, apabila diseru untuk menunaikan shalat Jum'at, maka bersegeralah kamu kepada mengingat Allah dan tinggalkanlah jual beli. Yang demikian itu lebih baik bagimu jika kamu mengetahui. - Uthmani Version -)

This is true if "solawati min yawmil jumuati" means "the call is heard for the prayer on Friday". Note that Marmaduke Pickthall translated Jumuati as "the day of congregation".

Some critics says that the meaning of the word YAWM in the Quran can vary from one context to another but the main meaning or the essence of this word is in something that deals with time. It can mean when, then, during, day, period of time, time and etc. i.e. not necessarily "day". (YAWM is mentioned > 400 times in AQ)

Also, they say it is rather queer for Arabs to use Al Jumu'ah or Jumuati to refer to the day Friday. Since it is common for them to use numbers to indicate days i.e. day 1 means Sunday (wahid), day 2 - Monday (ithnani), and hence Friday is very commonly termed as Day 6, not Jumu'ah. Just like Bruneians (if I'm not mistaken) who refers to days as Hari Satu, Hari Dua ...

So, should "min yawmil jumuati" be taken as "in/during a time of congregation" as opposed to “on the day of congregation", the translation becomes:

“O you who believe, when the call is made for salat, in/during the time of congregation, haste unto remembrance of Allah and leave your trading. That is better for you if ye did but know.”

Hence, if the time of congregation refer to events like marriage, conferences, businesses, fairs etc, where does Friday prayer comes?

Anyway, that's what I read & study, purely from AQ of course. But to me the congregation on Fridays is such a superb way of conveying messages (needs to be contemporary of course) to the Muslim masses - either localised message or a uniformed message throughout the nation or even the world. It's like a mass e-mail message sent to all Muslim contacts.

That said, I like Fridays. And today, the Chinese just made my Friday.