on sweet and simple..roasted lamb??

Last week we had an aqiqah at MeWah (malay shortform for Muslim Welfare House), which is the neighbourhood mosque that we usually pray in.

Aqiqah - sacrifice of an animal on a child's birth

Of course, the lamb was already sacrificed and finger lickin' good.

people serving the food

the aqiqah meal: huge chunks of lamb. in the background is a mysterious square-faced man, identity  protected for fear of mobbing

Okay, minus the delicious fruit salad, nasi minyak, herbs and lamb cooked to tender perfection, i actually want to talk about how economical and efficient the whole gathering was.

Eventhough there are a lot of big mosques, mosques that look like umbrellas, mosques that have too many domes and mosques that are divided into green or blue, i still love Mewah the most, because it serves the community well and the mosque is actually full once a day during Maghrib. Once they held a family day there, and there's an adjoining school, and next to the mosque is a small bookshop. Now i hear they want to install signal jammers so mobile phones don't keep ringing. Cool.

Back to the aqiqah. Right after asr prayers a man asked us to go to the hall upstairs for some food. The malaysian ear is finely tuned to such things (rezeki jangan ditolak, bala jangan dicari!), so we went. There was food and apple juice and orange juice, and when our plates looked empty a man even offered to add some more lamb. :-D munch munch munch munch, the whole event was over in just over 30 minutes, and the place was all cleared up.

That's right, 30 minutes. no need for tents, marhaban troupes or kompang. sweet and simple.

i like this mode of doing things, as it gets things done quickly and you don't take too much of other people's time. And everything is inexcessive. I think this is closer to what Islam teaches, and moderation is becoming harder to find in a modern, 'islamic' country like malaysia truly asia.

Oh, in our euphoria at finding free food, we even neglected to ask whose aqiqah it was.

sangat melayu. -.-