A New Year’s celebration:
prayer, charity and good-will to all By: Zafir Malik
originally published in the review of religions - january 2020
Dawn broke today over the picturesque Mubarak Mosque in Surrey as nearly 1500 hundred men, women and children prepared to go home after performing the tahajjud– pre-dawn voluntary prayers and the fajr prayers . This was not an isolated event – indeed throughout the world thousands of Muslims woke up to start the New Year offering prayers in their local mosques or own homes. Muslims are not alone in beginning the New Year with prayers, as do many other religious groups . But while other religions may make a point of marking such occasions, for a Muslim, this is just another day. Indeed, some may choose to celebrate by spending New Year’s eve drinking and making merry. However, the Qur’an instructs that the life of a Muslim has two objectives: to fulfil the rights of God, and to fulfil the rights of mankind. So, at every occasion including New Year’s Day, Ahmadi Muslims will seek the opportunity to fulfil their duties in both. That is why, before 5am on New Year’s morning, worshippers, men women and children, descended on Islamabad, Tilford in the Surrey countryside to offer voluntary prayers.
As for the second command, hundreds of Ahmadi youth across the UK and in other countries, will today head to their local town centres and carry out the famous “New Year’s Clean Up” by voluntarily helping clean up streets across the country. This way they will ensure that they begin the year by fulfilling these two vital tenets of their faith Where do these youths get their inspiration from? Humans are impressionable and often look to other people or other things for inspiration. For Ahmadi youths, there is one person who lives and breathes these two commandments every moment of his life. He is the Caliph – Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad (May Allah be his Helper)– Spiritual Guide to Millions of Ahmadi Muslims across the world. His guidance on New Year celebrations, is that this is a time to self -reflect on what was one’s spiritual growth in the last year. The year must begin with a new resolve for spiritual growth and the best way to begin a year is to bow in prostration to our God. This instruction is beautifully illustrated by an incident reported by the fourth Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Community, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, prior to becoming Caliph.
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