Today is the Friday before the last day of Ramadan which ends at sunset tomorrow. Up until she arrived into India, Ayşe had been fasting. I think she had hoped to continue while she was in India but that was just not practical especially considering that on her first day here she spent a good part of the day in a cooking class. But it was close enough to the end of Ramadan that she felt okay not continuing with the fasting.
Saeed is Muslim and today is a big prayer day. He will be at the mosque when we break for lunch. In the meantime, he took us to visit Jama Masjid in Agra, which is one of the largest mosques in India.
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| Ayşe came prepared for her visit to the mosque. |
So....one of the largest mosques in all of India. Hmmm....didn't look like that today. We took our shoes off at the entrance.
The mosque's courtyard was covered with sheets of plastic tarp, held up by what looked like the trunks of tree saplings that had been stripped of their branches and bark. The ground was covered with plastic carpet runners. We have a phrase in Cantonese that perfectly describes the sight I saw. As best I can translate it into English, it would be a messy hodgepodge. I'm guessing the tarps and carpets were set up to provide shade to the hundreds of men that they are expecting will arrive for noontime prayer. I'm sure the courtyard will be filled, shoulder to shoulder, with devotees.
With all the messiness, it was hard to actually see the mosque in its entirety. Here's a photo I found on Wikipedia.
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| Jama Masjid in Agra. (Photo by Superka. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.) |
Here's what I saw walking around. I even managed to take a few people photos.
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| Her headscarf from the gurdwara has quickly become her all purpose headscarf! |
There wasn't a whole lot to see here so it was a short visit to Jama Masjid. On to our next destination - Agra Fort!
