Syrian Kurdish Mosque reciting salawat pre-Friday prayers in Gothenburg. It’s in a makeshift room which is difficult to access but they’re content with what they’ve been given.
I saw this salawat routine in Tareem (who also did it the night prior) and a few other places. I suspect this was a common practice in many Muslim communities but have been lost, and become alien to some.
The imam who is reciting here while the congregation comes in gradually, is the neighbour of the host I’m staying with.
The host is actually out of town but he came to the train station no less to pick us family up. Now he’s hosting us for lunch.
He mentioned there’s nothing that brought me to you that brotherhood, for the sake of Allah. Nothing.
He was a refugee that moved from town to town in Syria avoiding the conflict, until ISIS came and intensify the fighting with even more killing and destruction.
Eventually after sometime in Turkey, he left illegally with his family, on foot, bus, and water in a plastic dinghy boat.
At least that’s what I think he meant although he said it was on something quite unseaworthy so it may not have even been a boat of any sense since he kept saying plastic.
He’s been in Gothenburg now in a settlement program for four years now and life is decent it seems.
But he wants nothing more than to be back home.
