Millions begin Aitkaf

LAHORE
Millions of believers started observing Aitkaf Wednesday before Maghrib prayers in thousands of mosques in the city.
Aitkaf is observed by worshipping after confining oneself into a small place inside the mosque or in the house (for women) throughout the last 10 days of Ramazan and devoted oneself for a multitude of worships to earn the blessings of Almighty Allah.
Aitkaf has been the regular practice (Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and carries a multitude of blessings of The Almighty which are enviable for their cherished reward in the hereafter and deliverance from all sins in this world.
Aitkaf this year carries more urgency since the entire Ummah particularly Pakistanis are gripped by a number of crises like energy shortage, drought, inflation, and massacres of innocent Muslims in different parts of the world etc. While the US-led Nato forces are killing Muslims in Afghanistan, Washington’s protégé, Israel, is mercilessly annihilating unarmed Palestinians in Gaza and Myanmar Buddhists have been massacring the Muslim minority with equal hate and mercilessness. Muslim blood is callously shed elsewhere in the world including Egypt, Iraq, Kashmir, Myanmar, Sudan etc. These hardships are considered as Almighty’s retribution, for which penitence and deliverance is needed more than ever.
Believers will end Aitkaf and come out of their small sanctuaries after the sighting of the Eidul Fitr moon.
Normally the mosques invite requests from the worshippers and the committee allocate the places to them for which special arrangements are made inside the mosques by apportioning small cubicles made by hanging cloth sheets.
The worshippers observing Aitkaf spend their time reading Holy Quran, Nawafil and praying Almighty for showering His blessings on human beings in general and the Muslims in particular.