Jamaican Muslims held their annual educational retreat from December 24th to December 27th. The retreat was held at The Masjid on 24 Camp Road, Kingston.

The theme of the retreat was ‘Preparing for the hereafter’. The  sessions covered a variety of topics such as  “Prepare yourself, prepare your family”, “The importance of planning in the Muslim life”, “Investing in an everlasting abode”, “The final exam (three questions in the grave)”, “the clock is ticking” , “Your body and how you use it” and “Importance of Ibaadah [worship] in Islam”.  Participants also experienced the late night prayer (tahajjud), the early morning prayer (fajr) and studied the proper recitation of the Quran.  There was also organized exercises and sporting activities.

Retreat sponsor the Islamic Council of Jamaica invited Shaykh Safraz Bacchus, the Education Director of the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG) to make presentations.  Shaykh Safraz is a graduate of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt (Islam’s oldest university).  Shaykh Safraz took the opportunity to share with his Jamaican counter parts a presentation on “Islam in Guyana – A case study”.

Other teachers at the retreat included Sheikh Musa Tijani, Sheikh Shaheed Muhammad, Taariq Abdul-Majeed, Dr. Sulaiman Tijani and  Mustafa Muhammad.

Sixty five Jamaican Muslims representing all age groups and both genders attended the Retreat.  The sentiments of the participants were that they are enlightened by the sessions and hope to have such events on a more frequent basis.