Juventud Islámica Argentina

Yesterday, Saturday, I had a really exciting day. I'm very grateful because the contacts I'm making are so willing to take me to events, meetings, and the like so that I can observe and ask questions.

I went to a meeting last night of la Juventud Islamica Argentina. It is a sort of youth group, and it meets weekly on Saturday, plus they put on events and programs. Interestingly, they meet at the Colegio (secondary school) Omar ibn al Jattab, a school that is connected with a mosque and that has some 400 students, only 30% of whom are Muslim. There are two other such colegios in Buenos Aires, both associated with mosques.

The members of the youth group are between the ages of around 16-21. Most are the grandchildren of immigrants from the Arab/ex-Ottoman world. Some have Arabic names and others have Spanish names. When I went, the group had just gotten out of an Arabic language class, where they were going through the alphabet. They then prayed together and then had a class with a Sheikh from Egypt--he taught them about tayammum (the dry ritual cleansing). The class was largely in a question/answer format. The topics then went to the ghusl (ritual bathing) and what invalidates the wudu (state of ritual purity). It was a class that had a surprising level of fiqhi (legal/juristical) material and the students asked specific questions (e.g. Does touching a corpse break the wudu?) to which the Sheikh gave fiqhi answers. More than once, the Sheikh referred to Imam Malik, and none of the other founders of the classical schools of Islamic law.

The students then met to plan out future programs, including a food sale and a Islamic movie night. Afterwards, they invited me to stay for dinner. The group was very warm and welcoming. I am very grateful to continue to find people who are so willing to help me with my study.

On a lighter note, one of the things that I continue to find very novel is el beso, the custom of kissing a person on the cheek when saying hello or goodbye. It is done by nearly everyone here: women meeting women, women meeting men, and men meeting men. When I tell people that back in the US, we do not kiss but rather shake hands, even women greeting other women, they are very surprised.

One of the members of the group was kind enough to invite me to lunch tomorrow--I look forward to it!