We held Maryam’s aqiqah yesterday afternoon (29^th September 2012) in my hometown in Kemasik, Terengganu; with Maryam at the age of exactly 4 months and one week. It was actually a co-event with my baby sister’s engagement, so we kinda tumpang her dais and just added a self-decorated swing for Maryam to perch on.

We drove back to Kemasik in the morning of the 28^th to find my sisters and my cousin’s daughter Aqilah busy preparing stuff for my sister’s dais. No fake flowers, all fresh ones and the house was filled with the sweet smell of the roses and the other I-don’t-know-what-the-name-of-this-flower-is, if they had scent.

At 5pm Cikgu Sofian, my mother’s trusted person who was responsible in finding the goat and the group to slaughter and prepare the meat for aqiqah came to pick us up at our home. We followed his car to Kampung Semayor where we waited for about more than an hour before the goat finally arrived and got slaughtered. It was quite a tall goat with black fur on its face, neck and the part close to its nails. Other parts were covered with white fur which is pretty a heck of such an animal overall.  As it was already too close to Maghrib my husband sent me and Maryam home while he returned to that place after offering the prayer to do the cutting and deboning of the mutton together with the others.

My husband got home with roughly 18kg of mutton at around 10.30pm and he subsequently went to Kak Tim’s house with my mum to send the meat and get them cooked for tomorrow’s feast.

I went to bed quite late at 1.30am as I had to finish decorating Maryam’s swing and making Maryam’s event board for tomorrow. It was markedly easier to get them done when my husband is around as he can help with looking after Maryam and taking Maryam to bed as I think Maryam is probably beginning to recognize people so she wouldn’t feel too happy being carried by an unfamiliar person that she easily cries.

I was quite overwhelmed seeing how beautiful my sister’s nicely pre-ordered printed event board that I nearly gave up making one for Maryam’s aqiqah, what more at such a late hour. However with Allah’s permission I went on making one for the sake of I wanted people to note the name of the baby for aqiqah whom they were going to make prayers for, complete with the full name and correct spelling. Who would have expected the next morning my husband asked me who did the board for Maryam, he thinks it’s nice. And my sister and Aqilah were telling me the same too. So that made me a happy mommy, alhamdulillah :).

The engagement ceremony began at 11am sharp and didn’t take too long to finish. The itinerary included the arrival of the crowd plus the exchange of the gifts, introduction of both parties’ family members, the future MIL putting on the engagement ring onto the future bride’s finger, photo-taking session and last but not least, a simple feast for the guests. It was the same food as for the aqiqah in the afternoon, very yummy gulai kambing, ayam serai, sayur campur with prawn, pajeri nenas and white rice. For desserts we served kuih cara berlauk, kuih talam keladi and talam ubi (what I think that was) and agar-agar pelangi that we brought from Kota Bharu given by my MIL.

The rain and thunders appeared unexpectedly at noon and started to cease off as the afternoon went on. The marhaban group and a few guests totaled about 37 people. They began at 3pm with the recitation of Yaseen untuk disedekahkan for those who had passed away, followed by Maryam’s aqiqah. As she already got her hair cut we decided not to get that done again, thus in place of that we presented one bowl filled with water and one bowl filled with talc for those reciting selawat to rub on Maryam’s face or head, just for completeness sake. More importantly I am so thankful that we managed to avoid doing those khurafat practices embedded in our tradition, in fact we invented our new way of doing it!

Overall we are so happy that Maryam’s aqiqah is done and dusted, I pray that this sunat practice gains pahala and keberkatan from Allah s.w.t. Also thanks to all who helped and thanks for the very pretty dais made by my sister from scratch! She is gifted isn’t she?

Alhamdulillah.