On the 29th of February, a group of third years from Northfield Academy made a trip down to Edinburgh where they visited the Edinburgh University and the Edinburgh Mosque. Miss Dolan arranged for a Professor from the University named Tom Lea to do the first half of the presentation.. The professor explained to us that there is more to Islam than we had learned in our R.M.P.S class such as Muslims in Scotland do not have to wear the Niqab if they do not want to because it is not a Sharia Law. The Professor had organised for a Muslim woman, also a teacher Dr Khadijah Elshayyal to come and talk to us about her views on certain subjects including:
-Her practices
-Beliefs
-Views
My experience when I went to the Edinburgh Mosque was that it was really good and fun. We started off by leaving Aberdeen at 8 o’clock in the morning and started to head down to Edinburgh. It was a three hour journey and arrived there around 11 o’clock where the Professor was waiting for us outside the Business building where he gave us a lecture. We went into the lecture room where it went on for about 1 and half to 2 hours. After we had finished having our lecture we headed over to the mosque where we took off our shoes and entered the prayer room quietly where a prayer was about to start. Before it actually started the Professor asked us a couple of questions about the mosque such as, why was it built diagonally? The answer was so that when you pray you prayed pointing towards Mecca. We watched the prayer and after it had finished we headed to the curry kitchen where we would get our dinner. At the curry kitchen there was a selection of curries for us to choose from. After our dinner we headed back to the bus where we were getting ready to leave to go back to Aberdeen.
Furthermore, the trip to Edinburgh overall was educational, amazing and fun. All that I can say is if you’re going into S3 I strongly recommend that you go on the trip. It’s a good opportunity for you to experience and learn more about an interesting and misunderstood religion.
