Renewal

Fifi and Fafa stayed over last night after watching the evening version of the show. They deemed it a hit, with Fafa declaring that our Storyteller, Kristen, is now her idol. We popped out to Arab Street for lunch and got drawn into Wardah Books, basically because Fafa wanted to look at what they have for kids - which is always quite interesting, though a bit limited in range.

Being in one of my favourite bookshops broke my resistance to buying new items before finishing my current to read and to listen lists, but I felt this might be justified on the grounds of stocking up for some specifically Islamic reading in Ramadhan. Fortunately despite huge temptations I limited the book-buying to a volume on Islamic philosophy and a tasty little Collected Poems by Martin Lings. I was a bit more of a casualty on the CD front, despite the fact that they stock a very limited range, as I came out with no fewer than three. Two of these are by a local singer, Art Fazil, since both Noi and me are fans and you don't get to see a lot of his stuff around. The other is from Yusof Islam, but not the most recent album which I'm keen to get but just haven't seen in a shop here anywhere. This one is a collection of Islamic-themed songs, Footsteps in the Light, on his Mountain of Light label, and looks very tasty indeed.

We're keenly preparing for fasting month, the usual sense of excited, and slightly anxious anticipation distinctly beginning its descent. The psychology of fasting, or rather that behind the notion of a month set aside for that purpose, and pilgrimage fascinates me. These two pillars of the faith are astutely grounded in something that seems to me fundamental to the needs of our species. The fact that modernity would eschew both as being somehow hopelessly backward and burdensome results in an enormous lack, an emptiness, a vacancy in human experience that is both sad and troubling. Yet there's little or no sense of what has been carelessly lost.