Celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Aceh : A sudden unexpected trip...

Peace be upon you all. At the end of January me and wife brought our then 3-month old baby Al-Rasyid to Aceh. So I thought one of these days I'll start a series on it in this blogspot. As it turned out we went to Aceh again in February, albeit unexpectedly. So after deliberating some time on the matter, I decided to present a series on the later trip instead, leaving the story for the January visit to be told at another time. Come... :]

The February trip was started on Wednesday 24th February. Coming along were our friends Puan Suzana and husband Haji Muzaffar who are both prolific writers in subjects considering Malay rulers and the Ahlul Bait, family of Prophet Muhammad SAW. Refer to this previous article... My 5th book is out! Ahlul Bait (Family) of Rasulullah SAW and the Malay Sultanates... .

We went for this Aceh trip on the invitation of our friend Kak Ann (the lady in orange, not the one on far right though...). She wanted us to attend the Prophet's birthday celebration to be held an at a mosque she just built in Perlak, an area in the eastern parts of Aceh...

The function itself would be held on Friday which is the 12th day of the Muslim month of Rabiulawal, noted by many historians as the date Prophet Muhammad SAW was born on. As Perlak is some 8 hours by road from Banda Aceh where lies the only international airport in Aceh, obviously we must arrive in that province before then.

There are only 4 flights to Aceh from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, one each on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. We just received our invitation late on Monday. Thankfully by Tuesday we got all our flight details sorted out for the flight on Wednesday...



So there we were on our way to Aceh. Never would I thought that I would go again to this personally very meaningful province. At least not so soon after making the previous trip end of January...




Actually there's some 20 of us coming on the same flight from Malaysia for the same function...

Most of them are Kak Ann's relatives. Me and wife were among the few friends while Puan Suzana and Haji Mustafa are our friends only recently introduced to Kak Ann. So there...