1st Musselburgh Scouts – Edinburgh Mosque Visit
The Scout Troop had a fantastic evening at the Edinburgh Mosque. Hosted by Amin, a very knowledgeable and friendly guide to the Mosque.
Everyone behaved brilliantly on the bus and throughout the mosque visit, learning about the five pillars of the Islamic faith; faith, prayer, concern for the needy, self-purification, and the pilgrimage to Makkah (Mecca). We also learned the importance of facing Mecca (Southeast from Edinburgh), when praying, some of the youngsters tried the prayer pose to see how it felt. One of the Scouts, Nix arrived, wearing a Hijab (the head-covering worn by Muslim women), out of respect for the Muslim faith. We discussed Ramadan when Muslims around the globe observe the holy of month of Ramadan, a period of spiritual reflection and fasting that takes place every year. There were some great questions from the youngsters, “what’s it like to not eat and drink all day”, “why was the carpet in the hall so soft”. We also learned how to greet someone is Islamic – “Assalamu alaikum”. meaning “May peace be upon you”. We ventured through the mosques learning hall, where the troop took the time to read some of the literature and banners throughout the mosque.
Sweety gifts had been kindly arranged by Amin and the Troop were extremely grateful to accept the gift.
Please look at some of the photos from our visit below and read on for more…
One of our parents mentioned that their son Holden enjoyed the visit as the family had a connection with a cousin staying in Dubai. Holdens mum had to wear an abaya dress to visit, they heard the call to prayer many times. Another parent said their son Edwin came in full of information and interesting facts.
The visit helped everyone start their World Faith badge and completed sections –
1). Visit a place of worship for a faith other than your own and find out the differences between this building and your own place of worship.
6). Find out how following the teachings of another faith affects an individual’s daily life. This could include food or dietary laws, rituals, prayers or religious observances.
The Troop are focused on achieving their Chief Scout Gold Award, with everyone making progress through the various stages, “Personal” and “Outdoors” being firm favourites so far.
Additionally, the Troop will be working toward their craft badge by constructing bird feeders from old pallets, this will count toward their Craft badge and also make a nice gift for someone at Christmas. We had also done some work in previous years on photography, we are finishing this off during the winter, making and editing videos, hopefully some of these will be posted on Facebook. After Christmas, we continue indoors and will be looking at the Communications badge using various mediums, flags, lights and self-built morse code machines. This is pretty interactive starting in Roman times and looking at runners as being the main lines of communication. Noisy, but fun….
Finally to keep the youngsters fully occupied until Christmas we also have two events planned for winter:- Nerf Battles, organised by one of our parents. The final event will be a Christmas party at Ryze.
Thank you to all the leaders for making this all happen for the young people of Musselburgh Scouts – you are all superstars.
South East Scotland Scouts
71 Bonaly Road
Edinburgh
EH13 0PB
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