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Believers flock to mosques for Night of Power
Believers spent the night praying and supplicating to God to be pardoned for their past mistakes and sins. Known as Laylat al-Qadr in Arabic, the Night of Power is traditionally accepted as the night between the 26th and 27th days of Ramadan.
It is believed that this night is when the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. It is, therefore, the most sacred night of the entire year.
Muslims believe that one should take special care to direct supplications to God on that night, as it is also the night when the fate of the next year is decided. The Quran states that the night is "better than a thousand months."
İstanbul residents -- men, women, children, the young and the old -- flocked especially to big and historic mosques in the city to pray the terawih (an extra night prayer specific to Ramadan) and then listen to sermons and Quran recitations by imams in congregation. As most of the mosques, including the grand mosques built by sultans, could not house all the believers, people prayed in the courtyards outside the mosques. The sermons were listened to attentively by the people. In all of the sermons, a great emphasis was placed upon the importance of strengthening the feeling of brotherhood in Ramadan by sharing more when compared to the rest of the year.
The historic fountains in the garden of the Sultanahmet Mosque flowed with sherbet made of rose water for the visitors throughout the night. Fatih Mayor Mustafa Demir said the fountains of the mosque have traditionally flowed with sherbet on blessed nights. “We fill the pools of the fountains with sherbet instead of water. We have offered around 1,000 liters of sherbet to our visitors tonight,” he noted.
Many visitors from other Turkish cities also flocked to famous İstanbul mosques for the Night of Power. Adile Şen, who traveled to İstanbul from the southern province of Isparta to visit the Eyüp Sultan Mosque, said she was impressed to see the emotional zeal in the mosque. “This is the first time I have visited Eyüp Sultan. I am very impressed. I prayed for Abu Ayyub al-Ansari [a close companion of the Prophet Muhammad whose tomb is in the garden of the mosque],” Şen remarked.
Nurdan Gök, another visitor of the mosque, said she prayed for all Muslims. “May God protect our country and nation. May God guide all the youth to mosques. I am so happy to see young people in mosques,” she noted.
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