(Fort Worth Report) — In the early morning hours of March 7, the sky above the Dar El-Quran mosque was pitch black. Most of North Texas was asleep.
But in a grassy field behind the building, a few dozen students from the University of Texas at Arlington gathered under the gleam of floodlights. Young men in the group sat together on the ground, singing a floating melody in Arabic — a nasheed, or Muslim worship hymn.
It was not long past midnight, and the students were just over halfway through their vigil.
They were pulling an all-nighter, not to cram for a college exam but to observe Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month. The practice of praying between the obligatory sunset and sunrise prayers is referred to as Qiyam al-Layl — Arabic for “standing in the night.”
“I feel very connected to Allah when I’m with a community of people who are focused on ibadah, or worship,” nursing student Zahara Mohamedou said.
The qiyam was her first. Although she enjoys the community of a mosque, she lives too far from one to go often, she said.
Coming together to pray and reflect was the purpose of the event organized by UTA’s Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine as they gathered from sunset to sunrise to pray, eat, socialize, discuss their faith …