Doshing Out Food

So how many Muslims can claim to have actually fed a homeless person this Ramadan? Well at least 70 or so can, that number being the (conservative) estimate for the turn out at today's flash mob.

It turns out that I was right about some things and wrong about others. First up there was no struggle for ownership or control - quite the opposite in fact, as many of us wandered around aimlessly at first waiting for someone to actually tell us what to do.

It turned out that it wasn't that difficult a job to take part though; since we were already in an established "food doshing out point" (a technical term) there were many people willing to rid us of all our wares (a bit too willing perhaps, as some struggled to feed themselves as the sun went down. Or maybe that was just me). Some enterprising (and okay, I'll admit it, brave) hijabi socialites actually started conversing with those they were feeding.

Maghrib was offered at one of the many university prayer rooms nearby after which I rushed off to make it home for Tarawih prayer so it wasn't even obtrusive to my normal routine. It had even stopped raining for the whole session. Unfortunately we weren't as good at clearing up as we were feeding people but I'll put that down to the excitement and poor light than our lack of care.

All in all we were there for a good 45 minutes; hardly flash, sure, but totally mob... but when you can claim to have actually fed someone who needed it, before even breaking your own 14 hour fast, who really cares about the semantics anyway?

For those of you who missed it, there's talk about one being held at the same time and same place next Tuesday. Of course it won't be as cutting edge and... punk as the one today, but if what you've read sounds at all appealing then you could do worse than turning up yourself and seeing how it goes.