#Mecca_Live on Snapchat- Showcasing Laylat Al-Qadr on Social Media

by Asad Yazdani

Snapchat – an already popular app – has been gaining a lot more attention and praise lately. An app that allows people to share pictures and videos of what you are currently doing with all your friends, Snapchat (in August of 2014) added a new feature called “Live” to their already existing “Our Story” feature.

With this feature, Snapchat users who are in a certain area or attending a certain event are able to submit their snaps to the event’s Live Snapchat Story, where many photos and videos are picked to be showcased to the rest of the world for a period of twenty-four hours after they are first put up.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsLh6i6kHIo[/youtube]

Snapchat is taking the world by storm by utilizing this feature across the globe, from LA to Japan, and more recently, from Makkah. Muslims from around the world have gathered to perform Umrah, the voluntary pilgrimage, during an incredibly sacred time in which it is believed that the Quran was revealed – the last ten days of Ramadan. This event, known as “Laylat Al-Qadr,” was broadcast during the Mecca Live Snapchat Story.

Naturally, this has many Muslims around the world and especially on social media very happy and excited:

A common theme being represented by the response is that of the beautiful unity of human beings from all walks of life that is being shown:

The Mecca Live Snapchat Story is also giving many Muslims a chance to educate people of other faiths about Islam:

Beyond just that response, however, many self-proclaimed non-Muslims are weighing in with their opinions also. And, given the recent state of representation of Muslims in the media, we seem to be getting an overall positive response:

Even politicians are weighing in on this Live Snapchat Story:

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Representing Texas’ 18th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives

We are seeing that technology – especially social media – is slowly finding its way into our daily lives. This Mecca Live Snapchat story is truly showing the world the true power of social media as not just a platform for people to share pictures of their lunch or videos of their cats, but rather to show the true nature of a group of people who have been maligned by bad press all over the world, who have had their religion hijacked by extremists– a nature that one does not find by simply going online and doing a search on Google.

May Allah bless those who worked hard to get this story in motion and may He invite us all to this holy city one day.

Ameen.

Asad Yazdani is an American Muslim of Pakistani descent. Currently studying Engineering in San Diego, he hopes to find a way to incorporate his studies into bettering the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims around the world one day, inshAllah.