The Reader

The joys of giving..

Most of us are happy to receive gifts from friends and loved ones. Personally, I feel happier if my gifts make the receivers happy.The smiles on the faces say it all. It makes my day today when I received a sms of thanks.

Ramadhan is a good month to offer gifts to neighbours,relatives and friends.It also fosters good silaturrahim among us.I still remember when I used to deliver a few dishes of 'lauk dan kueh berbuka' to my neighbours and relatives back in my kampung. However, this practice is fading away in urban environment. Most people are very busy when they come back from work,and many just buy from Ramadhan Bazaar all over the cities.

The hectic life in the cities and towns left us very little time to make foods and cakes for iftar.However, if we buy something for ourselves, we also can buy a little bit more and give them away to our neighbours, friends and relatives .

A small gesture can mean a lot to some people,especially if they are less fortunate than us.Not to mention the rewards from Allah swt,insyaAllah.Let's practise the arts of giving for our own sake.Honestly,it is good for our hearts..

Have a blessed weekend.

Mid-Ramadhan

Alhamdulilah,we are now in the middle of Ramadhan.May Allah swt accept all our fastings, prayers, sadakah, zikir etc as our sincere ibadah.InsyaAllah, all of us shall be richly rewarded.Half of this year's Ramadhan is gone by today. Again, it is good to check our TODO list to ensure that we tried harder to accomplish what we had planned earlier to improve the quantity and the quality of our ibadah/ubudiyyah.

Last night, I attended a Majlis Buka Puasa(Breaking of fast) at a friend's house.After magrib prayer, we had dinner. Then after isyak, we did our teraweh prayers followed by an usrah.My special thanks to the kind and generous host for the 'foods' for my body ,mind and soul.Three in one!

Let me share with you a few things that I have learnt:

1.Modern civilisation puts man in the centre of the world. What matters only this physical world.Spiritual life is confined to mosques,churches,temples etc. I was told that Allah should be in the Centre of our Life,and our work in this world is to submit to Him only in order to seek His Mercy in the Akhirah-the real and lasting world.

2.Most people who have knowledge but they lack the knowledge to undertand what they have learnt.A lot of efforts were spent in acquiring and keeping the knowledge, but little is spent to really understand and making use of that knowledge. By the way, not many teachers can teach this discipline to understand.So, keep looking and stay close to good teachers.

3.Recent events led us to discuss about sufferings and tragedies faced by muslim ummah all over the world.A few participants gave their political views but since my blog is apolitical,I shall not write them down here.One thing I learnt from the discussion is that the ummah now is very weak.They can be strong if they wanted to. As muslims/muslimahs, it is our choice and The Will of Allah swt.

SELAMAT BERPUASA.

The Celebration...

"When are you going back to your kampung(village) to celebrate Eidul Fitr?",asked my friend.

To many people, Eidul Fitr is The Celebration i.e The Hari Raya.I am one of them when I was younger,especially when I was a kid. Now, its meaning has changed over the years. Yes, I do celebrate and enjoy meeting my folks and relatives especially my mother, brother and sister and the rest of the family members who are working all over the country. That is the time,once a year affair that I could meet more of my relatives and friends. It is more of social gathering than a religous one other than the prayer on the first of Shawal.

To me now, the celebration begins on the first day of Ramadhan. I realised this after I went to fast in Makkah and Madinah with my brother,mother and grandmother in 1995.In the Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah,every day of Ramadhan is THE CELEBRATION OF IBADAH.The joy of praying in Masjid Nabawi and Masjidil Haram is beyond explaination.One has to be there during Ramadhan,especially the last ten days. Imagine being in a congregation of a million people!The Eidul Fitr is actually a "sad day" that Ramadhan has left us.

My friend, a pensioner (age 60 years old) cried on the first day of this Ramadhan. He was not sad but happy and grateful to Allah swt for giving him another chance to fast this Ramadhan. The younger muslims/muslimahs may not feel the same way as the older ones do.To many of my peers(50's,60' yrs old persons),the chance to fast again is a blessing and not a burden.

As the age goes up in numbers, our physical stregth goes downwards. A few of my friends( inculding me) regret that we could have done more if we were younger. But when we were younger, we got carried away from doing more ibadah by other worldly attractions and pleasures.

In most cases,the cycle repeats itself....

Ramadhan:Part 2

Today is the 12th of Ramadhan 1425.How time really flies!

This is just a reminder again for me and the readers of this blog.Now,40% of Ramadhan al-Mubarak has gone,leaving behind only 60%. Just update on our progress of ibadah that we had planned earlier.Are we behind or ahead of schedule? Have we not done anything that we had planned?Is there anything we have yet to start doing?.Where did we 'waste' our time and efforts thus far in order to achieve what we had planned earlier?List the answers and take necessary actions.

Two days ago, I checked with my 75 yrs old cousin who was an Ustaz at Pondok Moden, Kandis, Bachok, Kelantan. I told him the list I wanted to do this Ramadhan. Then, he pointed out a few things that I need to do more and a few things that were still missing on my TODO list.

We are all human and we have our own preference even in ibadah.It is good that we cross-checked with those who are more knowledgable and more experience than us as a guide.

May Allah guide us all and accept our ibadah.

Moreh

Moreh is a form of 'supper' we have after each teraweh prayers. It is more of social gathering where we sit down for a cup of tea/coffee with some cakes. IMHO, it is a very good way to foster 'silaturrahim' especially for urban dwellers who have little time to mingle around to get to know our neighbours.

At my surau, it is being prepared by an appointed caterer financed by our surau fund.This reminds me of my experience fasting at my kampung where we did not have a caterer by each household took turn to send some foods. Honestly, I prefer the kampung ways where we have more varieties.

While having my moreh tonight, we talked about the old days when we were kids,especially the games we played at night. Most of the adults were praying ,but boys being boys,we have our fun playing many games that I can't remember the names.

In the kampung,we have ample space to play,not like the town or urban areas.One game that I still remember is "choh".It is like a mini rugby.The games will automatically finished at the end of the teraweh prayers where we will there to grab some drink and food to quench our thirst and hunger:-)

For the small boys,it is more playing than praying.Adults seems to prefer us to play than pray because we made too much noise in the surau or masjid.

Now things have changed a lot since then.

The Power of Hunger

Let me share with you what my learned friend told me of one riwayat. It is a dialogue between Allah and The Nafs. The conversation was in Arabic but I think all of us will understand:-

Allah: Man Anta?

Nafs: Anta,anta.Waana,ana.

For Nafs's arrogance,it was sent to Hell for afew years.

Then, Allah called The Nafs and asked it the same question.Allah got the same answer.

Then, Allah sent The Nafs to the Hell of Ju'(Hunger) for a few years.

When Allah summoned The Nafs back to answer the same question,here is The nafs reply:

Anta Rabbi.Waana abbduka.

That is THE POWER OF HUNGER over our nafs.

Seeking only His Pleasures

Alhamudulilah,most muslims and muslimahs have been fasting for the last seven days.For the last one week, we have abstained/denied ourselves food,drink,sex and other forbidden things during the day time. We did that because we obeyed the Command of Our Lord,Rabbul 'Allamin(The Lord of All the Worlds,known and unknown,seen and unseen). No one on this planet earth can make more than a billion people to fast for the whole ONE month other than Allah swt. The muslims and muslimahs obeyed the command because of their Iman to Allah swt.

Of course there are a few of us who chose not to fast. In the words of Al-Ghazali: You can do whatever you like,verily you are accountable for all your actions to Allah.

In the words of the wisemen: We can disobey the command of Allah, but we cannot deny the Will of Allah.

As muslims and muslimahs, it is our choice.May Allah swt shows us the right path.

To seek Allah's pleasures, we need to do more than the mandatory.(wajib). We need to do more the 'sunnah' activities -like reading al-Qur'an, sadakah,teraweh and tahjud prayers,zikir etc. All these really take our real efforts and time.As believers, we must not waste time and grap this opportunity.Remember the last Ramadhan? All of us can do better this time,insyaAllah.

Now, we have about three more weeks to go before we celebrate Eidul Fitr.To be successful, we need to be more patient and more discipline.We all need both in order to improve our performance.

After a month of training(physical and spiritual),let's pray that we all continue to maintain good akhlaq(behaviour) and continue seeking Allah's pleasures,not only in the month of Ramadhan, but everyday of the rest of our lives.

Seeking Allah's pleasure is a form of our ubudiyyah as His humble servant.Only then, we could have "al-sakinah" and "al-sa'adah" for this world and the next.

Wallahu'alam.

Digital contents in Education

Yesterday,the shop manager of Macasia pulled me into his shop to show me what Apple has in store for education.He showed me the iLife and a few websites.Wow,they have great stuff there. Personally, I have been a macuser for a few years but I have not explored that area.

We have the technology, but where are the contents that are suitable for our schools and children? He admitted that that we don't have much( or rather very little local contents) that can ride on the sophisticated technology.

Just imagine how interesting learning would be to our children if all the digital components (images,videos, sounds,animation,text etc) of computers could be harnessed to create interesting lessons?The Internet also can help us to share contents and resources. Upon checking with my youngest son who is now in Form 3,most of the lessons used very little digital technology.As usual, technology precedes contents;and also the wide gap between form and substance.

It is not the MOE is not doing anything, but albeit slowly.May be they got pressing bigger tasks to handle.I was made to understand that Apple Malaysia had supplied a few thousand iBooks to our local teachers. I hope this is a good beginning to improve our education.

A few months ago, our new Prime Minister said that our education system needed nothing less than a revolution. May be , digital content is one of the tools can be the catalysts for change?

Disclaimer: I personally donot own shares in Apple shops or Apple.Inc., but I love using mac machines.

Ramadhan: Part 1

Today is the 6th day of Ramadhan ,1425.I divide this Ramadhan into five equal parts of six days each to keep track of what I planned to do.By end of the day today, 20% of the Ramadan "special offer" is gone.
So it is a good time to check what we have done compared to what we had planned to do or what we should be doing in this Ramadhan al-Mubarak! It is good if we could keep a scoreboard to measure our personal performance as well as to keep on improving our ibadah so that we are not wasting our time. Time and Ramadhan waits for no man or woman.

As an example,if we plan to read the whole Qur'an within this month, we must now be reading Surah al-Maaidah by now. If not, we have to allocate more time.If we cannnot read the whole Qur'an,at least we should be reading it everyday...

Fasting in the month of Ramadhan is a reallly special form of ibadah.Every moment while we are fasting, we are in the state of ibadah-obeying the command of Allah swt. This state of being is a form of obedience, hence it is a part of worship.No other ibadah other than Haj takes more than half a day. That is the reason why supplications of muslims/muslimahs who are fasting will be granted by Allah swt,InsyaAllah.

May our fast be accepted as our sincere ibadah to Allah.

Old friends...

Yesterday,while taking my mother to our village market,I met my friends -together in Std 6,1964.It was really a rare occasion because most of us had left our village more than 30 years to study and work.All of us were looking for our favourite foods/cakes for iftar(break of fast).

My old classmates are really diversified-from farmer/contract workers to profesionals/politicians.At every exam(Std 6,Form 3,Form 5,Upper 6),we were being evaluated,dropped,promoted and separated into many categories and classes of careers. By the time, I was at the university, none of my primary schoolmates were with me and I got more new friends as I went to new schools and university.That is life and now the new friends become old friends when I lost contact with most of my primary schoolmates.

As I grow older and about to retire in the next few years,my friends from the corporate world are fading away(they call them business friends-no business,no friends) and I am getting closer to my schoolmates in boarding school(SDAR) and the first organisation I worked(JKR).

And tonight,I am catching up with an old friend for supper...

Photo of my friends:Download P1010026.MOV