The Reader

Family recovery walk..

To get back to my energetic mode,my wife,son and me took to the beautifully landscaped garden in Presint 11,Putrajaya and we did about 3km of morning walk..Below are some photos..

 

Salam Eidil Fitri 1432(2011)

To all my muslim blog readers,may I wish you Eid Mubarak and Selamat Hari Raya,Maaf Zahir Batin .

Taqaballahu Minna wa Minkum! (May Allah accept it from us and you)

Let us celebrate our victory in obeying  the Command of Allah to fast for the whole of month of Ramadhan.May Allah accept our ibadah and we achieve the taqwa,insyaAllah.

ALLAHU AKHBAR,ALLAHU AKHABAR,ALLAHU AKHBAR...

The above photo is the main entrance to Masjid al-Hasanah ,Bangi.

Time flies again...Illal liqaq Ya Ramadhan.

Do you remember the first day of Ramadhan this year(1432)?It seems like a week ago...Time must have wings;that is why it flies very fast.Now we are on 29th Ramadhan,1432-may be the last day of Ramadhan this year.Most of us(including me) are always behind time because we have two heavy legs that we kept dragging even to do something for our own personal benefits in this world and in the Hareafter!That is what we are,year in,year out.

When Ramadhan comes to an end,we pray to Allah so that we can be at the next Ramadhan with all the promises to do better.Again,Allah gives us another chance and then again,we fail!Two of my cousins passed away in the last two months.Their last Ramadhan was in 1431(2010).Just reflect how unfortunate we are if this Ramadhan is our last!

If you are not happy with your performance this Ramadhan,you are  not alone.I am one of them but we must redha to what had happened and donot despair-La Tahzan.There is another chance to perform six days of fasting in Shawal after our Eidil Fitri,insyaAllah.Not limiting to fasting,we should in fact continue with other forms of  ibadah sunat like reciting Qur'an ,solat berjemaah, qiammulail etc until the next Ramadhan where we could do more,insyaAllah.

(Setelah menerangkan akibat orang-orang yang tidak menghiraukan akhirat, Tuhan menyatakan bahawa orang-orang yang beriman dan beramal soleh akan disambut dengan kata-kata): "Wahai orang yang mempunyai jiwa yang sentiasa tenang tetap dengan kepercayaan dan bawaan baiknya! - (Al-Fajr 89:27) | <Embed> | English Translation


"Kembalilah kepada Tuhanmu dengan keadaan engkau berpuas hati (dengan segala nikmat yang diberikan) lagi diredhai (di sisi Tuhanmu) ! - (Al-Fajr 89:28) | <Embed> | English Translation


"Serta masuklah engkau dalam kumpulan hamba-hambaku yang berbahagia - (Al-Fajr 89:29) | <Embed> | English Translation


"Dan masuklah ke dalam SyurgaKu! " (Al-Fajr 89:30) | <Embed> | English Translation

Ya Ramadhan,

Kau datang dan kau pergi,

Kita  datang dan kita pergi,

Yang kekal hanya Illahi.

Ya Rabbi,

Ampunilah dosa-dosa kami,

Cucurilah rahmat Mu kepada kami,

Mohon di terimalah ibadah kami.

InsyaAllah..

Illal liqaq Ya Ramadhan.

 

 

Selamat Hari Raya Puasa 1432

Kita telah bersama Ramadhan hampir sebulan.Hampir tiba masanya Ramadhan akan meninggalkan kita dalam dua tiga hari lagi dan tahun depan belum tentu kita akan bersamanya.Setiap kita yang masih bernafas ini diberi peluang berkali-kali untuk berusaha mencari rahmah dan keampunan Allah dalam perjalanan untuk mencapai taqwa sebagai matlamat puasa Ramadhan.Disamping itu kita juga diberi satu malam bernama Lailtul Qadar dengan segala keberkatannya.InsyaAllah kita dapat ganjaran yang sewajarnya dari Allah swt selaras dengan kerja amalan kita.Ya ,amalan kita...

Pada mulanya Ramadhan,kita mempunyai pelan tindakan untuk beribadah kepada Allah di bulan Ramadhan al-Mubarak.Setiap hari kita lihat apa yang kita laksanakan dari pelan asal kita.Umumnya,kita tidak dapat mencapai 100%,tetapi apa yang penting kita laksanakan sebahagian dari pelan tindakan kita.Dan dari analisa prestasi kita,kita dapat mengenal tahap keupayaan dan kesanggupan kita melaksanakan ibadah khusus dalam bulan Ramadhan Kareem.Kita akan kenal siapa kita sebenarnya!Dari pengalaman peribadi saya,prestasi kita amat banyak mencerminkan hakikat diri kita yang sebenar dan bukan apa yang kita anggap atau sangka.Setelah muhasabah diri,kita perlu bercita-cita dan memohon kepada Allah swt supaya akan dapat meningkatan prestasi amalan Ramadahn dan lain-lain di masa yang akan datang,insyaAllah.

Sebagaimana firman Allah swt yang bermaksud:"Segala urusan kembali kepada Allah.."Kita hanya mampu merancang dan berusaha,tetapi segala ketentuan dan hasilnya di tentukan olih Allah jua.Sebagaimana muslim yang lain,saya merancang untuk menambah lagi kuantiti dan kualiti ibadah diakhir sapertiga Ramadhan.Rancangan ini terggangu pada hari 18 Ramadhan dimana saya mengalami batuk teruk sehingga beberapa hari saya terpaksa tidak puasa.Sekarang saya masih tidak saperti biasa tetapi sudah dapat puasa kembali secara 'off and on' bergantung kepada keadaan kesihatan saya.Pengajaran dari ini ialah saya perlu beribadah apabila diberi peluang tanpa berharap untuk buat dihari kemudian.Dalam tempuh dua bulan yang lepas,dua orang sepupu saya yang berumur 60 tahun(hanya dua tahun lebih tua dari  saya) telah kembali ke Rahmatullah.Alhamdulilah saya masih hidup dan dapat solat setiap hari dan tidak mengalami penyakit kronik.

This experience reminds me of the saying,"Today is a present,that is why it is called a present(a.k.a a gift)! and the phrase,"We propose,God disposes".

Eidil Fitri is  near...Let us return to our fitrah,insyaAllah and may I wish you Eid Mubarak,Selamat Hari Raya,Maaf Zahir Batin.

Not the losers!

Let us not be the losers of this world and the hereafter.To win,we must obey the Laws or Commands of Allah.As an example,we are fasting now.We are in the state of obedience and obedience is an act of worship.Likewise,if we obey our nafs,we worship our nafs!All the other creations of Allah are in their state of obedience,hence in the state of worship of Allah.

Let me share this note posted at Nasiha.com:-

Living The Quran
Signs of The Truth
Al Zumar (The Companies) - Chapter 39: Verse 63

"His are the keys of the heavens and the earth. So those who disbelieve in God's Revelations and signs - such are they who are the losers."

God has two different sets of laws: those that govern the universe, including the aspects of human life independent of humankind (which are God's signs of the truth, and which we wrongly call the "laws of nature" - these are the subject matter of the natural sciences); and the other being the Religion. Both require obedience. Results for the latter usually are deferred to the Hereafter, while the returns of obedience or disobedience to the former usually come in this life.

For example, the reward for patience is success, while the punishment for indolence is privation. Industry brings wealth, and steadfastness brings victory. So being a sincere believing Muslim requires obedience to both of these laws. When Muslims, in addition to their failings in the religious life, neglect to fulfill the requirements of obedience to God's laws of life and the universe (God's signs of truth), they become losers in the world relatively to those unbelievers who have obeyed them. However, those who reject God's Revelations (which are also God's signs of the truth) will be eternal losers, as they will lose in the Hereafter.

Compiled From:
"The Quran: Annotated Interpretation in Modern English" - Ali Unal, pp. 958

Ramadhan Reminder #3

The Crown Jewels:

Remember when we were students- how much efforts and time we put into our study to get the best results?And now, when we are working-how much efforts and time we invested to excel in our work and business? Just ponder , are we doing the same(in efforts and time) or better in order to be the best muslims/ muslimah? I hope all of us are already good muslims/muslimahs, but we can do better.We spend so much of our time to acquire some worldly assets that only last for a very short time, but many of us failed miserably to acquire the lasting assets that will be The Crown Jewels of our life-here and in the next world(akhirat).Surely this one is more valuable than the one kept in The Tower of London! Below is the list of Ten Gems that all of us must try our best to acquire for the rest of our life.(Permata untuk menghiasi mahkota hidup kita).This list is taken from a book entitled " Don't Be Sad" by'Aaidh Ibn Abdullah al-Qarnee:

1.Waking up in the last third of the night to beg for forgiveness from Allah {{ And those who pray and beg Allah's pardon in the last hours of the night.}}-Qura'an 3:17

2.Seclusion(for sometime) from people in order to contemplate. {{And(those who) think deeply about the creation of the heavens and the earth..}}-Qur'an 3;191

3.Keeping the company of the righteous. {{And keep yourself patiently with those who call on their Lord..}}-Qur'an 18:28

4.Remembrance of Allah. {{Remeber Allah with much remembrance.}}-Qur'an 33:41

5.Praying two units of prayer with sincerity,devotion and presence of mind. {{Those hwo offer their prayer with all solemnity and full submissiveness}}-Qur'an 23:2

6.Reciting the Qur'an with understanding and reflection. {{Do they not then consider the Qur'an carefully?}}-Qur'an 4:82

7.Fasting on a hot dry day. A hadith Qudsi reads:"He abondons his food,drink and desire-all for Me."

8.Giving charity secretly. In the words of a hadith:" Until the left hand does not know what the right hand has spent."

9.Providing relief and aid to the afflicted Muslim. A hadith puts it:"Whoever gives relief to a Muslim from one of the vicissitudes of this life,Allah will releive him from a calamity that is from the calamities of The Day of Judgement".

10.Possible abstentions from the worldly aspirations. {{The hereafter is better and more lasting.}}-Qur'an 87:17 To be the best Ummah, we must acquire both assets of this world and the next,especially the next world.Then only we can safely say that we have a successful life. May you get a blessed Ramadhan and a joyful Eid.

via adib.typepad.com

I am not well this week.May I share this note I wrote 8 years ago...May Allah bless of us in this Ramadhan al-Mubarak,insyaAllah.

Vision of a photograph

Let me share one of the lessons from what I have learnt over the years taking snapshot.This is best described by Mr Scott Bourne in one of his essays in his e-book in italic.Below his explaination,I attached one of my shots that may potray his descriptions.{Thank you Mr Scott Bourne for your beautiful articulation of the meaning of photographer's vision]:

J o n a t h a n   S w i f t   s a i d . . .
“ V  i s i o n  i s  t h e   a r t  o f  s e e i n g  w h a t   i s   i n v i s i b l e t o  o t h e r s . ”

This quote inspires me daily as a photographer. As I walk by a grove of trees, I see
things differ ently than my non- photographer fri ends. They see a clump of trees. I
see the grass beneath the trees, the light streaming through the leaves, the bi rds in
their nests on the branches, the intri cate pattern i n the bark, the strength of the
trunk, the outgrowth of the roots, the different colors and tonality in the leaves, the
way the shadows fall across the wood, the angle of the light as it hits the canopy,
the shadow the tree makes on the river below, the line the branch follows from the
the trunk,etc .

When photographers look at the worl d, they look at it through a special lens - pun
intended. It's a filter of sorts that sifts the importance of one thing or another. This
ability to sift and sort, to include and exclude, to drill down into the meat of the
scene, that's what comprises the photographer's vision. I like to think that we can
all use more of that .

S c o t t   B o u r  n e
J u n e ,   2 0 1 1
L a s   Ve g a s ,   N e v a d a

 

Kuliyyah Dzohur 24/08/2011

Izinkan saya berkongsi isi kuliyyah dari Tuan Sheikh yang berasal dari Mesir tetapi fasih menyampai kuliyyah dalam Bahasa Melayu loghat Indonesia:

Cara berbuka:

1.Ikuti azan dan du'a azan.

2.Du'a untuk diri dan keluarga baru berbuka.

Untuk merasai nikmat iman:

Jaga mulut selepas solat nanti sehingga subuh nanti esok pagi.Isikan dengan zikir,baca qur'an dan solat dan lain ibadah.Jagalah percakapan,pendengaran  dan penglihatan demi kebaikan qalbu kita.Tambah lagi malam ini malam 25 Ramadhan,malam ganjil akhir Ramadhan.

Amalan diatas juga elok di amal seterusnya sehingga akhir Ramadhan bagi yang mengejar Lailatul Qadr.

Sekian.

Why You Learn More Effectively by Writing Than Typing

The act of writing helps you clarify your thoughts, remember things better, and reach your goals more surely. Here's a look at the science and psychology behind writing, and why the pen may be mightier than the keyboard.

Photo by sun dazed.

Many productivity experts and writers have long espoused the power of writing things down (in fact, paper is our many of our favorite to-do list manager and we're a little fanatical about our favorite pens).

via lifehacker.com

Just to share this article with my peers..It works for me-when I write I remember better.That is why I still use my paper diary and notebook despite all the smart phones and pc I have at my disposal.

Below is a snapshot at my notebooks-moleskine and QuoVadis:

The Reader reads..

It must had been more than a decade since I last read Bill Bryson's book Notes from a Small Island.That small island was quite big ~as big as UK!While waiting for my son to buy some groceries,I entered our local MPH bookshop and I saw a book entitled  At Home,A short History of Private Life was staring at me from the Latest Arrival Shelf.After reading the introduction few paragraphs,I took the book to the cashier and paid for it.The house Bill Bryson  was talking  is about his 150 years old house-an old rectory.It reminded me of the small haunted hotel in Redditch,England where my wife and me stayed for a night many,many moons ago..

It is 632 pages thick and I look forward to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Notes from a Small Island.