The Search for the Meaning of Eid Adha

Everyone has their own unique Ismail.


Whether it is the family, career, degree, or even the person you love.


Albeit the differences, they all have one thing in common; that they have taken a position equal, or even worse - above God in our hearts and our lives.


We might not notice, but this reality is reflected by the way we prioritise things and by the choice that we make when we have to choose between God and those things mentioned above. 


Therefore, amidst the joy and laughter and the festivity of this Eid, let's take a moment and ask ourselves:

What is my Ismail?

Have I firmly decided to slaughter it?

Pernah dengar tak ayat-ayat ni?

Ayat 1 : "Buat ape nak puasa,  solat pun takkk! Baik tak payah puasa terus! "

Ayat 2 : " Ey, bro. Kau tau tak, aritu aku ade nampak sorang minah ni. Puasa tapi tak pakai tudung.   Haptuihh. Sia-sia je! "

Ayat 3 : "Buat apa berubah kalau setakat kerana nak dapat suami/isteri yang soleh/solehah? Hampas."


Inilah ayat-ayat yang kita biasa dengar. Dan ini adalah mentaliti yang segelintir daripada umat kita ada yang menyebabkan orang tawar hati untuk berubah. Tawar hati untuk cuba, walaupun sekecil zarah cuma.

Hey brah. Allah itu Maha Kreatif tau?

Dia ada pelbagai cara untuk memberi hidayah pada manusia. Cara dan pendekatan yang kadang-kadang kita tidak pernah mengerti, tidak pernah terfikir.


Mengikut Abbas As-Sisi dalam bukunya, At-Toriq ilal Qulub (Jalan Menuju Ke Hati),

Setiap hati ada kuncinya.

Setiap orang ada weakspot-nya yang tersendiri. Kadang-kadang orang yang nampak kasar luarannya akan tersentuh hati dengan benda-benda yang paling comel. Dan kadang-kaang orang yang lembut luarannya ada hati  dan jiwa yang keras. Setiap orang ada kunci hatinya yang unik. Seorang dai'e yang ingin menyentuh dan menghidupkan jiwa-jiwa ini perlu menghabiskan banyak masanya terlebih dahulu untuk mengetahui kunci kepada hati mad'unya.

Dan siapa lagi yang paling mengetahui kunci-kunci kepada hati-hati kita selain Dia?

Ada orang yang bersemangat untuk puasa tapi masih belum ingin untuk solat penuh.

Ada orang yang tertarik untuk puasa Ramadhan kerana 'feel' dan environment Ramadhan tetapi masih belum bersedia untuk  menutup aurat dengan sempurna

Ada orang yang berubah kerana nak jadi orang yang baik kepada pasangannya tetapi belum bulat tekadnya untuk Allah semata-mata

Ada orang yang rasa nak solat berjemaah penuh tetapi Subuhnya selalu gajah.

Ada orang yang teringin baca Quran sebab suka mengalunkan suara bukan untuk meneliti maksudnya,

Itu semua adalah cara Allah nak suruh hambaNya kembali. Dan setiap orang lain caranya.
Siapa kita untuk menafikannya?

Tapi betolla, niat tu kena betul. Kompas itu harus diarahkan ke tempat yang sepatutnya Ia harus disucikan. Kerana Allah semata-mata.

Tapi cumanya, why the negative tone and language?
Jangan matikan keinginan itu. Sucikanlah ia.

Begitu juga dengan kita. Kadang-kadang kita terasa "down" kerana dosa yang dilakukan berulang-ulang kali walaupun kerap kali kita bertaubat. Walaupun perasaan menyesal dan kecewa itu perlu, tapi janganlah sampai itu menghalang kita beramal ketika hati kita tergerak. Kerana itu petanda Allah ingin kita kembali kepadanya. Walaupun amal yang kita rasa sangat kecil.

Dan janganlah mengecam hati kita di saat ia tergerak kerana sebab yang bukan kerana Allah . Kerana ikhlas itu kadang-kadang datang selepas amal.

Dan Allah yang paling pandai menggoda hati kita. Mungkin ia datang dalam bentuk yang berbeza, tapi semuanya dari Allah. Kalau tak boleh semua, jangan tinggal semua!

Bila hidup hampa dirasa,
Mungkinkah hati merindu kan Dia.
-Opick ft. Melly Goeslow, Takdir-

Truth?

Naah.

There’s no such thing as absolute truth. I meant there is, but we will never discover it. Except, for Muslims of course. We have our 2 sources of absolute truth. But those themselves, requires explanations and interpretations, which somehow sometimes, deviate and disturb us from seeing the truth.

The Syrian Revolution started as a what you say a “normal” uprising in the Arab world. You know, one of those riots and clashes than turn out to be a mass scale revolution.

15 March 2011. That’s when it started. Almost parallel with other uprisings which later be known as the Arab Spring. The time when Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi crumbled down. 


Then it proceed just like the others, demonstrations and clashes between security forces and protesters , killing many, and of course , many on the weaponless side, as in the case of any other demonstration-turn-bad cases. More than 100 protesters are killed in the first massacre and quadrupled in the next several conflicts.

Sounds familiar right?
For some, it’s just the same boring plot and storyline that every Arab uprising possesses.

So, some of us might be asking, why the fuss? It’s the same old sh*t about dictators and tyrants waiting to be removed. If you are in my world, you are blatantly wrong.

PLAY THE SONG

Berjalan sendiri menangisi diri

Padang pasir berselimut duri

Kisah dulu mencakari hati, oh lemahnya diri

Syurga yang diberi tidak disyukuri,


Cinta manusiawi sibuk diagungi,

Post ini mungkin agak kontroversi, but this is a personal opinion and this is a free world, so you don’t have any right to stop me from expressing it, as long as it’s permissible in Islam. Diilhamkan oleh salah satu post oleh Inche Gabbana (Kenapa Tak Ramai Ikhwah Yang Hensem).  Jadi, seperti beliau juga ingin saya tekankan di sini BACA DAHULU post ini sehinggalah ke bahagian comment sebelum anda mula menyelar saya atau menekan butang pangkah di atas.


The thing struck after I watched Kemuncak Ustazah Pilihan at Astro Oasis. No. I’m not a frequent subscriber to that show. This is the first time  I watched it, and ironically it’s the last for this season. And I got to say yes, maybe there ARE benefits that it can give to the public in terms of general religious knowledge, but I see that the emphasis is more to the women (or ustazahs) as a person, which

[Nota 1: Entri ini dikhususkan untuk adik-adik lepasan SPM. Tetapi banyak point-point yang boleh dihadam dan di'relate' kepada sesiapa sahaja yang berkenaan]
[Nota 2 : Lepasan SPM ini juga dikhususkan lagi kepada bekas-bekas pelajar Kolej Kelang (atau KKJ) atau sesiapa sahaja yang telah menerima mutiara . Mungkin ada beberapa perkara yang sukar difahami oleh orang yang berada di luar lingkungan ini. But rest assured, banyak yang boleh difikirkan]

Gembira. Lega. Puas. Berdebar. Tak terkata dan terbilang perkataan yang boleh menggambarkan perasaan ketika ini. Well, selepas 10,11 tahun bergelumang dalam zaman persekolahan yang banyak memerlukan kesabaran dan ketabahan, akhirnya adik-adik berjaya mengharunginya. Jika adik-adik lihat balik, dulu pernah tak adik-adik terasa “bilalah nak abes zaman sekolah ni? “ , atau “lambatnye jadi  orang dewasa! “ , atau “weh , x sabar weh nak kawen!!” :p . Dan sekarang, here you are, relieved and not knowing what to do for the next 5 months (minus 3 for PLKN-nians . hehs) . It’s a part of a bigger plan.

Ok , sekarang saya tak ingin bercakap pasal cara mengisi masa dengan baik atau cara memanfaatkan masa dengan sepenuhnya, yada yada becoz  I know that anda semua tak kan ikut pun. *talking based on experience* . You know, the “takpe,sehari lagi, esok aku start ___________” syndrome.

But , I’m going to rant on a not-so-important but pretty much damaging topic to post-spmmers. Soal hati dan perasaan.  Jeng jeng jeng. *it’s tajdidweneed okay, of course la tema kene same* . Sesiapa yang tak paham sila ignore.


ADOII, PASAL NI LAGI!!
Kenapa soal hati dan perasaan?

The past few weeks had been a painful yet liberating period for me.

I struggle hard to forget the thing that had been bothering me all this time, the yearning for something that would never be achieved in the short term.

Along the process, I found myself pushing a heavy boulder uphill. It was difficult to let go of something when your heart doesn’t really want to. Just like you want to erase a carving on a solid rock. It’s possible as time goes by, but it’s detrimental to the rock itself. Or you want to remove a nail buried deep in a plank, at the end of the day you succeed to, but what you will have in your hand is a chunk of wood full of holes and rough surfaces here and there. That is why; you really need to think a lot first before carving something on the rock or hitting the nail into the wood because the repercussions is huge and will affect you for the rest of your life.

During this period, I receive my revelations. I started to see the reason why the feelings keep on attached to me.  Being a teenager or to be more precise, a Muslim teenager in today’s world is not a path full of roses and fragrance. Every day in our life, we are exposed to the lifestyles and things that are not ours in the first place. Yet, we are told that it is BAD and we are NOT to follow it.

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I am not a big fan of Apple , nor do I own some i-Thingies but the death of Steve Jobs kinda open my eyes. His words and speeches was less known until he is dead. And you know what? They are priceless.

It just show how much what Syeikh Muhammad Abduh (a prominent Islamic scholar and founder of Pan-Islamism or Gerakan Islah) once said is true :

"I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam"

 I'm not saying that Steve Jobs is THE model that we should look upon too, nor did I say that he's better than other our OWN scholars and prominent figures, but all I'm asking that we contemplate his famous quotes and thoughts and take lesson from it.

Nikah Khitbah Satu Solusi

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Did you remember?

The times when you have trouble and you believe that your future is hopeless.
The times when you felt so stressed because of the examinations and all you see is a dark road lying in front of you.
The times when you felt so down because you feel that other people are better than you and get something better than what you have.
The times when you felt so inferior to everyone else in the room .
The times when you sat down and stares to the sky and said to yourself , "what happened to me? "
The times when you cried cause' you feel that the world is being harsh to you?

Mungkin tajuk agak panas. That's what we called marketing strategy. ^^.


Obedient Wives Club ? Apa tu?


Mungkin ada yang bertanya sebegini.Atau mungkin ramai yang sudah tahu mengenai isu ini. Maklumlah, dengan bercambahnya laman-laman sosial, maklumat terbang sepantas kilat, tak sampai sejam , dah tersebar sesuatu berita. Tiba-tiba teringat teks daripada novel "The Pearl" yang menjadi bahan kajian sewaktu di tingkatan 5 dahulu (ceyh,macam dah lame dah), "The news spread faster among the citizens faster than young kids can run and tell their mothers". Ok fine.Enough with the crappy talk.



Untuk sesiapa yang masih belum mengetahui, Obedient Wives Club atau Kelab Isteri Setia adalah satu kelab wanita yang ditubuhkan oleh Global Ikhwan untuk menggalakkan wanita khususnya isteri untuk meningkatkan taraf layanan terhadap suami khususnya dalam HUBUNGAN SEKS sebagai satu CARA untuk mengurangkan social illness seperti perceraian dan berlakunya maksiat dan zina.

Letih. Lesu.

Sangat letih menjawab pelbagai persoalan yang menerjah ketenangan dan menerkam jiwa.

Tidak sangka bahawa alam virtual juga boleh memberi kesan yang besar dalam kehidupan sebenar. Dan blog ini telah mengharu-birukan hidup semenjak dua menjak ini. Niat sebenar memang tak mahu menulis entri ini, tapi, there is a line that need to be drawn.

Post ini , ini , dan ini telah memberikan penulis pelbagai label. Angau,menggelepar, poyo. Ramai yang bersetuju , manakala ramai juga yang memberikan respons yang agak tidak menggalakkan.

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It was a dark and chilling night. The howling of the dogs echoed throughout the streets. Black grotesque clouds start to from in the pitch dark night skies. Torrential rains started to pour down on Mother Earth, giving life back to the wilting floras, punished by the long spanning of the drought. In a room of a house at the end of the neighbourhood, something weird is happening. Sounds of a heated discussion made the crickets music seemed so minor. A bright flash of light shine through the sleek glass window.

F1 : What's wrong with you , bro? You looked really weird nowadays.Are you in a problem?

F2 : Umm .. kinda.

F1 : Hey, come on bro, tell me about it. Who's her?

Ever heard of the quote : " Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder" ?

It is saying how the beauty of something are really subjective and that different people have different opinions on the attractiveness of something. An easy example would be a girl. A certain boy will thought that she is beautiful while another boy will say that she's totally ugly, while maybe another one will see her as an average cutie.

This quote had lasted over centuries and widely used by philosophers and poets and even the public in reasoning the most difficult questions of all time.

"Why do we have crush/fall in love on certain people and not the other?"
"Why do we see that someone is more beautiful or handsome than the other?"
"What is beauty and how can we evaluate it? "

But nowadays, Science discoveries will put the quote to test. A series of researches showed that there really exist a connection between mathematics and the perfect face and the most shocking revelations is that we can actually calculate our attractiveness.Read more to find out about it.

The idea of writing this post suddenly popped out to mind when I came back from Friday prayer last week. Watching the situation in the mosque during the 'khutbah' was really a deja vu experience.

To my left, from 5 people, 3 of them were dozing off. Heads can be seen going up and down frequently.
To my right, children were talking loudly,some of them were poking each other. Looking down across the hallway to the outside compound,my sight rests upon groups of teenagers and adults and even senior citizens having conversations while relaxing on benches and on their respective motorcycles.

Well, for your information,this is what really happens every week. The loud voice of the khatib (preacher) seems to only become the background music for all these activities. A lot of people just doesn't seem to care about it. Don't know who to blame. But for me , it;s the imams and and the system itself that need to uphold the utmost responsbility.

Sometimes in our life,we came upon a branching road.There are choices that we had to make.And these choices will determine who we are and what we do in the future.

People say that we you came across options that were really hard to choose, you should always ask God for guidance. "Istikharah je la". Yes,its true that solat istikharah is really important in making the right choices.

But,people tend to miss another critical element which is musyawarah.It's about asking people who really knows more.Researching, analysing what's important,what we need,what's our priority and rationalising ourselves to make the right choice. At the end of the day,we ourself will make the choice.God will not change someone's fate but the person himself will transform his life.

To tell you the truth,I am in this situation right at this moment. And I really needed COMMENTS,SUGGESTIONS,FEEDBACK to help me in this confusion.

HERE'S MY CASE
Ok, right now, I got two offer, namely UIAM Pre-Med Foundation and the other one is International Baccalaureate at Kolej Mara Banting under Mara Scholarship (Medic). Let's see the it.

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Damn, I miss it.

The time when

OK. This is maybe the hottest topic in the teenagers world. Love. A phenomenon triggered by the adequate level of hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin in our brain. Testosterone is responsible for sexual behaviour,while Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin is for the early phase of attraction, and lastly Oxytocin and vasopressin is linked to bonding and creation of long term relationship.

But we know that these scientific facts had a long way to go before they can define love properly.As  John Bancroft, emeritus director of the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind said : "We have only a very limited understanding of what romance is in a scientific sense,"

It's a very subjective matter. And one thing we know is that it can hit
anybody,whether we want it or not.Once we're in love,the world changed,sleep and food seems very insignificant, the images of the person is anywhere, and we can't get it out of our mind.And I myself had alot of experiences being hit by the arrow of cupid.

Marah.Sedih.Kecewa.Keliru.Terpanggil.
Perasaan bercampur baur seusai menatap berita kematian Osama Bin Laden.
Sedih apabila melihat salah seorang saudara terbunuh,marah melihat reaksi pemimpin-pemimpin dunia,keliru apabila menerima pelbagai maklumat di FB mengatakan kematian Osama itu palsu dan pelbagai teori konspirasi, dan yang paling penting kecewa dengan sikap segelintir daripada umat Islam. Maka hari ini, saya terpanggil untuk men'express'kan pandangan saya berkenaan isu ini. To tell you the truth , what hurts me the most was seeing how certain groups of Muslims mourned his death and elevate his level as a martyr or a mujahid. Maybe this will sound controversial , tapi kata saya : that's a BIG MISTAKE. Why?

I spend at least 2 hours a day on Facebook these days. I don't know if I am categorised as a facebook-addict or not but the most important reason that I press the login button frequently is because for me FB had become a useful tool to catch up with the latest news. It's like the news portal of the whole teenage world, anything can be found here,ranging from important dates for post-SPMmers to breaking news around the world. But that's not what I want to say today.


THE REAL DEAL
Have you ever been linked to some pictures or videos or even a FB profile that contains offensive material to Islam? (Remember Jasmine Selalu Hepi?). Really sad to see how people's ignorant about Islam made them to slanderously insult Islam without any knowledge. What do they feel if someone insult their own religion?