Stairways To Paradise:Spreading The Love

Peace be upon you. Hi dear readers. Happy New Hijri Year to my muslim friends. How's life? Good I hope. I've been wanting to write this post earlier but what to do, time constraints. n_n

Anyway, let's go back to the topic. On 25th October, I went to an Enrichment Class for muslims and sadly, this post is only relatable to muslims. However, anyone is free to read it if you're interested. n_n

Poster promoting the class

The speaker is a friend of mine and she's a great speaker. But to be honest, just by reading the title, I really don't know what she's going to speak about. I am simply interested to know more and as I was free at that time, I went there to hear it. Alhamdulillah, I'm glad I went there. It was a sharing on why and how to spread da'wah (=spreading the love) as this is what Allah asked us to do and by doing what He ordered us to do, we will get nearer to paradise (=stairways to paradise) insyaAllah. I was a bit late to the class though so please forgive me for missing some informations. However, I will share most of what I got from the class here. n_n

The speaker asked all of us, why do we have to spread da'wah even though Allah will not be affected and will not be weak even if the number of Muslims is only a little. Do what Allah says, stay away from what Allah has forbidden. This is the main reason, Allah orders us to spread da'wah. By the way, this time, I'm using The Holy Qur'an English Translation by 'Abdullah Yusuf 'Ali.

"Say thou: 'This is my way: I do invite unto God,-on evidence clear as the seeing with one's eyes,-I and whoever follows me. Glory to God! and never will I join gods with God."      [Yusuf : 108] 

This verse shows us the definition of da'wah as a whole, which is, calling man to the way of Allah with evidences for the sake of Allah and not for anything else. They do not hope for Earthly rewards from the people but only hope for rewards from Allah. Da'wah is the best job and the most honorable speech from a muslim.

 "Who is better in speech than one who calls (men) to God, works righteousness, and says, 'I am of those who bow in Islam?' "   [Fussilat : 33]

Such is the Decree of Allah. There are more daleel about da'wah other than these two verses, therefore you might want to do extra reading on that. Plus, let's use our logical thinking. I'm sure all of us have non-muslims friends who are very good, in fact, some of them might be better than certain people who call themselves muslims. Shouldn't we sympathise with them? What will we do if later in the akhirah, they blame us for not telling them about the truth of Islam? Think about it brothers and sisters.

So, how do we spread da'wah?

"Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance."   [An-Nahl : 125]

Da'wah is not about to preach hard, but to reach the hearts. It's not about winning arguments and in the end causing people to shy away from Islam. The principles concerning da'wah are knowledge, calling to it, acting upon it and being patient.

"By (the Token of) Time (through the Ages), Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy."   [Al 'Asr : 1-3]

We were told a story about an Imam who is really good in preaching. One day, he was approached by some slaves and they asked him to preach about freeing slaves. He agreed. Those slaves waited for about a year and still the Imam didn't give any preachings as they asked. They all went to meet him and asked him whether he has forgotten about it. The Imam actually just finished collecting money to buy a slave and he wants to free the slave. He said he won't preach on something he never did himself. Beautiful story isn't it? Even we all know, it's easy to say but it's not always easy to do.

Then, what are the approaches of spreading da'wah? They are akhlak (bil hal), charity (bil mal), books/pamphlets (bil kitab), and speech (bil lisan). It's not important on which approaches you take. As long as there are efforts to spread da'wah, insyaAllah, the rewards are there from Allah. I think this post is already a bit too long therefore, I'll stop here for today. I'm sorry but I have to leave out the excuses people normally give when they are asked why don't they spread da'wah. To make it simple, please don't give any excuses to stop yourself from spreading da'wah because it is an obligation of a muslim. Thanks for reading. n_n

~Jaw~

A Little Reminder By A Brother From Somalia

Hallu readers. Peace be upon you. Eid mubarak(blessed Eid) to every muslim readers. n_n   Yesterday has been a very nice day for me even though I cannot celebrate Eid ul-Adha with my family this year *again.sigh*. I wonder how long has it been since my last celebration of Eid ul-Adha together with my family. Pfft, let's stop with the reminiscing. XD   Since I'm celebrating Eid ul-Adha away from my family, two of my Kelantanese friends invited me and some other friends who didn't go back home, to their open houses. Thank you to both of you. I had a good day and lots of good foods. n_n

Selfie master .(guy in red  XD)

So, here's the real deal. I can't fully remember what the Somalian brother said but I'll tell you the gist of it. The story starts when we went back to our hostel. After we arrived, we went to perform our sunset prayer in the surau. We're a bit late, though we're definitely not out of the time range yet. When we're finished, a brother from Somalia greeted us. We basically began to introduce ourselves and then he started a short tazkirah(reminder). His name is Omar by the way.

Omar reminded us about a few things and mostly, it's muslim related. Therefore, I'm gonna start the story by writing about what is relatable even to non-muslims. He is actually doing Ph.D and one of his research is linked to attitude and multi-drug-resistant-tuberculosis(MDR-TB). MDR-TB is tuberculosis that is resistant to two or more drugs used to treat TB patients. This can happen due to many reasons and Omar said, his research shows that the main reason is how the society(doctors,nurses,visitors,etc) perceive the TB patient. Many of us shunned the patients with TB. We are scared of being infected by them, we are scared that we might have the same disease and have to undergo the same treatment as them for months and we are scared that we might die of it. Just imagine if you are the patient and you are being isolated only because you are unluckily the infected person, how would you feel? If it's me, I would rather die than to be isolated and treated as a very dangerous person for months *that's if the drugs work* by people around me. Therefore Omar said, this is what caused the patients to halt from taking their antibiotics and of course when this happens, the Tuberculosis bacteria will become resistant to the drugs that are currently used to treat them. That's how dangerous the social stigma is. I wonder if this can be considered as killing people unintentionally? (･_･?)

So Omar reminded us, to send this word to other medical students and other people. Treat people nicely. God is the one who gave the person that illness to test the faith of His slaves *for me, this is meant not only for the one infected but also for the people around them*. God can take it back from him/her and in turn He can give it you anytime if He pleased. What we can do is taking precautions by wearing mask, gloves, etc but shunning them is definitely not one of the things you should do. n_n

Then, as I said earlier, we performed our sunset prayer, but we're a bit late. Therefore, Omar reminded us that the 5 times prayers have their own times and for muslims to be good slaves of Allah, we have to perform the prayers on time. Better if done in jama'ah at surau or masjeed. He told us about when he was still an undergraduate student studying in Sudan, he never missed performing Subuh prayers at the masjeed. Not even a single day, emphasized him. And the beautiful thing is, he said that there are almost 2000 to 3000 people performing Subuh prayer every single morning. Subhan'Allah. I can't imagine that. He told us to sleep early, before 12 am. It's no use to study until late at night but you cannot wake up early to perform Subuh prayer in time. He said, ever since he's an undergraduate student until now, he has never failed any paper for any subjects. His secret is, sleep early, study early in the morning and according to him, studying for one hour in the morning is more effective than studying for a few hours at night when you're sleepy. There's some truth to that and since he's so successful in his studies, I believe following what he did is a good way to success. Since he told me that, it has been my ambition to become like him. I failed for the first morning, but I'll never give up. Zettai ni!!! YADA!!! Never missed even a single day of Subuh prayer in Jama'ah at masjeed. Crazy I tell you.

So, let me summarise Omar's reminder here. First, treat people nicely and God's help will come. Second, perform your prayers on time and third, studying in the morning is better than studying late at night when you're sleepy. Being a good slave of Allah should be the target of every Muslims and how to do that? Perform what Allah ordered us to do and stay away from what Allah has forbidden. That's all for now and thank you for reading. n_n


~Jaw~

Cakap Perkara Yang Penting Sahaja???

Dōmo minna! Apa khabar orang kampung?! :p Pelik sungguh dengan diri sendiri kadang-kadang, pepagi buta masa nak tidur ni la selalu dapat idea nak update apa dalam blog. Hairan. *garu kepala* Anyway, this post is quite random. I was eating at a kopitiam just now *belanja diri sendiri makan selepas 'present' history depan doktor dan atas sebab beberapa kejayaan kecil yang lain. clap-clap  :)* and suddenly, the idea came.

Satu soalan, pernah tak korang kena marah sebab cakap benda yang 'tak penting'? Ada la kadang-kadang yang mungkin komen, "Kau ni suka cakap benda mengarut. Ketuk kang." *padahal bila dia berpaling kat orang sebelah, boleh pulak sembang pasal hensemnya hero Korea etc etc. As if that's not considered as nonsense or 'mengarut'. Haha*   Pernah kan pernah kan? If so, then how do you know whether what you're going to say is important or not? Perlu ke korang cakap pasal kerja, pasal agama, pasal negara dll semata-mata sebab disuruh berhenti bercakap mengenai benda-benda yang tak penting? Takkan kena cakap pasal benda yang serius sepanjang masa sebab kononnya nak cakap mengenai perkara yang penting je? Frankly, I would rather be a social recluse if that's all I'm allowed to talk about and I definitely do not how to talk only on the so called 'benda penting'. 

So, here's my idea on this topic. Kalau nak tahu apa yang korang nak cakap tu penting atau tidak, cuba fikir kaitannya dengan perbualan antara korang dengan kawan korang tu. Maksudnya, kalau orang tu tengah cakap pasal pelajaran, janganlah tetiba korang cakap pasal game pulak. Memang nak kena hempuklah. Haha. Lagi, kalau orang tengah cakap pasal anime, janganlah korang tetiba menjampuk cerita pasal politik pulak. *orang macam ni memang nak kena ketuk. XD*   Get what I mean? Orang kita kata, jangan nak tukar topiklah. Kalau orang cakap pasal agama, korang pun cakaplah pasal tu jugak, ataupun kalau dah tak reti sangat nak cakap apa, diam je. For me, that's basically all. As long as what you're trying to say is somehow relatable to what people are talking about, it can be considered as important *at least towards the conversation *. n_n   Lagipun, kekadang dengan bersembang benda 'mengarut' ni la yang dapat buat persahabatan kita lagi erat. Kekadang Jaw sendiri pun boleh bersembang dengan orang yang tak dikenali sebab kami tengok anime yang sama. Haha. Itu kira mantaplah tu. XD

However, there's one thing worth taking note. Tak elok banyak cakap benda-benda mengarut. Sikit-sikit sembang pasal game, sikit-sikit pasal drama Jepun/Korea/Taiwan/Hindustan etc. Memang buat orang menyampahlah. Haha. Bila serius, kita serius, bila main, kita main. *ayat standard kat memana kem XD*   As long as you can build a healthy relationship with people, your friends, and as long as your words do not aggrieve anyone, what's wrong with saying it? Kan? That's all for now. Thank you for reading and wait for the next update. Dōmo arigatou.

~Jaw~