Tuesday, May 30, 2006

this is Qalb

It is at this time of the month when everything suddenly goes the wrong way.

I am all hormonal
The room is messy
The final oral is on Thursday but I can't get my head into it
The doses of the medications are all ruined
I can't see the link between 150mg oral Ranitidine and twin labour
I miss my parents so much
I wanna call them but I don't have a calling card
I wanna go home badly
I have to get the laundry done
Oh God I hate doing laundry
Papers are all over me
My healthy diet is ruined
I cooked white sauce pasta from scratch and realized how much fat in it
I ate the pasta anyway cos it's delicious (self-complement)
I still can't believe how much butter they use to make that sauce
I will think twice next time I order spaghetti cacciatore in Verona
I started having sore throat last night
It's getting worse
I've ran out of medications
I don't wanna take the oral with a husky voice and a temperature
I have 50% chance of getting Prof Malone for my oral
He is not a very amusing gentleman
I am freaking out
And that overrides my efforts
I am now anxious
I have to run few errands for my clinical electives
No one's helping me when I asked for help
It actually saddens me
Got few text messages from people I met in Acheh
That kinda cheered me up a lil bit
At least someone still remember me
Oh I'm such a sad sad person

Praying for a better end of this mess.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

a blessing in disguise?

As I am writing this entry, death tolls from the recently hit by quake Yogjakarta keeps on rising by minutes. The first thing that crossed my mind upon learning that news was, "MashaAllah, satu lagi ujian Allah pada hamba-Nya." Face of a friend that I know of who's reading medicine there emerged in my head, apa kabar dia dan kawan-kawannya agaknya..

It kinda saddens me thinking about the conditions of fellow Muslims around the world; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of lands and dignities in Palestine and Chechnya, the occupation of the minds in lots of other Muslim countries (or any title they claimed to be). As if that's not enough, we had tsunami in Acheh and Sri Lanka, followed by the major earthquake in Pakistan, and now another trial from Allah SWT to test His servants; the recent quake in Java, which just opened up another possibilities of an eruption of Gunung Merapi later on, wa naudzubillahimindhaalik. And what about the chronic unfinished business in Sudan and other parts of Africa, and the silent tumours of Southern Thailand and Cambodia which are killing the Muslims there very slowly?

There's so much things happening I don't know where to start. How could someone so tiny (literally) and incapable like me offers any good when the world is falling towards a great imbalance of basically everything!

Hmmm.

But I also learnt that chances are nil if we only play a bystander role. Our ummah is haemorrhaging (read: bleeding profusely) and in dire need for our helps. Perhaps Allah SWT gives the Muslims all of these catastrophies to test how far other Muslims would go to offer help. Ingat kisah burung pipit yang nak tolong padamkan api yang dinyalakan Namrud untuk bakar Nabi Ibrahim A.S dengan menggunakan paruhnya? Burung lain tanya kenapa ko buat ni? Impossible la boleh padamkan..(that's my line..). Tapi si pipit tu kata, "Inilah usaha yang aku dah buat. Dapatlah aku menjawab bila Allah bertanya nanti, apa yang aku dah buat.."

That was a bird, of beak the size of lesser than a teaspoon. What about us? The complex being that has been given the responsibilities as khalifah cum servant in this world; of every details of deed and sin is written down each moments, what do we answer when Allah asks us later? Not only that we're not helping, we somehow contribute to the damages by our acts and ignorance, what more of the fatalities we've caused with our own hands!

Nonetheless, I've also learnt that it's never too late to repent. What's done is done, and there's a lot of opportunities to amend the damage. Help, by all means. When we're comfortably eating nasi lemak and teh tarik during one very fine morning, our brothers and sisters in Sudan are dying of hunger and thirts, and late at night when we slip into our warm duvets, the homeless kids in Palestine are dying of coldness and deprivations. There are a lot of non-profit organizations out there that offer the platforms to help. Here I give some of the main charity bodies that runs the appeals and works, with them soiling their feet in these messy yet inshaAllah rewarding business, the least we can do is donate and support right? Afterall, I remember one of the hadith which says,
“A Muslim is a brother of (another) Muslim, he neither wrongs him nor hand him over to one who does him wrong. If anyone fulfils his brother’s needs, Allah will fulfil his needs; if one relieves a Muslim of his troubles, Allah will relieve his troubles on the day of resurrection; and if anyone covers up a Muslim (his sins), Allah will cover him up (his sins) on the Resurrection Day.” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)

Wah bestnye..






Please do help.

May Allah SWT help us back later.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

duvet talk: antara usaha dan logik..

Once in the middle of an exam week I put my YM status as: "Ngantuknye, kopi ni tipuuuu..". Yep, that night my strong sugarless black coffee infusion didn't work on my system and I wonder why.

Not long after that accusative statement being put up I received a buzz from one of my adiks here, she gave me a huge ha-ha on that line and said how cute I was being (OK I add that myself). Before ending the conversation she simply said to me, "Takpe, K.Shu doa kat Allah mintak supaya tak ngantuk utk study ni OK!" I thought- how cute and naive she was being, it's like my 7 years old nephew Naqib always said on everything, "Takpe haaa nanti Acu doa je kat Allah mintak Dia kasi Acu duit banyak, lepas tu boleh belikan Akib light saber!" Although he definitely got the wrong concept of growing money out of nothingness, the pure concept of submission unto God The Almighty on everything that he has in his mind is something I have sometimes overlooked and taken for granted.

Logic serves; u drink coffee and the caffeine increases your metabolisms and makes your heart works harder to pump more blood to your brain. Logically and normally in a healthy being, you should NOT feel sleepy after caffeine ingestions, right? Hey I have friends who would be elated and smiling and talking all day long after drinking a can of coke, like I said, in a normal subject caffeine makes one hyper-everything. So why was I still sleepy that night?

Let's look at a different case. Logically, when a person gives out his/her 100% efforts to surpass an ordeal to reach a certain target, he/she should get what he/she's aiming for in the end. Because he/she has really worked in according to what it takes to achieve. That's LOGIC. But sometimes people still fails despite their great efforts. Betul tak?

Why?

Coz human tends to forget that there's another Power out there ruling what's reachable and unreachable, what we think logic and illogic and what's likable and despicable; He who rules everything.

Coffee will make you sleepy if He wants to, and you will eventually fail at your best efforts if He doesn't allow you to achieve. What's logical suddenly seemed illogical in His controls, and that's something we should put our faith in. That's why scientists who depend on logics solely can go crazy if their findings oppose what they always thought as logic or should be-. The emergence of many school of sciences demands people to use more logics to think;
jika, A = Hairol
dan, B = Nasi Goreng Ayam Berlada
apabila A memakan B,
maka = logiklah A akan kenyang dan B akan hilang
dan = tak logik A akan bertambah lapar dan B akan berganda menjadi dua set

(typical la ilmu penaakulan yg kita belajar kat sekolah menengah dulu);

I don't blame this teaching at all in fact I think it's great, but holding on too tightly on logics in great imbalance can lead to excess that abandons us to realize that there's Allah the Almighty, the One who controls the world and its lives and deaths. That's why people commits suicide when their million dollar worth of investments on a project that was growing finely suddenly collapsed.

Coz they don't know that maybe Allah makes them lost their great worldly investments to clear their sins so that in the hereafter they don't have to carry the carcasses of riba', or maybe Allah makes them feel sleepy after a cup of coffee to prevent them from staying up late and didn't wake up for fajr prayer the next morning, maybe Allah fails them the first time so they could learn and grow out of their failures to become a better achiever later.

It all comes back to the concept of working purely for the sake of Allah SWT, or my friend used to say in layman's term, "usaha lebih penting, end results Allah yang tentukan.." We will be rewarded for the work and efforts we do in order to achieve, and if we win the trophy at the end of it that's a bonus for us. Winning is not justified by looking at the end product of our works, coz the destiny of our lives has all been written by Allah SWT; be it good or bad we don't know. Our duty is to work the journey towards what's destined for us in the most humble and sincere submission to Him, and with that comes the greatest rewards we can attain for the life in the hereafter.

We won't know what'll be served on our plate later, but if we don't work hard to earn the food from the very beginning then what options do we have other than not eating? In opposite sometimes people gets 'lucky' and eats eventually, but won't the food taste better if we earn every single spoon of it? (It's a really nice morning and I decided to use metaphores). And verily, the luckiest person in the world is the one who is grateful on whatever food Allah has given on his/her plate after he/she has put the best efforts to earn the food; be it tasty or bland. Period.

So I'll keep drinking my black coffee and trying my best to stay awake, and I will make du'a to Allah to grant me bright eyes (and heart), but I know in the end it's Him that'll decide whether I shall be awake or asleep. That's me, people of faith and science, inshaAllah.

Cukuplah Allah kuandalkan hidupku dan matiku.

Monday, May 15, 2006

awan dan aku

Hari ni aku lihat awan hitam berat berarak sepanjang hari. Tak hujan, walaupun tanda-tandanya sudah cukup syarat. Hari ni hati aku berat macam awan hitam. Semalam hujan turun dan segala yang terpendam dalam hati mengalir macam air hujan. Mungkin hujan perlu turun untuk hati aku lega kembali. Mungkin kerana hari ini Garfield tak datang ke tingkap bilik aku jadi kesepian lalu sedih.

Ah aku terlalu kompleks untuk disandarkan pergantunganku pada kucing oren itu.

Mungkin aku duduk tengok awan lama sangat. Mungkin..


9 Asas kefahaman seorang muslim


1) DASAR

Dasar kehidupan seorang muslim ialah berusaha untuk menegakkan agama Allah (ISLAM) di muka bumi.

2) RUJUKAN

Menjadikan Al-Quran sebagai sumber pedoman diikuti hadis/sunnah

3) TUJUAN HIDUP

Kehidupan seorang muslim adalah semata-mata untuk mendapatkan redha Allah s. w. t. Menjadikan diri sebagai seorang hamba yang betul-betul taat kepadaNya.

4) TUGAS KITA

Kerja harian kita adalah menyempurnakan perhambaan diri kepada Allah s. w. t dengan cara yang digariskan oleh Al-Quran dan sunnah Rasulullah s. a. w

5) FUNGSI

Pertama ; menegakkan cara hidup berteraskan agama Allah (ISLAM) dan penghayatan pengabdian kepadaNya ; dan mendirikan pentadbiran dunia yang berteraskan kepada agama Allah (ISLAM).

Kedua ; Meneruskan perjuangan yang dimulakan oleh Rasulullah dan para sahabat.

6) ALAT

Pertama ; Harta - ikhlas dalam mengorbankan harta benda, wang dan sebagainya semata- mata untuk melaksanakan tujuan hidup, tugas dan fungsi.

Kedua ; Nyawa - sanggup menggadaikan nyawa untuk kepentingan agama Allah

7) MODEL CONTOH

Seorang muslim wajib menjadikan Rasulullah sebagai contoh hidup. Dan juga para sahabat yang menggunakan manhaj nubuwwah sebagai asas kehidupan mereka.

8) KENALI KAWAN

Pertama ; suami isteri yang saling memahami.

Kedua ; seluruh umat Islam, dan meyakini bahawa umat Islam yang berbagai bangsa dan keturunan adalah satu keluarga yang berasal daripada Adam dan Hawa.

9) KENALI MUSUH

Pertama ; Iblis dan syaitan

Kedua ; Manusia yang mempunyai ciri-ciri syaitan.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

In time like this..

I haven't had any decent sleep since yesterday. Mind-fogged. My mind devoids of logics. I can't seem to find them now.

The exam's so near I stopped breathing each time I think about it. And thinking about the obligations I'm bound to fulfill each time I testify my faith in my prayers, the syahadah - the syahadatul-haq, have I actually omitted my grand duties in my life?

In time like this great companionships are what's keeping me intact. The ones that soothe the heart with their encouraging smiles and words. Sometimes you get scratches and aches along the long winding road, but they'll eventually heal better with great companions alongside with you.

This road we're taking is going to be long, difficult and full of storms. There's no promises that we'd still be here to taste the undubitable sweet end of this. History taught us that victory is not to be hastened, we must be very patience and work hard. We will be ready when we're ready. Till then, faith to the promised certainty at the end of this is what we're holding on to, and pray to Allah SWT, for there is no better submission than unto Him.