A Sunday in UPM

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

Sandalwood - Kayu Cendana

I almost forgotten about this site. Have been quite busy lately. It has been almost two years I am stuck with the thesis. I had sent few things to be corrected and still not receiving approval. I guess my supervisor is a kind of perfectionist. It is good to be a perfectionist but we cannot be sure that everything that we produce is perfect. So, brothers and sisters. It is not easy to produce a thesis... I think I would just send it in total to the school to be evaluated maybe like next week before the due date on 7th of December 2012, insha Allah... hehehe...

I had also tried to maintain my rituals as always but I find that it becomes more tough as the day time seems to be shorter than the night one. Maybe in our region. I do not know about other regions unless if I check the weather cast and observing their time.

Well, this evening I just followed my mother to an agricultural expo in Universiti Putra Malaysia. To be honest, I do not like to be among the crowd though sometimes I would feel the importance to have some friends to talk with. I love peacefulness and tranquility more and feel better when I am alone. I am just like that. 

I did not buy anything but my mother bought few things she likes, hehe. I think it is ok as long as she knows the limit and not wasting. Other than that, most ladies sure love to shopping and but things that they like. I understood that and my mother has not really bought anything like jewelry for herself. We do not believe in anything like gold or silver as possession because we are nomadic kind of people. Some of my sisters who had already been to the expo yesterday said that they are interested in business and trade. Well, it is not my nature and inclination. I do not care if people say anything like I have got no life or anything. We do anything because of "specific purpose" and because of the "necessities". What do we really need? Are we really deprived to practice the life of merchants and traders? If we set up the business, we would have to get loan and being tied to materialism because we would always need to roll the capital. We would also have to be aggressive in order to survive in business world and we may tyrannize others or being tyrannized too.  It involves the karmma and it would not easily being stopped...

I just asked my mother to help me to buy a sandalwood tree to be planted behind our house. It is useful for religious rituals and respecting the scripture. It is also a Mediterranean culture to lit up sandalwood in scripture recitation and to "purify" the house's smell for rituals. We have also got some little "lady's finger" plants distributed by the ministry of agriculture in the expo by just filling up the form. Because it involves the "efforts" that I have to write to get the plants so I accept the trees. I do not like to take donated things because it involves our ancestors' dignity and advices. I tried to tell this to all of my family members but because they are not specifically being trained in religious responsibilities so they do not really understand what am I trying to tell them. I think I need to ask people on how to take care the sandalwood tree.   

How's brothers and sisters 'Ashura fasting yesterdays? I just performed it on the 9th day of Muharram and on the 10th of Muharram. It is an optional fasting anyway just to commemorate the liberation of Moses a.s and his people from Egypt but if brothers and sisters performed that. I would like to congratulate you. Other than that I just did some light chest beating, mourning and some prayers for imam Ali r.a, imam Hassan r.a, imam Hussain r.a and other family members alone at the mosque after the Maghrib. 

I walked to the mosque because I do not like people to see me like following some kind of cult and maybe sometimes there are differences because of jurisprudence school as I am a Hanbali in the midst of Shafi'ies. So, praying and worshiping in a larger space would be better because I could hide behind the walls and pillars. I saw Twelver Shi'a brothers performed beating and procession too but I do not think that it is necessary to hurt ourselves just to show how deep our love and sorry for the Ahl Bayt and imam Ali r.a family. I am aware that there are few of the Twelver marjas talked about the importance of the mourning for them. 

I think it is just more than enough to be moderate and pray also for all bani Hashim clan and all Muslim brethren regardless nations and spreading love to all people regardless faith and background. Try not to be selective. Prayers for mercy to be granted upon all is better than prayers for anathema on others because His Forgiveness is wide. 

Reminder too. This month of Muharram is among four respected months within our traditions and rites. We should try to avoid tyranny, war, battle, quarrels and stay away from fighting others or each other if they do not start anything which harm us or our existence. Verses mentioning about these could be founded in Surat al-Tawbah verses 6 and 36. There are also numbers of hadiths mentioning about which months are those respected months and hadiths about practices in the respected months ranging from extremely weak to valid. 

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love, amin!      

What Am I Doing in Gap Period???

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

My new hair I shaved it all on 29th of July 2012

I don't know actually what I wanted to write. I still have the balance of the thesis to be finished before December 2012. So, kinda stopping by and reading again what I wrote. Found them very weird maybe I wrote them in several moods, hehe. Ow yeah, just letting brothers and sisters who read this about the job interview on 15th of August 2012. I guess the job is not meant for me as they never call me even after the 'Eid holiday to inform me whether I am eligible or else. So, it is ok maybe Allah has other plan for me. I'm not so much hoping for the job and I sent other applications to other companies and organizations as well. 

Sometimes when we see around of course it would make us thinking that we have no life like other people as they are settled down, have money, possessions, married and could relax with friends during holiday doing activities like sport or vacation together with friends. It would be lying to say that if we looked and something and we would not be thinking because we have brain and soul. Lying is a portal to sins, hehe. Think it in other way around. Maybe it would also be stressful to work as not all people facing the same situation. I just think to pay my study loan which I think is not good thing to be postpones. I hate debts and I regret that I took it when doing undergraduate papers. After few years pondering and contemplating; I guess our education system nowadays, not only in our country but in whole world is to get human labors rather than for the development of civilization based on humanity values but we would ask what kind of labors that we need? 

There are many rough jobs in services like waiter, receptionist, call center customer service, supervisors, management trainee and others. There are also rough jobs like construction sectors and others. There would be questions asked by people who are already settled down, why university graduates (they who ask are also graduates) refuse to work in service fields and others and trying to grab their positions in government or private sectors? Let me answer, because people who ask the question also never do that kind of job. If they did the job, did they do it permanently? Certainly no because doing the job like that is tiresome, consists of shifts and they took away our resting time which could be used to develop spiritual knowledge like studying scriptures. So, we ask others, why not we think in the shoes of others? Just try to put our ruh (soul) inside the body of the person that we asked. I personally hate when people that I encountered asking me, what are you doing right now? Where are you working? It is a sensitive question to other people who are jobless, try to talk about other things for example like what food you love to eat? This is more polite for me. Other than that, why would we tell kids to study and get through the university if we can get labors without wasting government expenditure? It is just a waste time to study in the university while we could earn money and buy low-cost house if we just go right away to work after O-Level or even LCE. Basic school education is more than enough.        

Well, in this gap period which is the period where I am stuck before transferring to other phase of life I would read all sorts of thing especially things related to philosophies because those books are in my father's collection and I don't have to buy them. Many people who don't really engaged in philosophies might think that I have some short circuits in my head when I talk but I am actually talking philosophies and I am talking about daily human life. Sometimes I just use rough words used in daily life without using high academic words because most of all many people in the world talk more than observe or reading. Philosophies was banned during the period of struggle between imam al-Ghazali and the Shi'a Muslims or Mu'tazila groups related to the Creed about God. I also discussed with mom to dispose some books and just leaving behind religious studies books. I would try to memorize some important religious books for example prayers or hadiths that I could memorize and jot them down again beside practicing them before disposing those books too as to preserve the contents of the books. 

I walked at night around my family's house neighborhood. Maybe I would take some stroll at 12 a.m alone and reciting Quranic verses while walking for two or three hours greeting the unseen brothers and sisters around, hehe. I found that I don't have any surviving friends in my neighborhood anymore. Last time I was in lower six class, I had some friends but all of them had already furthering studies in various colleges and universities before we could even end our form six classes, hehe. Many had moved out from the area too and I don't make any new friend anymore here after we also moved out from old quarter. 

Yesterday's evening I just bought some exercise books to jot down Farsi lessons and starting some translation of kitabs into Chinese for future usage. It's just to increase my knowledge about Islam in Chinese language so next time when Chinese friends asking for information, I would easily convey the message in pure, plain and non-mixed Chinese. I found that Farsi is an interesting language and one of my acquaintance studying in Iran also learned the language and Islamic philosophies there. Rarely talk to him but sometimes I would chat with him and enjoy listening his experience and researches.

I also read some blogs written in Malay about random people life and their language style is quite nice, loll. Dah macam baca novel la pulak. I envy these people as they could write in proper Malay. I just know how to write in dialectical Malay which sometimes people don't understand and sometimes the grammar is upside down, hahaha.  

Sleepy, I need to rest my eyes...  Please help me praying for my father's health and may I finish my thesis before December, insha Allah.

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love, amin!    

I Wanna Go Home

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

 Salem al-Ghawwas

I wanna go home. I don't want to see people anymore. This place sucks... I don't belong here. My 'time' here has finished when I was graduated as an undergraduate. 

I don't need this master certificate. It is useless anyway when I go out I will still have to show my degree certificate as people will refuse me if I show my master degree. But now I am almost to the end of the term. I regret accepting the letter. I regret coming here. I regret also mingled with people. I should avoid human-being. I should not study this. I think I am cursed by my elders prayers. My mother also had once prayed that I should be a jurist studying Shariah and the Path. When I talked and asked her she reveals that she indeed prayed that for me. I should not listen to any political leaders' words or being like others but only sticking to my ancestral path and fate. Now I feel everything is wrong in myself. I don't know whether I should knock my head to the wall or what? When I see people faces I just feel like I wanted to cry. All of my limited friends had also gone.

No Friends No Spiritual Brothers

I remembered that I only had three friends who never mingle together but only spending times with me at certain time when they are free during my undergraduate times. I had also lost contact with my friend during lower A-Level after I dropped out, Hisham. I can't make friends with people around when I was a primary or secondary school kid because I had identity conflict and Malay kids actually do not really accept me nor can I mingle with them :'( Now I could only think I should cease from the world without anyone realize it. I read from Abdul Malik Amrullah books. He said that a person actually can marry and have children but they will eventually find their friends to tell about their problems. I had see this happened to my father. Now, he is facing the problem which we call it as Jiwa Kacau (psychological problem). He used to have many friends before and spending his time drinking teh tarik at mamak restaurants or stalls. Last time an Indonesian brother had also told me if you feel bored go get marry when I said I am bored. Actually I am bored staying in USM and Penang not because I have no wife or girls to cuddle. I don't even care if people love me or not because I was never treated with love by people around. I just received insults and being offended. When I treat people with love it is because I don't want people to feel what I feel. They should not feel like that or being tortured.

No Magical nor Miracles

I feel lazy to argue with people when people always think an easy solution. I can't blame anyone and I do recognize that people are of different thoughts. So, I begin to disband myself from people. Because people sometimes talk without using their brain or simply because they never see the "whole picture" yet but only because they hear this from that thing or that person. From this blog or that blog. I am writing here not only from my readings although that also influence me. It is also from my experience of life that really happened. Also the conflicts that happened in myself regarding my religion and faith. I am reading hadith though I am not a Tabligh or Ahlul Hadith. I should be a jurist who studies Quran and Sunnah before this but now I was an outcast and not belong to any groups. I just returned to my family order when I realized about myself and my ethnicity. It's not my desire but it is our nature and we have no choice. I was angry when I listened to some Tabligh brothers talking about this wali (saint) or seeing saints. I don't know how they understood it maybe they think a saint is something like magical stuffs. I was angry to them because I love them and I don't want them to be 'cursed' and 'tested'. It is unbearable. Being a wali is not fun. These people do not necessarily wearing like turban or walking on the water or being from any mission order or movement. I saw few walis in my life among them were my maternal grandparents and I am aware about that. That is why I am very discreet when I am talking to people because I sometimes could sense them and I am afraid of the consequence for hurting them. They do not only live like poor people, but also facing torments from around. Even when they passed away with diseases, their own family leaving them alone. They help people a lot when they were alive but when it comes to them they just gone like that. People only realize about them after they passed away. Please kindly don't spread this wide to people I beg brothers and sisters who are visiting this meaningless side. I don't really want to hear any nonsense notions about magical stuffs or walis. There is no such thing. Indeed I have bad feeling when I hear the word wali or saint. 

Torturing       

Ya Allah! this is so torturing.... I wish nobody know me. I wish to be only wind. Nobody see me. I want to perish... I always pray like mother Maryam prayed when she was about to give birth to prophet Jesus a.s: "O dear... I wish that I am dead before this and being something which has no significance forgotten by everyone" (Surah Maryam v. 23). I hate myself, I hate this world. This world is not for me. I think I lived like an animal since I was a little child. People around treated me like I am a genie. I tried to check back my good memories, but nothing. I have no good memories. When I mingle with people around I just feel down especially nobody understand what happens in my inner side. I have no self-respect.

Ya Allah please forgive me for once being an Atheist or Zindiq or Buddhist whatever it is. I am so sorry I know and realized my sins. I cry to You dear Lord I try to return to my nature. I scared people away too and even missed few good friends because I think that I am not a good brother as compared to them. I just wanted to be like other normal people mingle around without talking about religion just simply be a lay man. But in the end I still become like this........ Please help me calm down ya Allah make me patient and guide me please with holy spirit. Indeed patience is beautiful. 

Ya Allah please don't let any of my beloved brother and sister experienced what I had experienced. Protect them please.      

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love amin!