Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Pearls & Gem : Surah Al 'Alaq [ The Clot ].. [ Letter 96 , Ayat 1 to 8 ]

Read : In the name of thy Lord Who Createth ,[1]
Created man from a clot .[2]
Read : And thy Lord is the Most Bounteous ,[3]
Who teacheth by the pen ,[4]
Teacheth man that which he knew not .[5]
Nay , but verily man is rebellious [6]
That he thinketh himself independent .[7]
Lo ! Unto thy Lord is the return .[8]


Read ,my friends ,read !

Read the immensity of the universe and the Arash ,The Throne .The universe is a speck of dust compared to the 'Chair' ,the 'Chair' is just a speck dust within the Arash . Dust upon dust upon dust upon dust . That is what we are !

Read the beauty and splendour of created things .This universe and the heaven started from nothing .Then 'Kun Fayakun' , 'one entity ' ,then the The Big Bang .Heaven ,galaxies of stars split asunder .A 'controlled ' explosion : an ever expanding universe , the Milky Way and millions of galaxy of stars like that,millions and millions of light years apart .Some of the light of stars percolating through space so distant away that the original stars are already 'burnt out' but the ensuing light will keep coming for millions of years to come .The complexities of the universe and heaven are a million times more than life itself . "If all the oceans are ink ,and all the earth trees would be pens ,nothing can justify the immensity of Lord's Knowledge " ..quote unquote from the Glorious Quran.

Read the paradox in the immense complexity and simplicity of life itself :Life is just a 'sea of biochemical reactions separated by billions of cell membranes .Thoughts are just 'electrical charges' at synaptic junctions of billions of neurons ,interconnected into myriads of complex circuits .Yet who are 'we' ,what are these entities called 'myself' ,'me' ,'you' ,'us' and 'them' ?
Where and what are 'souls' ?

Read in the beauty and simplicity of complex mathematical theorem ,photons ,Cern partical ,matter and anti matter- matter .Read in the movement of the stars and planets ,in the nostalgic symphony of life giving rain and sunshine .

Read into the simplicity and finality of this life itself : a sperm journeying up the 'Yangtze River' thousands of 'sperm miles' up to meet an ovum followed by fertilization ,cell division from one to a hundred , blastocoele stage to morulla ,then differentiation into stem cells ,then billions of cells forming tissues ,tissues forming organs and organs forming a group of closely interlinked systems :cardiovascular ,neurological ,digestive ,skin ,musculo-skeletal so on and so forth .Fetus ,baby ,young man ,middle age ,old age and finally death .

"
Nay but verily man is rebellious ,[6]
That he thinketh himself independent .[7]
Lo ! Unto thy Lord is the return .[8]"

Yes , indeed ,our journeying has a return , unto thy Lord is the final return !
Inna lillah hiwainna ilaihirojiun .

Dr Nik Howk

ps : You may wonder why I am so introspective and 'gloomy' today .Yesterday was my 57th birthday ,the evening of most life ..I received news my 40 year old 1st cousin died in the morning , I was still busy doing some emergency 'plumbing work' on another 40 plus year old at 2 am . in the wee hours of this morning .What a life !
40 plus ,my friends ,is just about the right time to die even though in my book , life actually starts at 50 .Go figure it out , this apparent paradox .

6 comments:

Mohamad Farez Abdul Karim said...

happy belated birthday bapak!

:)


*nice blog u write here.

Anonymous said...

Salam.Happy birthday Dr Nik.Biasalah umur macam kita ni tentu ramai kawan dan keluarga yang dah pergi.kita yang tinggal kena terus buat baik supaya timbang berat sikit..huhu!

Pearls and Gem said...

Bukan buat baik saja Fiz ,kena selalu fikir baik dan masa turun rumah pergi kerja ,mula dengan 'bismillah'.Insyaallah walau pun kerja angkut sampah DBKL ,dapat pahala .

I was in Bali years back and I saw people there in a continous state of 'prayer' .I thought mashaallah orang Hindu di Bali ni special tapi when I reexamine kita punya value system kita lagi special .

Tak ada kaum di muka bumi ini yang sembahyang lebih dari orang Islam technically : Obligatory saja dah lima ,well spread over the whole day as a reminder of our Maker .Ni belum masuk tahajjud ,zikir dan etc etc .

Yang sayangnya sembahyang kita tidak memperkasakan kita jadi viceroy Allah dibumi ini .

Ini kita kena tanyahati kita dimana kita tersalah .Kalau bagi bank kat Melayu sekarang habis bank kena gadai .Bagi airline ,sampai tayar kapal terbang pun bukan kita punya dah .bagi tanah dijual kat Ah Chong .Bagi project buat jalan,ambil berjuta juta up front ,sampai keanak cucu kena bayar toll mahal .

And we call ourselves Muslims .

Anonymous said...

Haqqan, it needs rethinking of our ingrained values over the generations, ada yang tak betul.In some ways hardship will do this but it is painful...
Salam.

zaman said...

Dear Dr Nik

Happy belated Birthday.

At 2 am in the morning you are still doing an "inbadah" helping other.
In my case at an age of almost 58 years old, I am still working in oil and gas industry in Sudan, for some work hoping I could collect enough money to go on after retirement in 2 years time.

Sometime I wonder if I am doing the right thing……… or should I just go back to Malaysia and prepare to go on with whatever I have collected to date..

Pearls and Gem said...

K'Zaman,

Jangan fikir macam tu member!
turun rumah,'bismallah'.Turun di Khartoum, 'bismillah'.Pagi2 masa nak pergi ke Oil Field, 'bismillah'.

Insyallah semua tu di kira.You are doing a national service, perbesarkan kantung Negara. What Mahathir or pak lah or as now najib did with Petronas is beyond you and me. That is the responsibility of the Prince/s. They carry a bigger burden! Passport checks lebih. banyak soalan perlu dijawab.

At the end of time many of us would rather be 'that green slime in the rock', not accountable for any thing!