Conversation post Isra' Mikraj

And walk not in the earth exultant. Lo! thou canst not rend the earth, nor canst thou stretch to the height of the hills.[17:3]

{ In typical TGNA lingo when he 'kupas' this ayat I could think he would have done it this way:Mung jange dok fikir mung nin gedebe dan menggak sangat. Mung nin manusio jale atah buming aku pong mache semut. Jijok tanoh pong tak bekkah, palo mung pong tak setinggi mano, bukit Aku jauh lebeh tingg.Mung, selagi mung nin nama dio manusio, jange dok sohor sangat. Kalu Aku tak bagi mung kentut separuh hari pong mung dah mengaum sakit masuk spita! Jange mung dok meto dengae Aku. Belum lagi Aku bagi sepelet hok besar besar!

Aku bagi Kitab Aku, mung kato mung tok sir ikut pasal kitab tok nenek mung lebih canggih!. Aku bagi mung peluang binin pat, mung kato lebih suko main bontot denga belago punggong. Aku larae mung dari berhutae dengae ceti, mung nok main derivatif, sub prime, futures.Aku suroh ikut undae undae Aku, mung kato undae undae hok tok nenek mung buat lebih baik! Undae undae Aku kolot, tak ada perikemanusiaan, primitif....

Begitu lah agaknya, in his indomitable, simple Kelantanese style which has endeared him for years amongst his folks.TGNA as always is very sharp with his Tafseer. The examples he usually uses are easily understood by the masses. That is why when I read in the Star today about Hadi Awang backing down from his original plan to form a 'Unity' government with NTR, I can comprehend why.Hadi Awang can be the President but in the realms of thing he is no where near TGNA. NTR has to talk to TGNA. Fullstop. If that old man does not want to talk, NTR has to find ways to talk to him.NTR has alot of excess baggage: MIC,MCA,MACC,MRS....PKFZ, KT and other clowns which he finds difficult to off-load..BN East Malaysia is BN East Malaysia.BN's days are numbered. Talk he must.No point whistling in the dark. That is the ballgame.}

And We reveal the Qur'an that which is a healing and a mercy for believers though it increases the evil-doers in naught save ruin.[17:82]
And when We make life pleasant unto man, he turned away and is averse; and when ill touched him, heis in despair.[83]

Say O Muhammad: Each one doth according to his rule of conduct, and thy Lord is best aware of him whose way is right.[84]

They will ask thee concerning the Spirit. Say:
"The Spirit is by command of my Lord and of knowledge ye has been vouchsafed but little!".[85] And if We willed We could withdraw that which We have revealed unto thee, then would thou find no guardian for thee against Us in respect thereof.[86]

It is not save mercy from thy Lord. Lo! His kindness unto thee was ever great.[87]
Say: Verily, though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers of one another.[88]
And verily We have displayed for mankind in this Qur'an all kind of similitudes, but most mankind aught save disbelieve.[89]

And they say: "We will not put faith in thee till thou cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us;[90] Or thou have a garden of date-palms and grapes, and cause rivers to gush forth therein abundantly;[91]
Or thou cause the heaven to fall upon us piecemeal, as thou hast pretended, or bring Allah and the angels as a warrant;[92]
Or thou has a house full of gold; or thou ascend up into the heaven, and even then we will put no faith in thine ascension till thou bring down for us a book that we can read.

Say O Muhammad: My Lord be glorified! Am I aught just a mortal messenger.[93]

And nought prevented mankind from believing when the guidance came unto them save that they said: Hath Allah sent a mortal as His messenger?[94]
Say: If there are in the earth angels walikng secure, We had sent down as messenger.[95]
Say: Allah sufficeth for a witness between me and you. Lo! He is Knower, Seer of His slaves.[96]

And he whom Allah guideth, he is led aright; while as for him whom He sendeth astray, for them thou will find no protecting friends besides Him, and We shall assemble them on the Day of Resurrection on their faces, blind, dumb and deaf; their habitation will be hell; whenever it abateth, We increase the flame for them.[17:97]

{.....Masyaallah! God ,give us 'kesejahteraan' here and in the hereafter.Jauhkanlah kami dari 'fitnah Dajjal' dan 'seksa kubur' and,God, keep us away from your hellfire!
Matikanlah kami didalam keadaan husnul khatimah!
Berkatikanlah kami dengan anak isteri yang sentiasa akan mendoakan sejahteraan kami dialam barzazk Mu, bukan menjadi 'fitnah' kepada kami.}

And say: Praise unto Allah, Who hath not taken unto Himself a son, and Who hath no partner in the Sovereignty, nor hath He any protecting friend through dependence. And magnify Him with all magnificence.[Al Isra',17:111]

Can We Still be Proud to be Malaysians?

"Teoh"s death:
80 % homicide,just 20 % suicide.
Dr Pornthip


......................

Lingam Tapes: Closed!
No evidence found to prove abuse
in judicial appointments


.......................

Now tell me,
Can we still be proud to be Malaysians?
What happened to all our prayers?
What type of Muslims have we become?
Which Qur'an do we use?

Stem Cell Research, Ihsan, Iman and Amal and all that jazz....

4 AM.Still tossing and moving in bed. Too much adrenaline. Could not sleep tonight.Just visited a long time friend earlier in the evening, who just came back from the USA. He went to a 'centre of excellence' in 'neurovascular intervention' in Minnesota, USA, seeking for an 'endoluminal' treatment[cerebral angioplasty and carotid artery stenting] to his blocked arteries in his brain.Thirty days later, and nearly 2 million RM poorer,he came back no better.Almost lost his life during the procedure.

Lesson? No issues involved here, and no 'moral of the story' from my view point. Complications do occur even in the best of places. When it does,drives the 'shit out' of your patients[he could have died!] and the doctors.If it happened in the best centre in the US be prepared to cough out 50k RM a day for a CCU bed!And we Malaysians go berserk when a fully ventilated patient on megadoses of antibiotics and multiple cathethers going in and out of the body,a typical 'bad case' in private intensive care, do creep up to 2k RM per day!Intensive critical care medicine is very expensive standard everywhere with spiraling cost and high techs.[ We do not use stents or antibiotic made from Jinjang or Kepong! All US or Europe].In the US of A, just time it by a multiplier of 20, though.

We discussed 'Stem Cell research and progress' over dinner.It is bludgeoning everywhere.Especially in Asia, namely China.StemCellChina.com is selling it as if it is already established clinical practice.Elsewhere around the world, people are more cautious. It is still 'experimental' and 'research' and we have to wait and see.Exciting no doubt but give it some time before the 'clouds of anecdotal claims settle a bit and the real result comes out'.Too early and too many issues that need to be solved and settled!Malignancy issues,selection issues,and most importantly 'is there evidence it really work' issues.....Too early days to say.Anecdotal evidence in modern medicine is not good enough....Trials ,trials and more trials.Don't you be a guinea pig for the moment.

One or two 'doctors' even in Malaysia have already join the bandwagon, not wanting to be left out as the early birds." Early birds catches the worms ",leaving behind ethical and moral considerations.Stroke patients and patients with 'bad hearts' with thick wallets and unlimited cheque-book queue for treatment.['more money' than brain: just look at that KT fellow! Sorry folks ,this is unrelated except I cannot help being political here. It may help his party's cause in gaining respect and looking at new directions if 'leaders' like him just can disappear from the scene!Can someone tell him that!] .Exercise care in your decisions, there are charlattans even amongst doctors.99.9 per cent of us who practice evidence based medicine would rather wait.

Earlier at 5 pm, my cousin[ just 60+ ] visited me, with a coterie of 'husbands and sisters', at the clinic, to consult about her neuropathic pain in the fingers and feet. She is a diabetic of 40 years standing.I just knew that she had a malignant breat lump removed at PPUM 6 months earlier.People,even relatives,don't discuss cancer.Refused chemotherapy after prior consultation with a handful of 'armchair' experts.She missed that 'window'of opportunity now.I told her that the surgical removal of the lump is just like a German panzer division coming to whack down a Belgium town, you would still need the commandoes and the foot soldiers[chemotherapy] to sweep and mop-up the carpet and finnish off whatever remaining Allied soldiers left here and there.Otherwise the win is not secured.Possibility of recurrence is that much higher....In some cancers , we have effective ' cell specific immune, 'targeted' therapy but that is not yet available for many cancers apart from lung and kidney.For lung,specific to woman,non smoker ,of the 'adecarcinoma histological variety. My M.I.L. one and half year on is on Tarceva,and Alhamdullillah still hale and hearty! And that is marvellous, alhamdullillah, as far as cancer of the lung goes, stage 4 at initiation of therapy.

No ! My cousin would rather have no chemotherapy !Her armchair 'specialist' friends had a greater sway.If I were to meet her doctor in UH 6 months ago I would give him a good'whacking' on his backside for not educating her enough!When you are 'clever' you have to work extra hard to convince your patients to get the right treatment. Even to the extent of threatening to send the 'police' to bring her back from 'cloud nine'. I usually use this 'gambit' to convey to my patients I mean it.If that fails,then I am satisfied I have tried my best!

[ Now I remembered giving a Datuk patient of mine 2 months ago a verbal 'whacking' for allowing his dear sister who had a 'tiny winny' of a lump[ ?breast cancer,only seen on a routine mammogram], too much democracy...She wallowed in self pity and ignorant self indulgence for 12 months,opting for 'air yasin',bomoh and kiai,this and that, by the time I heard of her predicament from a another friend a year latter, and able to 'prised' her out of her self imposed 'self pity', the tiny growth has progressed to a size bigger than a golf ball..So much for our blatant misunderstanding of Qada' and Qadar.I always maintain Qada' and Qadar are Allah's domain, we mere mortals we do our best , with our best understanding of the sciences and current 'state of the art' and then we PRAY. That to me is the right humanly approach to Qada' and Qadar....And I am from the old school, a firm believer in Sukarno's Guided Democracy...Guided democracy for the relatively ignorant...I hope you can understand my anger with the brother. That young lady probably could have had a 'cure', now she stand to 'lose' 15 to 20 years of her future life , the difference between 'cure' and palliation can be tremendous!.Even with surgical removal now and the best chemotherapy money can buy, a golf ball in your breast is a golf ball in the breast!Seeding in the lungs and/or brain might have occured. Maybe, may not be, but why play dice with your life].....

So much for digression, let us get back to my cousin:

Her alternative megadoses of B17, B19 and B20 and B21[ I did not know there were so many B's] cost her 'a whacking 2k' a month! So much for vitamins!I would rather go to her house and collect her pee from the drain and still could make a couple of hundred bucks a month by opening a factory for recycled vitamins! Her 'source' is a lady somewhere in town.The lady had had her hands full.Packed with customers.All had to go through a 'computerised' assessment with blinking light and all, telling whether cancer cells are still there or dissapearing.The source just died acouple of months back also of cancer! Great business!My cousin was worried about her neuropathic pain, I was worried about those few 'American soldiers still left in town'.

These are what that keep me awake.2009 but still too much ozone therapy,colonic washouts,'Air Yasin',unproven alternative therapy,faith healing 'multiorgan transplantations', in town!We guys like short cuts.Malays and Muslims mostly.Why? Why? Why?...And Islam is supposed to show us the way out of ignorance and superstition to Truth.It is supposed to move 'mountains'!

5.30 AM now.Almost Suboh. I hate to go around knocking my children's rooms [and wife].I will be relieved if they wake up, I will be damned if they don't. Not a nice feeling....Actually at this stage in my life ,a sinking feeling....

"I put it to you Sir, that you have been neglectfull and 'callous' in the upbringing and 'education' of your 'flock'".......arggghhh! arghhh!

That come to my recurring thought and theme:How do we motivate ourselves and family towards Ihsan,Iman and Amal?
I think most of us[myself included]modern parents, staying in KL especially ,got it wrong.We leave this too much to the schools: There is the ugama lessons etc etc etc, there is the ustaz 'mengaji' coming to the house...
Even with ugama lessons, the Mak and Mek Rempits are 100% Malay, Muslim boys and girls.The 'hantu dadah' are 99.9% Malays.Our children[and ourselves of course] still in the main do 'Suboh gajah' or not at all! Despite all the 'mengaji' and the ugama lessons.

I was 'struck' and schocked when I heard over CNN some one year ago that Hamid Karzai[he was a California based 'Oil adviser' before he become Mr President] wanted the UN[mind you bugger! The UN] to ban the ubiquitous madrasahs, all the world over! He was echoing what Bush had politely and quietly proposed earlier on.Even Bush dare not mention it. And we have one very stupid Muslim 'Head of State' coming out with the magic formulla for world peace: Do away with the Message! Now, what do young boys do in the madrasah, you may ask? They learn the Qur'an.

Yes! That is the answer. We have to start teaching ourselves and our children the Qur'an.Certainly not in the traditional way of pure recitation in front of a 'guru mengaji' and be finnished with it once you reach juz 30.We have to start all over again,read and understand.....daily ,little by little.
Can be very costly you may say:"Guru mengaji" is already 100 to 200 RM per month.A 'guru' with tafsir background will cost more.
Children spend hours on the internet. Use the internet Qur'an. Be there with them initially, then leave them alone...In a year they will be able to teach you one or two ayats if you are not carefull!
The Glorious Qur'an is self empowering, that is why Harmid Karzai and Bush et al are so worried! JMHO

I will start with my 12 year-old rightaway tomorrow! Social engineering...Together ,father and daughter, we are going to move 'mountains'! Never mind the 'pahala'.I know one get 'pahala' just by mere recitation. Our joint project this time is to just move 'mountains'! The 'pahala' will come when the'mountains' are moved anyway.More sustainable.We will not be there for them all the time......

I can go to sleep now.

Book Review: The Qur'an, A Biography by Bruce Lawrence

Prof Bruce Lawrence, graduated from Princeton and obtained his Master in Divinity from Episcopal School of Divinity, Cambridge.Did his doctoral thesis in History of Religions at Yale. Has been at Duke University since 1971 and current holder of the chair, Nancy and Marcus Professor of Religion.The Quran: A Biography, receives rave reviews in this post 9-11 era. A small book ,very readable, can be finished in a day of continuous reading.

When I read any book, commenting on the Qur'an, I normally check and recheck the origin of the writer.Bruce Lawrence is definitely an erudite,highly qualified scholar of religions,an orientalist with definite orientalist's leanings but in The Qur'an : A biography, this was not so evident.I would say on superficial reading of the book, Prof Bruce Lawrence seem to be very fair, a rare individual indeed, initially, T thought.Nuances of awe combined with a touch of disbelief are there but very subtle.

The Qur'an : A biography is a 'selective' running commentary of man's varying perception and interpretation of the Glorious Qur'an across time. God's Book of Signs, as the good professor put it.He describes the origins of the faith in seventh-century Arabia and explains why the Qur'an needs to be memorized and recited by its followers. He emphasizes that the Qur'an is a sacred book of signs that has no single message and demands interpretation and can only be understood through history.

He went through a history of interpretations right from Prophet Muhammad himself, then suddenly moved on to an unbelieving[ probably one of the earliest starter of the science and art of orientalism!] 12th century English monk, Robert of Ketton. Writing for the Vatican, who was trying hard to find potholes here and there and chinks in the spiritual armour of Islam as Saladin Al Ayyubi seemed invincible.Bruce moved the scene to Rumi and Arabi, breezes through Sir Ahmad, an anglophile Pakistani engineer and right through to the Islamic reformist, Iqbal, bypassing Mawdudi and Syed Qutb [whom the West reckoned as the chaps sowing latter day radical Islamic discontent] and straight end up with Osama bin Laden.His present day literalist and myopic interpretation of the Qur'an on the issue of 'jihad'.

A good read for the uncommitted non Muslim or agnostic reader who wants to impress and have a lively 'dinner conversation' and show off his or her profound understanding of Islam. To me , I only noted Bruce real colour only when he came to describe the black slave girl whom the aging Sarah had given to Prophet Abraham ,Hagar.I cannot believe what I read: A concubine!

Polygamy is soo politically 'incorrect' to the Western mind they rather have misstreses or concubines!So that relegate the Arab branch of the Abrahamic faith, ie via Prophet Ismail, as a bastard lineage....then what about Muhammad who came from Ismail's lineage...not very subtle, this science of orientalism! That was the only obvious giveaway in the book.Otherwise Prof Lawrence has been fairly fair, but flippant, in his short treatment of the Qur'an. I suspect he respects and is suprisingly astounded by the immense beauty, sincerity and sublimity of the Qur'an, but there are nuances in the book that tells the reader, the writer does not want to believe it is the actual Words of God. A good read though I find his treatment or rather 'non treatment' and avoidance of the central message of Qur'an quite surprising: the central thesis of the Quran ie the unity of God, he lefft it to the reader's imgination, and he definitely stayed clear from the Qur'an frequent criticism of the concept of Trinity.To me it is like going to Restaurant Beriani Gam, ordered a beriani,but without the special rice, please!

Well I can truly understand that as The Qur'an: A Biography is just meant to be a 'Western Hithhiker's guide to Islam'.I am sure it is a best-seller of sort.Well written but it leaves me in no doubt of what Bruce Lawrence wanted ,in his heart of heart:to educate just a 'wee bit' but leave his Western reader's precept of the Qur'an intact. That really, Muhammad had got a repetitive, massive schizoid delusion, after brushing with the Christians in Mekkah and knowing the Gospels,and the Jews in Medinah at the same time learning and copying the Torah!.Muhammad was just a seventh-century Arabian poet, gifted wth a massive dose of delusion of grandeur! This is what the Jews and the Trinitarians would not like their flocks to 'discard'.Forget the true essense of the Message.

Reading the Qur'an ,without faith and sincerity, one will remain deaf, dumb and blind, whatever one's scholastic background!

"We have sent it down with truth,
and with truth has it come down,
And We have not sent you [Muhammad]
except as a herald and a warner."
Qur'an

"Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindleth the fire, and when it sheddeth its light around him, Allah taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, where they cannot see.[2:17]
Deaf, Dumb and Blind; and they return not."[2:18]

"Do they not reflect? Their companion is not seized with madness: he is but a perspicuous warner.[7:184]
Do they see nothing in the government of the heavens and the earth and all that Allah hath created? Do they not see that it may well be that their term is nigh drawing to an end? In what message after this will they then believe?"[7:185]

Bagan Pinang

Back home,is tis going to be back to business as usual?
Or just the beginning of an end?
Or perhaps the end of a beginning?
More like neither a beginning nor end...

Mustaffa felt he would rather go out and burn those 'houses' of the absentees than be the imam
1400 years on we mortals have missed the essence of His message
We have forms but missed the substance
We have numbers but lack the voice

North , East, West and South
Syiah, Sunnis, Arabs, non Arabs
Malays,Indonesians,Wahabis,traditionist, transcendentalist,
Literalist,metaphoricist, modernist, European, American
Emasculated lions being lead by 'lost sheep'!

Just flotsams washed aside by the ocean waves......
Everywhere and anywhere.....

Biblical Stories in the Qur'an: Surah Al Maida 5: 109-120

One day will Allah gather the Messengers together, and ask: "What was the response from men to your teaching?"
They will say: "We have no knowledge:It is Thou Who knowest in full all that is hidden"
Then will Allah say: "O Jesus, the son of Mary! Recount my favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strenghtened thee with the holy spirit, so that thee didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book of Wisdom, the Law of the Gospel. And behold! thou makest out of clay, as it were, a figure of a bird, by My leave, and thou breathest in it and it becometh a bird by My leave. And thou healest those born blind, and the lepers by my leave.
And behold! then bringest forth the dead by my leave. And behold! I did restrain the Children of Israel from violence to thee when thou didst show them the Clear Signs, and the unbelievers amongst them said: "This is nothing but evident magic".

"And behold! I inspired the Disciples to have faith in Me and Mine Messenger. They said: 'We have faith and do thou bear witness that we bow to Allah as Muslims."
Behold! the Disciples said:"O Jesus the son of Mary! Can thy Lord send down to us a table set [with viands] from heaven?"
Said Jesus: "Fear Allah if ye have faith."
They said: " We only wish to eat thereof and satisfy our hearts, and to know that thou hast indeed told us the truth; and that we ourselves may bear witness to the miracle."
Said Jesus the son of Mary: "O Allah our Lord! send us from heaven a table set [with viands] that there may be for us-for the first and the last of us-a solemn festival and a sign from Thee; and provide for our sustainence, for Thou art the best Sustainer of our needs."
Allah said: "I will send it down unto you but if any of you after that resisteth faith, I will punish him with a penalty such as I have not inflicted on anyone among all the peoples."

And behold! Allah will say: " O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men,'Worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah?' "
He will say: "Glory to Thee! Never could I say what I had no right to say. Had I said such a thing, Thou would indeed have known it. Thou knowest what is in my heart, though I knew not what is in Thine. For Thou knowest what is hidden. Never said I to them aught except what Thou didst command me to say: 'Worship Allah, my Lord , and your Lord' and I was witness over them whilst I dwelth amongst them; when Thou didst take me up Thou was the Watcher over them and Thou art a Witness to all things."
"If Thou dost punish them they are Thy servants. If Thou forgive them, Thou are the Exalted in power, the Wise."

Allah will say: "This is a day on which the truthful will profit from the truth: Theirs are Gardens, with rivers flowing beneath-their eternal home: Allah well pleased with them and they with Allah: That is the great salvation [the fulfillment of all desires]."

To Allah doth belong the dominion of the heavens and the earth and all that is therein and it is He who hath power over all things.

[PS: For 'sensurround' effect go to 'Link' and zoom on 'Quranexplorer',go on auto and let qari Abdul Baasit, the best reciter ever, scintilate you with his haunting rendition of 'the story'.]