Ustaz Rasul Dahri , TGNA et al on 'Tahlil Kematian': A 'Malay' Religio-Cultural 'Abberation'....
Part 2 Click Here
Part 3 Click Here
Part 4 Click Here
Despite the 'muddle and puddle' a word of caution though....
We Muslims in general have to be careful.
On one hand we have 'ranting' issues like 'Tahlil Kematian','bidaah hasanah' that seem to 'irritate' and unfocus us and on the other hand there is this question of Muslim Unity. We should not let issues like these disunite and weaken us,especially the 'ranting' issues.
We are 1.5 billion in number.
200 millions Arabs. Some 250 millions Malay/Indonesians. 500 millions from Indo/Pakistan region. Americans and Europeans etc etc.
We cannot have 'clowns' [... even at the level of people's scholarship like Rasul Dahri ] going around saying these and that Muslims have questionable Aqidah....Rubbishing people of the past like Imam Ghazali, Ibrahim Adham and the likes .Leave this part to HIM. It is none of our business.
At the end of the day HE looks at our hearts and our level of piety.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Empire............
"..A time will come when the nations of the world will devour you Muslims like 'food on a plate'....."
"What is wrong Sir? Are they very few in numbers ?"
" No....In fact they will be 1.4 billion in numbers"
Bosnia
Chechya
Somalia
India
Khasmir
Phillipines
Pattani Thailand
Yemen
Palestine
Iraq
Sudan
Afghanistan
Algeria
Egypt
Tunisia
Saudi Arabia
Lebanon
Syria
.....
...
..
Iran
Malaysia?
Indonesia?
Related Article:
The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire
Conversation with Robert Fisk
War On Terror Thru Muslim's Perspective
The Martyrs Smile
"What is wrong Sir? Are they very few in numbers ?"
" No....In fact they will be 1.4 billion in numbers"
Bosnia
Chechya
Somalia
India
Khasmir
Phillipines
Pattani Thailand
Yemen
Palestine
Iraq
Sudan
Afghanistan
Algeria
Egypt
Tunisia
Saudi Arabia
Lebanon
Syria
.....
...
..
Iran
Malaysia?
Indonesia?
Related Article:
The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire
Conversation with Robert Fisk
War On Terror Thru Muslim's Perspective
The Martyrs Smile
Al Fatihah : Bismillah.......
This week is 'French Week'. I just stumble on two TGNA classic which to me is irresistible to keep longer for next month's viewing. The 1st one was on life after death vis a vis ' Padang Mahsyar'. This present one is about the 1st two ayats in Surah Al Fatihah.
If you understand pidgin 'French' just a wee bit you will be able to appreciate yet another TGNA classic which to my mind is a rare gem, discussing just the 1st 2 opening ayats in Surah Al Fatihah with special emphasise on the ayat " bis".
Personally I have always used the opening gambit of Al Fatihah as in just 'Bismillah' as a doa in all things stressful that I embarked on, on a daily basis. I read it somewhere but could no longer recall the exact person and the reference. Thus when I stumbled on this TGNA lecture , I would like to share this " bismillah' with the rest of you guys.
His simplicity, clarity of thought and sharpness of interpretation, measured against the background of his audience, is an excellent study of both practical wit and wisdom applied to the 'right' audience, to which only TGNA , an astute politician cum ulama', is the consummate master of this art :
Part 1 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55FHOOl5PV4
Part 2 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxqOrMJBxcw
Part 3 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cwJvti4kSI
...a repaeat of [1] and [2] , but an important one indeed...
Si Nous avions fait descendre ce Coran sur une montagne, tu l’aurais vu s’humilier et se fendre par crainte d’Allah. Et ces paraboles Nous les citons aux gens afin qu’ils réfléchissent. (21) C’est Lui Allah. Nulle divinité autre que Lui, le Connaisseur de l’Invisible tout comme du visible. C’est Lui, le Tout Miséricordieux, le Très Miséricordieux. (22) C’est Lui, Allah. Nulle divinité autre que Lui; Le Souverain, Le Pur, L’Apaisant, Le Rassurant, Le Prédominant, Le Tout Puissant, Le Contraignant, L’Orgueilleux. Gloire à Allah! Il transcende ce qu’ils Lui associent. (23) C’est Lui Allah, le Créateur, Celui qui donne un commencement à toute chose, le Formateur. A Lui les plus beaux noms. Tout ce qui est dans les cieux et la terre Le glorifie. Et c’est Lui le Puissant, le Sage (24)
If We had caused this Qur'an to descend upon a mountain, thou (O Muhammad) verily hadst seen it humbled, rent asunder by the fear of Allah. Such similitudes coin We for mankind that haply they may reflect. (21) He is Allah, than Whom there is no other God, the Knower of the Invisible and the Visible. He is the Beneficent, Merciful. (22) He is Allah, than Whom there is no other God, the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, Peace, the Keeper of Faith, the Guardian, the Majestic, the Compeller, the Superb. Glorified be Allah from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him). (23) He is Allah, the Creator, the Shaper out of naught, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifieth Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. (24)
Surah Al Hashr , 59 : 21-24
If you understand pidgin 'French' just a wee bit you will be able to appreciate yet another TGNA classic which to my mind is a rare gem, discussing just the 1st 2 opening ayats in Surah Al Fatihah with special emphasise on the ayat " bis".
Personally I have always used the opening gambit of Al Fatihah as in just 'Bismillah' as a doa in all things stressful that I embarked on, on a daily basis. I read it somewhere but could no longer recall the exact person and the reference. Thus when I stumbled on this TGNA lecture , I would like to share this " bismillah' with the rest of you guys.
His simplicity, clarity of thought and sharpness of interpretation, measured against the background of his audience, is an excellent study of both practical wit and wisdom applied to the 'right' audience, to which only TGNA , an astute politician cum ulama', is the consummate master of this art :
Part 1 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55FHOOl5PV4
Part 2 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxqOrMJBxcw
Part 3 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cwJvti4kSI
...a repaeat of [1] and [2] , but an important one indeed...
Si Nous avions fait descendre ce Coran sur une montagne, tu l’aurais vu s’humilier et se fendre par crainte d’Allah. Et ces paraboles Nous les citons aux gens afin qu’ils réfléchissent. (21) C’est Lui Allah. Nulle divinité autre que Lui, le Connaisseur de l’Invisible tout comme du visible. C’est Lui, le Tout Miséricordieux, le Très Miséricordieux. (22) C’est Lui, Allah. Nulle divinité autre que Lui; Le Souverain, Le Pur, L’Apaisant, Le Rassurant, Le Prédominant, Le Tout Puissant, Le Contraignant, L’Orgueilleux. Gloire à Allah! Il transcende ce qu’ils Lui associent. (23) C’est Lui Allah, le Créateur, Celui qui donne un commencement à toute chose, le Formateur. A Lui les plus beaux noms. Tout ce qui est dans les cieux et la terre Le glorifie. Et c’est Lui le Puissant, le Sage (24)
If We had caused this Qur'an to descend upon a mountain, thou (O Muhammad) verily hadst seen it humbled, rent asunder by the fear of Allah. Such similitudes coin We for mankind that haply they may reflect. (21) He is Allah, than Whom there is no other God, the Knower of the Invisible and the Visible. He is the Beneficent, Merciful. (22) He is Allah, than Whom there is no other God, the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One, Peace, the Keeper of Faith, the Guardian, the Majestic, the Compeller, the Superb. Glorified be Allah from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him). (23) He is Allah, the Creator, the Shaper out of naught, the Fashioner. His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifieth Him, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. (24)
Surah Al Hashr , 59 : 21-24
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Khutabah Series : TGNA on 'Padang Mahsyar'
I was looking around the utube for a good' khutbah' for tomorrow's Jumaat and I stumbled across this local gem from Tok Guru Nik Abdul Aziz.
Nonetheless his lecture was in 'French'....but it is a gem no doubt, does not matter whichever political persuasion you come from.
Please throw away your 'political' affiliation just for 30 odd minutes and listen to the message expounded by this old man through his exquisite understanding of the Quran, hadith and Prophet's seerah, on the important issue of ' Padang Mahsyar'.
TGNA's simplistic approach in his lectures, with precise meaningful examples relevant to his 'audience', has no equal.
TG Nik Aziz Part 2: Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 3 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 4 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 5 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 6 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 7 : Click Here
Related Article :
TGNA in Conversation
Nonetheless his lecture was in 'French'....but it is a gem no doubt, does not matter whichever political persuasion you come from.
Please throw away your 'political' affiliation just for 30 odd minutes and listen to the message expounded by this old man through his exquisite understanding of the Quran, hadith and Prophet's seerah, on the important issue of ' Padang Mahsyar'.
TGNA's simplistic approach in his lectures, with precise meaningful examples relevant to his 'audience', has no equal.
TG Nik Aziz Part 2: Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 3 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 4 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 5 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 6 : Click Here
TG Nik Aziz Part 7 : Click Here
Related Article :
TGNA in Conversation
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Journey to Islam : Imam Zaid Shakir
[ Imam Zaid Shakir being interviewed by Christanne Barker of mattersoffaith.com ]
Zaid Shakir:
Born in Berkeley in 1956, California and spent his formative years in Connecticut, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir. A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa, and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda.[4]
After a year of studying Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam[1] from 1988 to 1994 he spear-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort, also accepted the position as Professor and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. He served as an interfaith council Chaplain at Yale University[2] and developed the Chaplaincy Sensitivity Training for physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital. Zaid Shakir participates as a speaker at Islamic Society of North America annual conferences.
Related Article :
The Timothy Winter Interview
Zaid Shakir:
Born in Berkeley in 1956, California and spent his formative years in Connecticut, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir. A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa, and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda.[4]
After a year of studying Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam[1] from 1988 to 1994 he spear-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort, also accepted the position as Professor and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. He served as an interfaith council Chaplain at Yale University[2] and developed the Chaplaincy Sensitivity Training for physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital. Zaid Shakir participates as a speaker at Islamic Society of North America annual conferences.
Related Article :
The Timothy Winter Interview
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Can We Talk About God : Zaid Shakir and Dr Roger Scruton
Zaid Shakir:
Born in Berkeley in 1956, California and spent his formative years in Connecticut, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir. A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa, and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda.[4]
After a year of studying Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam[1] from 1988 to 1994 he spear-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort, also accepted the position as Professor and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. He served as an interfaith council Chaplain at Yale University[2] and developed the Chaplaincy Sensitivity Training for physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital. Zaid Shakir participates as a speaker at Islamic Society of North America annual conferences.
Dr Roger Scruton :
Born 27 February 1944, is a British philosopher specializing in aesthetics. He is the author of several books on philosophy and politics, including Art and Imagination (1974), The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Animal Rights and Wrongs (1996), England: An Elegy (2000), and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism (2006). He has also written several novels and two operas.
From 1971 to 1992 he was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London. In 1982 he was one of the founders of The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, which he edited for 18 years. He first embraced conservatism during the student protests of May 1968 in France: "When I asked my friends what they wanted, what were they trying to achieve, all I got back was this ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook. I was disgusted by it, and thought there must be a way back to the defence of Western civilisation against these things. That's when I became a conservative. I knew I wanted to conserve things rather than pull them down."[1]
From 1992 to 1995 he was a professor at Boston University, from 2005 to 2009 research professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia, and in 2009–2010 a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. A.C. Grayling described him in 2000 as a "wonderful teacher of philosophy."[1] In January 2010 he was awarded the title of visiting professor at the University of Oxford for three years, an unpaid appointment, where he teaches graduate classes on aesthetics, and in spring 2011 he takes up a quarter-time professorial fellowship in moral philosophy at the University of St Andrews.[2] In 2010 he delivered the Scottish Gifford Lectures at St Andrews on the topic, "The Face of God."
Born in Berkeley in 1956, California and spent his formative years in Connecticut, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir. A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa, and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda.[4]
After a year of studying Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam[1] from 1988 to 1994 he spear-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort, also accepted the position as Professor and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. He served as an interfaith council Chaplain at Yale University[2] and developed the Chaplaincy Sensitivity Training for physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital. Zaid Shakir participates as a speaker at Islamic Society of North America annual conferences.
Dr Roger Scruton :
Born 27 February 1944, is a British philosopher specializing in aesthetics. He is the author of several books on philosophy and politics, including Art and Imagination (1974), The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Animal Rights and Wrongs (1996), England: An Elegy (2000), and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism (2006). He has also written several novels and two operas.
From 1971 to 1992 he was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London. In 1982 he was one of the founders of The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, which he edited for 18 years. He first embraced conservatism during the student protests of May 1968 in France: "When I asked my friends what they wanted, what were they trying to achieve, all I got back was this ludicrous Marxist gobbledegook. I was disgusted by it, and thought there must be a way back to the defence of Western civilisation against these things. That's when I became a conservative. I knew I wanted to conserve things rather than pull them down."[1]
From 1992 to 1995 he was a professor at Boston University, from 2005 to 2009 research professor at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia, and in 2009–2010 a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. A.C. Grayling described him in 2000 as a "wonderful teacher of philosophy."[1] In January 2010 he was awarded the title of visiting professor at the University of Oxford for three years, an unpaid appointment, where he teaches graduate classes on aesthetics, and in spring 2011 he takes up a quarter-time professorial fellowship in moral philosophy at the University of St Andrews.[2] In 2010 he delivered the Scottish Gifford Lectures at St Andrews on the topic, "The Face of God."
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Life After Death : Prof Hamka
A classic indeed here, from my old guru, Prof Hamka . His ten volume 'Tafsir Al Azhar ',[ half of which was written while under imprisonment by Sukarno during 'The Konfrontasi' period ], was his most major contribution to humanity within this Nusantara.
Ulama' of his calibre certainly 'literally' lives 'after death'....we read his books and treatise, we follow his good advice,we follow his students' advice etc etc and etc.
Ulama' certainly live beyond the sand of time. Prime ministers, dictators and rulers and kings, some of them got condemned and for some even 'exiled' and shunned and avoided when they are still very much alive and kicking...Huwallahualam
....and unto Him is the journeying.
Related article :
Death and Eternal Life After Death
Some Random Thots on Death
Ulama' of his calibre certainly 'literally' lives 'after death'....we read his books and treatise, we follow his good advice,we follow his students' advice etc etc and etc.
Ulama' certainly live beyond the sand of time. Prime ministers, dictators and rulers and kings, some of them got condemned and for some even 'exiled' and shunned and avoided when they are still very much alive and kicking...Huwallahualam
....and unto Him is the journeying.
Related article :
Death and Eternal Life After Death
Some Random Thots on Death
Friday, January 21, 2011
Round table with Dr Israr Ahmad : An Islamic Discourse..
Dr Israr Ahmad,
thinker, social activist, writer.
Graduated with MBBS from King Edward Medical College, Lahore in 1954 and a practising doctor till 1970 when he moved on to 'doctoring the souls' fulltime. Must have been in his mid 70's in 2009 when this video was recorded. He went on to join the realm of His Beloved, The Most Merciful and The Most High in April 2010.
As with all real ulama',his soul may have left us to meet his Maker, His Most Beneficient, in Alam Barzakh, 'alam al ghayba', but his contributions to society at large still REMAIN [ present tense ] well grounded here on this lowly Planet Earth.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilaihirojiun.
Related Articles:
Surah Al Anbiya, The Big Bang and A Century of Science
The True Nature of Reality: A Quantum Physicist's Perspective [ Prof Mahdi ]
Shaykh Abdulah Hakim Quick : Our Ulama' is not even in The Discourse!
An Aidil Adzha Letter to an Agnostic Friend
thinker, social activist, writer.
Graduated with MBBS from King Edward Medical College, Lahore in 1954 and a practising doctor till 1970 when he moved on to 'doctoring the souls' fulltime. Must have been in his mid 70's in 2009 when this video was recorded. He went on to join the realm of His Beloved, The Most Merciful and The Most High in April 2010.
As with all real ulama',his soul may have left us to meet his Maker, His Most Beneficient, in Alam Barzakh, 'alam al ghayba', but his contributions to society at large still REMAIN [ present tense ] well grounded here on this lowly Planet Earth.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilaihirojiun.
Related Articles:
Surah Al Anbiya, The Big Bang and A Century of Science
The True Nature of Reality: A Quantum Physicist's Perspective [ Prof Mahdi ]
Shaykh Abdulah Hakim Quick : Our Ulama' is not even in The Discourse!
An Aidil Adzha Letter to an Agnostic Friend
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tafseer Video : Surah Al Fatihah [ 1 : 1-7 ]
Al-Fatiha
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful (1)
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, (2) The Beneficent, the Merciful. (3) Owner of the Day of Judgment, (4) Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help. (5) Show us the straight path, (6) The path of those whom Thou hast favoured. Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. (7)
Dr Israr Ahmad,
thinker, social activist, writer.
Graduated with MBBS from King Edward Medical College, Lahore in 1954 and a practising doctor till 1970 when he moved on to 'doctoring the souls' fulltime. Must have been in his mid 70's in 2009 when this video was recorded. He went on to join the realm of His Beloved, The Most Merciful and The Most High in April 2010.
As with all real ulama',his soul may have left us to meet his Maker, His Most Beneficient, in Alam Barzakh, 'alam al ghayba', but his contributions to society at large still REMAIN [ present tense ] well grounded here on this lowly Planet Earth.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilaihirojiun.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful (1)
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, (2) The Beneficent, the Merciful. (3) Owner of the Day of Judgment, (4) Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help. (5) Show us the straight path, (6) The path of those whom Thou hast favoured. Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. (7)
Dr Israr Ahmad,
thinker, social activist, writer.
Graduated with MBBS from King Edward Medical College, Lahore in 1954 and a practising doctor till 1970 when he moved on to 'doctoring the souls' fulltime. Must have been in his mid 70's in 2009 when this video was recorded. He went on to join the realm of His Beloved, The Most Merciful and The Most High in April 2010.
As with all real ulama',his soul may have left us to meet his Maker, His Most Beneficient, in Alam Barzakh, 'alam al ghayba', but his contributions to society at large still REMAIN [ present tense ] well grounded here on this lowly Planet Earth.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilaihirojiun.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Personal Journey Thru The Quran: Al Jathiya , 45 : 34-37
"And it will be said: This day We forget you, even as ye forgot the meeting of this your day; and your habitation is the Fire, and there is none to help you.
This, forasmuch as ye made the revelations of Allah a jest, and the life of the world beguiled you. Therefor this day they come not forth from thence, nor can they make amends.
Then praise be to Allah, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth, the Lord of the Worlds.
And unto Him (alone) belongeth Majesty in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise."
Surah Al Jathiya , 45 : 34-37
Friends,
The worst predicament for us is not in the fact that today or tomorrow we might get a massive thrombo-embolic stroke or a major heart attack or some form of terminal cancer ; or lose millions in the share market ; a near fatal motor vehicle accident ; or for some title-chaser, still not being 'considered' for a belated Tan Sri-ship from the Agong after being a mere federal Datuk waiting in the limelight for umpteenth years while so and so who is just an average bloke of a deputy KSN already had his three years back.
The worst calamity that could befall us would be His Most Beneficent's refusal to grant us an audience to 'see' His Grace on 'That Day' when nothing else matter.
Life, like golf, is not how we start but how we execute the end game!
Dr Nik Howk
This, forasmuch as ye made the revelations of Allah a jest, and the life of the world beguiled you. Therefor this day they come not forth from thence, nor can they make amends.
Then praise be to Allah, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth, the Lord of the Worlds.
And unto Him (alone) belongeth Majesty in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise."
Surah Al Jathiya , 45 : 34-37
Friends,
The worst predicament for us is not in the fact that today or tomorrow we might get a massive thrombo-embolic stroke or a major heart attack or some form of terminal cancer ; or lose millions in the share market ; a near fatal motor vehicle accident ; or for some title-chaser, still not being 'considered' for a belated Tan Sri-ship from the Agong after being a mere federal Datuk waiting in the limelight for umpteenth years while so and so who is just an average bloke of a deputy KSN already had his three years back.
The worst calamity that could befall us would be His Most Beneficent's refusal to grant us an audience to 'see' His Grace on 'That Day' when nothing else matter.
Life, like golf, is not how we start but how we execute the end game!
Dr Nik Howk
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Is Islam compatible with the West ? : Prof T. J Winter
Someone in the audience asked TJ as to why he become a Muslim and his answer was astoundingly wise,
" God was generous with me."
And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East, (16) And had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect man. (17) She said: Lo! I seek refuge in the Beneficent One from thee, if thou art God-fearing. (18) He said: I am only a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a faultless son. (19) She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? (20) He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a Revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. (21) And she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place. (22) And the pangs of childbirth drove her unto the trunk of the palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died ere this and had become a thing of naught, forgotten! (23) Then (one) cried unto her from below her, saying: Grieve not! Thy Lord hath placed a rivulet beneath thee, (24) And shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee. (25) So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal. (26) Then she brought him to her own folk, carrying him. They said: O Mary! Thou hast come with an amazing thing. (27) O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. (28) Then she pointed to him. They said: How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, a young boy? (29) He spake: Lo! I am the slave of Allah. He hath given me the Scripture and hath appointed me a Prophet, (30) And hath made me blessed wheresoever I may be, and hath enjoined upon me prayer and almsgiving so long as I remain alive, (31) And (hath made me) dutiful toward her who bore me, and hath not made me arrogant, unblest. (32) Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! (33) Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt. (34) It befitteth not (the Majesty of) Allah that He should take unto Himself a son. Glory be to Him! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. (35) And lo! Allah is my Lord and your Lord. So serve Him. That is the right path. (36) The sects among them differ: but woe unto the disbelievers from the meeting of an awful Day. (37)
Surah Maryam , 19 : 16-37
Related Articles:
A Common Word Between Us And You
RUMI : Only Breath
Lost and Found !
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Ranting of an old goat : MM LKY's Singapo....etc and etc
Just back from a plumbers' meeting in LKY's Singapo.
Meritocracy LKY's style...I have not seen any plumber yet from amongst the Malays in Singapo over the last 3 decades. Three 'bloody' decades waiting to see one.
Can forget about SAF pilot or president. After that Apakahnamadiadah Isahak at least the presidency is the preserve of Singapo's Indians, does not matter whether one is an alcoholic or not...ability to talk and 'goreng' and 'ampu' LKY is an essential prerequisite and Singapo Malays sadly scored zero on this important point. Or is this another of LKY social engineering...dont give face at all to the Singapo Malays in order to spike his old foes: Tunku, Dr M, Musa Hitam, Jaafar Albar, Dr Ismail, Tun Razak et al.... Serve them right! I am having the last laugh.
My stay coincide with launch of yet another LKY's autobiography. LKY is a sad old goat, living beyond his time.He seemed to be carrying this thing about Malaysia and Malaysians on his shoulders far too long!It is almost bordering on paranoia
[... friends involved in remote sensing industry serving MINDEF way back in the 90's intimated to me that Singapo even had mobile surface to surface missiles facing KL and Jakarta even then!...A well known secret the MINDEF people would not like to share for obvious reason: We have no reply to that kind of preparation from socalled friend and neighbour!.Difficult to substantiate officially but very believable from the way their leaders behave and talk then in the 80's.... And we are supplying them with 'cheap cheap' water on a daily basis for 50 over years! Try cutting that for half a day , and their boys would be enjoying satay Kajang by midnight. They have hundreds of light armoured personnel vehicles ready to be mobilised!...Do not underrate their capability. People who think they are under seige could just do about anything. ]
MM LKY is not happy that his previous two autobiographies were not well read by young, present day Singaporeans so he coerced a group of Straits Times editors and journalists to grill him over 16 interviews and come up with a book,' their style', not his....to improve readership.Those chaps met for 4 months to plan to ask the right questions. But no one' peed' in their pants at least. Dr M across the Causeway may want to follow suit.
Even with NTR, Ringgit Malaysia, Dr M and Pak Lah in the background and foreground, I still feel safe to be back in the 'real' world....
Singapo feel like a sanitized hotel toilet to me compared to our usual 'jamban'.
PS: We Malaysians need not read this new doctored interviews made into book form, the recent Wikileaks is already enough for us, as they say,
" if you have neighbours like them, you dont need enemies "
....................................
Dr Nik Howk,
Re your comments on your cardiologist conference in Singapore. Let me comment as an economist. We should compare apples and apples. We should compare the statistics of the average Singaporean Malay and the average Malaysian Malay in terms of per capita income, jobs, housing, education, access to medical services, transport, % of protein in daily calorific food intake, safety and security of pension funds and statutory contributions, honest administrative service, the environment, future prospects, etc.
Never, as you claim, a Malay president in Singapore? Not true. How about Aziz Ishak? No Malay cardiologist? Perhaps not, but it is not a recognized index. They may be in other specialties or are GP's. Or engineers, pilots, teachers, etc. Who knows for sure?
Finally, re a Malaysian 'jamban': Allow me, most respectfully, to differ. Give me clean Singapore toilet, against a Malaysian jamban, any time I need to 'bomb'.
Regards, and a Happy New Year!
Dato' H
....................................
Dato' H,
Yes, I do remember Aziz Isahak. How can we forget him. But after him no more. Malays have regressed under LKY. Not even good to be taxi drivers. Malays in Singapo only are good enought to be guards and jaga's. For the ladies,probably those who have the modernity to replace their tudungs,sspg's [ singapo sarong party girls ], thugging tightly to their Mat Saleh boyfriends. No Dato, this is not state of the art statistical academic analysis. This is just my firasat and gut feeling about things Singapo!
Which bring us way back to Tunku's time in the early 60's during the split. Thank God Tunku had the foresight to split.
LKY would have driven a wedge too difficult to solve with his insistence of Malaysian Malaysia. Must have tormented the old gentleman quite a bit at that time. YB Musa Hitam and a young YB Dr M making loud animal noise in the background and all that. Wisdom is not cheap.
Had we gone Dr M's way then or Jaafar Albar from the Amenu Youth Wing, they could have easily persuaded Tun Dr Ismail, Home Minister to easily lock up young recalcitrant LKY under the pretext of ISA and the whole region would have been in complete turmoil.
Had we followed LKY's Malaysian Malaysia instead, could we have been a better nation?...you may not have ended being the proud owner of Cempaka Incorporated, not so very bright Daim Zainuddin may just be a simple failed salt trader in Kota Bharu or a failed third rate lawyer, Nik Isahak may just make it as a primary school teacher teaching English. Affirmative Policy in 2011, we still need this, more so in this globalised 'Mandarinised' world of future world Chinese dominance.....otherwise we will end up like the Malays of Singapo.
Two billions Chinese and oversea Chinese who think money, money money. Money is everything. Money is God.
Take a drive just 60 kilometres away from KL city centre and you will agree with me...you do not need to go to Gua Musang, Slow Temiang or Kuala Ketil.
It may sound irrational and racist but why give up NEP when the rest does not want to part with their schools, languages etc etc for the sake of unity and good education. You want me to move towards the centre but you want to remain there away from the centre. You want to have your cakes AND YOU STILL WANT A BIGGER SHARE OF MINE AS WELL.
The horse trading in NTR's 1Malaysia is a failure right from the onset because the others are not moving towards the centre, only we move..
Some irrational thots no doubt, as I move back across the Causeway!
I am thinking like an old goat you may say Dato'........
Nik Howk
.......................
Doc,
First of all, dear Doctor Nik Howk, may I make a small observation? We in our family company Cempaka (my wife, my sons, and I), worked very hard to get to where we are today. Not a cent or favour from the NEP. We started in 1983 in a small rented house in KL, in a low rent area. We used our small savings. We could not afford contractors, so we washed, painted, and fixed the house ourselves. We borrowed operated on OD from commercial banks at commercial rates (between 8 and 9% p.a.). We grew gradually, as parents got to know and trust us. Later, to build our own (purposed-designed) school, we needed to borrow substantially from the banks to purchase the land and construct the school.
We had no assets as collateral for the loan. We went to a few Malay banker friends. They were social friends, and were very polite, but demanded a substantial collateral. We had none. They sighed, offered us tea and curry puffs, and said goodbye. As a last resort, we went to see a Chinese banker friend. We immediately confessed that we had no substantial assets. He said, "Don't worry. I know you and Freida well. Your character is your asset." He called in his GM (a Kelantan gentleman from Kota Baru, also a Nik) and told him to grant us the loan on the spot. We used the loan to build the Bukit Damansara Cempaka. That was the start. We worked hard, and paid off the bank loan in good time. We led a spartan life. My wonderful wife worked very hard, and made do without the luxuries other wives might demand. Our priority was our children's education. It grew to become a concern for other people's children as well.
Since then we grew with vision, hard work, and disciplined cost control. We gave young Cempakans honest quality education. Parents from far and near (even from Sabah and Sarawak, and from Penang) trusted their most precious possessions, their children, in my wife's care. From 10 children at Cempaka on Jalan Bukit Bintang in 1983, we are now 3,000 in enrollment strength in the three campuses, with 500 teachers and supporting staff. In all this, how much help did we receive under the NEP? You guessed it: ZERO! A BN minister who later visited Cempaka, was impressed by our students' performance, and asked me, "How much subsidy do you get from the government?" When I said, "Nothing." He repeated the question in a different form three times. Then he sighed and shook his head in disbelief.
My dear Doc Howk, I was a staff member of Tun Razak's MAGERAN in 1969/70. I understood and supported Tun's desire to uplift the socio-econpomic status of the Malay community. (Among my colleagues in the secretariat were Abdullah Badawi, Hanif Omar, Azizan Zainul Abidin, and Joe Ghazali Che Mat. Three Tuns and a Tan Sri, now!) We all worked hard as officers to help design the NEP. But now, it appears that the implementation of the NEP benefitted mainly the UMNOputras, not the hardworking and deserving Bumiputras that the late Tun Razak had intended. For example, our application for soft loans complied all the conditions, were verbally welcomed, but on paper were rejected time and again. Why? Because, I was made to understand, we are non political. Honest and hardworking Bumiputra business people, yes, but non political and non-UMNOputras. The NEP will continue, for sure, who will it benefit? Not simple, ordinary Bumi folks like us. And not the people you so earnestly feel for in your email to me.
We have a culture that is based on entitlement by association, not on merit and hard work. I have Malay friends in Singapore (not brilliant academically to become cardiologists) but they are proud of their education and achievements. They have no hang-ups about being a deprived minority. On the contrary they feel sorry for the Malays here for still being on crutches after 53 years of independence. They asked me, will this go on forever? And where is our pride? I just smiled politely and did not respond. Re your comment on Malay girls in Singapore on the arm of Mat Sallehs, I have not seen any. I don't move in the right circles?
Secondly, I did get a university scholarship to study overseas. But there were no Petronas, or JPA, or MARA scholarships in 1956. Many of us competed for only three available MCS (as the PTD was known then) scholarships. The winners were a student from MCKK, a student from RI in Singapore, and me. We could go on scholarship to any university of our choice, but we later had to return and serve the government. All three of us treasured our scholarships, studied hard, and came home to serve our country.
As for you I am sure, with your intelligence and hard work, you would have become a huge success in any chosen field. It is fortuitous that you chose Medicine, as you now do much good for people who need your skills. As for salt traders- turned-politicians, I wonder of the country would have been better off. There has been so much rape and pillage of our economy that they merit no repetition. Yet I wonder, how come no one takes any notice of them?
You are right in that Tunku made the right decision to split. I was in the Service at that time. My boss at Wisma Putra (the late Tun Ghaz) was shocked when he heard the news. We were having tea at the Dog at that moment. After the initial impact of disbelief and sadness, we all recognised that it was the better of two awful alternatives. Now, decades later, we in Malaysia should recognise that the world is indeed global, and we must be highly competitive in order to survive in it with dignity. With a sense of competitiveness, not entitlement.
I agree with you that everyone should move to the centre. But we do need to embrace meritocracy, step by step. After all, your practice is flourishing because you are a very good cardiologist. So is my cardiologist and good friend Dato Dr. Annuar, and my surgeon Dato Dr. Rozali Watooth. Patients go to all of you because you are really good in your profession, not because you are a Malay. We need efficient producers and honest policies and implementors. However, I recognize the impossible structural problem of ethnicity, religion, and bigotry that are entrenched in our economic-political landscape. C'est la vie.
Sigh!
Regards.
Dato' H,
...............................
Dato',
Thanks Dato'. I must agree with you that if you are not the right Bumiputra ie if you are not UMNOputra, and especially if you are in the technical fields, you have to give your 200 % to be up there because you not only have to face the UMNOputras but you also have to face the chagrin and anger of the other races for the perceived injustice these people thought you and your lot impact on them. If you are an architect, consulting engineer,lawyer, building industry or in business,[ or even a doctor ], on your own, you really have to be much better than Nathan or Chan or Lee to really get 'work ' from non bumis. That is a sad fact of life in Malaysia.
But for the sake of clarity let us talk statistics as statistics do not bluff...
Let us talk statistics and since our very loud friends from HINDRAF may query Malaysian statistics, let me use Singapo statisitics of us instead.
Indian ....7 %, Chinese 23 %...Malays 54 %
Average monthly income from work:
Indian..939USD Chinese 1205USD...Malays 735USD
Top 10 Malaysian billionaires:
Indian....1 Chinese 9 ....Malays 0
Look around us who are the architects, engineers,doctors, lawyers and other high income earners in the country?....Now only then can we talk about meritocracy more rationally.
Now tell me Dato', is really LKY's meritocracy not a skewed one compared to the Malaysian experiment,wart,carbuncle and pus not withstanding?
The Malaysian dilemma in 2011 perhaps is not whether we ought to discontinue the NEP beyond 2010 but rather that whether we Malaysians in general and Malays in particular need to ditch this present leadership who lacks both honesty and is not God fearing enough to make Affirmative Policy work for the poorer segment of the population. They just make it work for themselves and their cronies: Chinese, Malays and Indians to the detriment of the rest of us. This has been going on for over 40 years!
Yours Sincerely,
Nik Howk
.........................
Nadzru Azahari, an old form One classmate joining the fray.....
Dear Nik Hawk,
With a historical porosity between people of Singapo and then Malaya and now Malaysia it is difficult to see the two countries now in strict differences and hermetically sealed socio-political development. When we were young and in school in the 1960s, Nik Hawk, I cannot recall any of our classmates of Chinese ethnicity doing better than you academically or in sheer talents. In fact many of them were of very deprived background. I could recall that it was after a dozen or so Malay boys that the Chinese came close in studies achievement. The Indians like Rattan Singh, Paul Adhigam et al were permanent features at the bottom pile of the class. Only one Martin Abraham was somewhere behind the dozen Malays. The dozen Malays were also deprived Malays, not as you say the boys who were sons of Datuk Bentara Kiri and Kanan. Only Goh Beng Tin could equal you from time to time, just about though, Foo Lai Sin was always somewhere behind the dozen Malays and above Rattan Singh and Paul Adhigam. That was in maths and science. When it came to English literature and the arts, two dozen Malays were above the nearest Chinese fellow.
You were a natural expressionist, deep into reading Ivanhoe, Twelfth Night and A Mirror of the Times. It was many years later that I realised how advanced was that English literature text , A Mirror of the Times was. Yes, we were kampung and small town boys but I don't think I could ever remember that we were down the ladder in meritocracy. Dr Goh, Dr Foo are now surgeons like your goodself, but in school it was them struggling to be somewhere near you, not you to them.
I had to leave you in Kota Bharu as my late dad had to take me with him to Alor Setar. He was a poor YB UMNO defeated in the hands of a PAS challenger and had to leave Kelantan. So I finished school in Sultan Abdul Hamid College instead of SIC.You too went off to MCKK. Then affirmative action came and I would like to accept the fact that I was a beneficiary of that education policy.
I ended up reading for an Engineering degree with your classmates in MCKK. So you and I ended having the same circle of classmates when we finished our academic life. I was in the same class and University as scholars from the SAF, the Singapore Armed Forces. They too were underprivileged students. One of them was from a family that lived on stilts and pontoon squatter dwellings just off the East Coast Road in the sea. Now that part of the sea has been reclaimed and the highway to Changi Airport runs over where his house once stood. One of them became a top Singapo minister, a DPM in fact , BG Teoh Chee Hean. I cannot remember him grasping the subject taught much faster than I did.
Singapore is a city state. Malaysia is a proper country and a Nationhood. Naturally our philosophy of nation building differs.
There is nothing left that we could do to alter history but we can build a common future based on change and we can become leaders of that change. I think we are not short of capable people that can agitate and fight for that change.
One agitation for change that I find most encouraging is the ASEAN Roadmap draft prepared under the auspices of the current Secretary General of ASEAN, the Rt.Hon Dr Surin Pitsuwan. He is a Thai of Malay extraction. His household speak Malay in pure Kelantanese accent and are budu soakers with a vengeance. It is about unionising ASEAN countries with a porous cultural bondage, like an EU with more soul in it.
Cobbling up countries into unwieldy nationstates is an artwork of the Colonialists. We cannot uncobble that any more but we can make it work to our favour. Greater Sudan was from the beginning a British cobbler's job. It will now split as the cobbling got unwieldy and the Central Government of Sudan was not politically savvy enough in constructive engagement and in standing to international political manoeuvring.
Geography and space are very important factors to create strong competitive societies. The old german adage still carry truth, the need for a bigger 'lebensraum ' ( living space) and ' spracheraum ( the language space coverage). Add South Thailand, Mindanau and the biggest blessing of all - the Republic of Indonesia , we have a huge 'spracheraum'. Now we need to think, act and thrive in a ' lebensraum' called ASEAN. Which includes Singapo! Our malay spracheraum is by far the biggest, we are the anchor tenant of ASEAN.Do not limit our lebensraum and we will be counted as superior.
By sheer combination of lebensraum and spracheraum, the malay speakers are the biggest patent holders in the ASEAN region, the top scientists too! NUS has to run breathlessly and had to resort to pinching to stay in queue with the patents and research work done in ITB, UI, UnPad, Airlangga, UM, UKM and UTM. In the oil industry this is more glaringly so. Books written in malay of high quality and research work written in malay ( bahasa indonesia that is ) pile up in Gramedia, Gunung Agung, Kinokonuya more than any work that NUS can ever keep up with. The Institute of South East Asian Studies, based in Singapo, is still living because of research work on Indonesia and Thailand, not on Singapo. Even life style magazines could not write about Singapo! What is there to feature about pigeon holes in the sky?
So relax Nik Hawk. We will do well.
Wassalaam
Nadzru
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Dato' and Nadzru,
LKY boasted to the world about ruling his pigeon-hole-nation-in-the-sky on a staple diet of meritocracy and meritocracy only but in practice it is very skewed to his kinds.Any form of opposition he labelled them as ultra radical or communist and sent them off to jail. We on this side of the Causeway preach a more kinder form of meritocracy with some degree of affirmative policy for the slow 'turtles'.
Despite carbuncle , pus and all, it seemed to work. Statistics are there, though imperfect. Disgruntled people still talk within polite circles about being treated as second class citizen but where in the world can second class citizens hold on to their mother tongue, free to have their own belief and even preach their religion and end up being the priveledge class economically across the board.
Granted that we Malaysians, our political leadership especially need to reexamine ourselves with respect to our practice. Corruption and nepotism are becoming standard practice.But as they say,' we deserve the shit we deserve '.We keep voting these clowns year in and year out. We should take a leave or two from the Tunisians. Send all these faceless clowns to Timbuktu or into the sea, irrespective of their race and religion.
At the end of the day, on both sides of the Causeway we actually need God fearing leaders actually. A numero uno who is always reminded of 'The Burning'! The rest of his flock would just follow suit. The political will of the NUMBER ONE leader must be supremely clean and unblemished.
"Then We shall pluck out from every sect whichever of them was most stubborn in rebellion to the Beneficent. (69) And surely We are best aware of those most worthy to be burned therein. (70) There is not one of you but shall approach it. That is a fixed ordinance of thy Lord. (71)"
Maryam , 19 : 69- 71
Do we have one in 2011 ?
Yours Sincerely,
Dr Nik Howk
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Dr Nik Howk,
The statistics you quoted are at variance with the authoritative Abstract of Statistics, and it is not clear whether they
refer to Singapore or Malaysian populations. Hence, no valid conclusion can be drawn from them. Nihil factum nihil argumentum est. No fact, no argument.
Thirdly, I have no particular affection for the arrogant LKY. And he doesn't care whether we like him or not.
Fourthly, we have to admit that we have much to learn from the Singapore experience, management style and public ethic. There is a fine management university in Singapore, for a start. You don't have to like a people to learn and benefit from their knowledge and skills. Two thousand years ago, the native British hated the Roman soldiers viscerally. But they learned and benefited from the law, administrative structure, and technical skills that the Romans brought with them. It is perfectly fine not like Singapore but, as I mentioned in my earlier missive to you, we can benefit from observing and learning from their experience. It is also fine to admit that we need to learn more. We should be confident, not defensive: Abusing them will neither compliment our judgement, nor will it benefit our skill in statecraft in any way.
Finally, we should not be woolly minded about "angst" and "lebensraum" and "sprechensraum". Those words reflected the foggy and emotional years of pre World War II Germany. If I may draw on my very rusty German, so is schadenfreude, an emotion that one should avoid altogether. It is dangerous and fruitless to fashion policy from them. When China was backward, nobody cared to learn Mandarin. Now business executives from Sweden to San Francisco attend Mandarin classes. Why? The answer is obvious: The 'martabad' of a language, or culture, comes from economic strength, not from slogans.
Policy today should be guided by enlightened self-interest toward creativity, co-existence, technical skills, and economic strength. Singapore is not China, and does not see eye-to-eye with that country on every issue. But the two countries have found a smart modus vivendi. China is an economic giant and will grow even stronger in the next decade. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the US, Japan and Europe, even when combined together, can do about it. Blustering with words of Germanic origin cannot help either. We need to think strategically to survive in the coming decades. Diplomatically, we need to explore ways and find niches to cooperate with China and prosper.
My point is this: We get out of the time warp of the 1960's. We are better than that. Let us be calm and serious: We should design smart domestic and foreign policies that are peaceful and effective, and thereby ensure that our children inherit a better world.
Dato' H
....................................
Dear Nik Hawk,
I am back in Bangkok. I will continue on subject of Singapo.
I have difficulty to contribute to your morning religious sermons but I enjoy the pieces on socio-politics.
Wassalaam
Nadzru
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Nadzru,
Please feel free to write direct into the' comment section'.
Dato H and an ex ambassador friend of his "scolded" me diplomatically for being incorrigible in my writing towards LKY.
But, reading The Star yesterday, I am somewhat vindicated by the fact that when interviewed, by the Sinapo Straits Times, LKY felt that he did not he have to apologise for spending billions annually on state of the art weopenry.
That is Sinapo's right as a pigeonholes-of-a-state in the sky as you might say ,but his intention and feeling in this was very important : HE FEELS very STRONGLY THAT SINAPO could be attacked by Malaysia or Jakarta and make no apology about it. That missiles thing was real. Priveledge information in the 90's.
To him if Malaysia stop supplying him water for half a day, that would constitute an act of aggression, an attack on Sinapo!
He is an old goat from my perspective! When we have neighbours like him , we dont need enemies!
Nik Howk
.................................
Doc Nik Howk,
Please rest assured that I am aware of my position, and at no
time did I 'scold' you. Who am I to 'scold' a distinguished
cardiologist? We just happened to have divergent views and we
discussed them robustly. That is all. But I continue to hold you in
the highest esteem.
However, at our monthly lunches about a dozen former ambassadors did
discuss your views. One agreed with you, the others did not. Just idle
chatter among the old chaps.
Dato' H
...................................
Dato',
Just my typical incorrigible way of expression Dato'. No malice intended.
I am happy at least one retired ambassador agrees with me, for we have been to soft with LKY or rather our numero uno past and present cannot measure up to him...probably apart from Dr M.
Let me put it this way:
It would be mad for Malaysia even in the 90's and especially now to want to handle another 5 millions or so of "you know what". We cannot even handle even aging Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng!
A group of HINDRAF characters making animal noise on a common word which you and me made out as a classic descriptive term and now becoming an international expression[ eg 'pariah' states], how can we handle another 5 millions . And LKY have been thinking all the years that we want them back . If this is not paranoia of the 1st order I do not know what it is.
This old chap need to be put in his proper place sometime....I do not like Dr M and his ways but at least Dr M knew how to put LKY in his proper place and that was 'down there'....We miss Dr M for that.
At the end of the day, I think my friend Nadzru put it in a proper perspective: Sinapo is just a state of pigeonholes in the sky, if I am allowed to add, with an old goat overlooking it's affair..... We should not get excited about what LKY and what Sinapo does or does not do anymore. They are not friendly people certainly.
Nik Howk
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Dear Nik Hawk,
Indeed we should not get excited about it. I think you should no longer think about LKY, the Old Goat is indeed old and soon he will be deceased or drawn senile. If he writes more folly, it is at his own peril, it will be recorded as a comedy of an old fellow obsessed with his own notion of social engineering. Not unsuccessful though and has been very effective even for us Malaysians to emulate,which we did , influenced by spill over.For we too, in our uncivil behaviour with our sputum ,garbage throwing and poo habits needed a Sinapo LKY treatment. It was the porosity of our civil and municipality behaviour, we were as dirty as they were.We have a critical mass of Hakkas, Hokkiens and Kelantanese on both the peninsular and the island. LKY was one of them and we can understand how he detested the behaviour of his clansmen.
The little Red Dot ( to quote President Dr Ir Bachruddin H Habibie) that needed reclamation of land to exist decently will remain as it is, a City State, living ( if not sponging) off the proceeds from its neighbours, its hinterland. Singapore is a socio-political necessity that came out of a post-colonial era, world wars and revised economic orders. If LKY had not existed, he must be created. Fortunately he existed for a creation may not be as good as the real McCoy. He did what is best for a small island, 22X11 kilometres, not fit even for a municipality. When he took it over it was still a quagmire of swamps, marshlands,mosquito infested and prone to floods. Squatters and slums all the way from Paya Lebar airport to downtown. He had to cleverly hide them behind a cordon sanitarie of creepers. It was a teeming mix of a port and harbour city of squalor and enclaves of order and elegance ,with a populace deep in an inferiority complex of being chinese in a colonial administration.
It even has a creole language called singlish that when spoken on a hakka tongue makes it the expression of the most abysmal. So ugly is a hakka lawyer in an english wig and so ugly is a hakka lady in stilletos. He has done a great job, like the Nahyans and the Maktoums of the former Trucial States. He has made that equatorial squalor and incessantly hot, muddy,humid island livable and respectably elegant.
However Nik Hawk, how much can one ever glorify a City State where people live in pigeon holes and work in airconditioned cubicles? How much can quality of life be simulated in designer portacabins? LKY did quote that two products of recent times that revolutionised Sinapo and make it livable ( I think bearable) are the airconditioning units and the excavator. The latter to revamp the swamps and the marshlands and the former to cool those ugly pigeonhole HDB flats so that Sinapoleans can live and breed in those holes.
In Bangkok and Jakarta one can buy wonderful architecture, environment design monthlies like Ban Nai Fun, Ban Nae Suen, Laras, Asri etc. In Sinapo no one reads about how to put half dead roses in flower pots on tiny balconies. I can't even remember if they have any of such monthlies.There is a limit to imagination, on how you can imagine at how 'cool', 'spacious' and cultured your pigeonholes are. The old German socio-political engineering adage that I recited, 'lebensraum' and 'spracheraum' are about real physical spaces and linguistic access, not conceptual spaces and mangled english.
I am fascinated by a socio-economic and political philosophy promulgated by HH King Bhumipol Adulyadej of Thailand. He calls it the Economics of Sufficiency ( not self sufficient economics!) and the base and extended Prathet ( the domestic and regional nationhoods). I think we are more suited to this than the meritocracy of a port and harbour economy of LKY's. Almarhoum WS Rendra ( he was poet and it is a wonder that he could also speak economics) spoke about the basis of a 'Lander to Lander' economics of the Nusantara, where Pattani , Kelantan and Makkassar can trade point to point and not dictated by Silk Air or Airasia preferred routes that are granted by political patronage.HH The King's development philosophy and nationhood simply cannot work in a 22X11 land space. It needs a hinterland and land mass. It needs mountains and rivers. It need space with temperature range. To succeed in the long run, a country must be geographically correct. No built environment can sustain for long.
Nik Hawk, come 2015 and our economies will be seamless. Countries are administrative units in ASEAN, no longer badly cobbled Nationstates out of the nationalism of the post-colonial era. LKY will become irrelevant beause his school of thought will be obsolete. Our poor Sinapolean cousins will be driven to compete feverishly with us.They will choose to work with us instead in expanded corporatisation. Those poor fellows cannot compete working in sterile airconditioned pigeonholes while we work in healthy spaces! We have strong fundamentals in mother tongue lingua franca of sophisticated languages like Bahasa Indonesia ( sorry folks, Bahasa Melayu will remain as the language of surau religious discourses and the MAIK khutbah texts) and Thai ( with its less sophisticated variants, Lao ,Cham and Khmer). Sinapoleans will be burdened with the mangled singlish and half-baked mandarin. A port and harbour society of neither here nor there, with one good novel written per year and research work done by emigre bangladeshis in their universities. Singapolean bookshops will be Borders and Kinokonuya with imported english books while ours in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok will be full of quality literary and sicentific works done in our mother tongues. Creative thinking in mother tongues and not an intellectual culture of the transient and dilletance in port and harbour english.
So Nik Hawk, a plumber though I am not, I am a positivist. I love the Nusantara and the Suwarnabumi, its forests ( and the vast store of knowledge in it), the land and the economics of sufficiency and the beautiful space. Yes Sir, SPACE to breathe oxygen.SPACE to sleep.SPACE under the skies. Give me more, not the pigeonholes under whatever name!
Let Sinapo be, a port and harbour size 22X11, soon to be inundated by its own excess. For all that it spoke of as a developed society, the indices show otherwise. It is and it will remain a port and harbour site for a long time to come.
Nadzru
..........................................
Nadzru,
I think we better stop this here. The rate we are 'punching' that old chap, the next time you or me visit 'down under', even our toilet bowls will be thoroughly checked!
Or perhaps we would finally be officially permanently honoured as 'persona non grata'to Sinapo!.....Better than any Datuk'ship perhaps which is becoming far too common. Bila nak dapat cucu ?
Nik Howk
Related Article:
The Malay Dilemma, 2008
Our Education System has Failed, Oct 2008.
Meritocracy LKY's style...I have not seen any plumber yet from amongst the Malays in Singapo over the last 3 decades. Three 'bloody' decades waiting to see one.
Can forget about SAF pilot or president. After that Apakahnamadiadah Isahak at least the presidency is the preserve of Singapo's Indians, does not matter whether one is an alcoholic or not...ability to talk and 'goreng' and 'ampu' LKY is an essential prerequisite and Singapo Malays sadly scored zero on this important point. Or is this another of LKY social engineering...dont give face at all to the Singapo Malays in order to spike his old foes: Tunku, Dr M, Musa Hitam, Jaafar Albar, Dr Ismail, Tun Razak et al.... Serve them right! I am having the last laugh.
My stay coincide with launch of yet another LKY's autobiography. LKY is a sad old goat, living beyond his time.He seemed to be carrying this thing about Malaysia and Malaysians on his shoulders far too long!It is almost bordering on paranoia
[... friends involved in remote sensing industry serving MINDEF way back in the 90's intimated to me that Singapo even had mobile surface to surface missiles facing KL and Jakarta even then!...A well known secret the MINDEF people would not like to share for obvious reason: We have no reply to that kind of preparation from socalled friend and neighbour!.Difficult to substantiate officially but very believable from the way their leaders behave and talk then in the 80's.... And we are supplying them with 'cheap cheap' water on a daily basis for 50 over years! Try cutting that for half a day , and their boys would be enjoying satay Kajang by midnight. They have hundreds of light armoured personnel vehicles ready to be mobilised!...Do not underrate their capability. People who think they are under seige could just do about anything. ]
MM LKY is not happy that his previous two autobiographies were not well read by young, present day Singaporeans so he coerced a group of Straits Times editors and journalists to grill him over 16 interviews and come up with a book,' their style', not his....to improve readership.Those chaps met for 4 months to plan to ask the right questions. But no one' peed' in their pants at least. Dr M across the Causeway may want to follow suit.
Even with NTR, Ringgit Malaysia, Dr M and Pak Lah in the background and foreground, I still feel safe to be back in the 'real' world....
Singapo feel like a sanitized hotel toilet to me compared to our usual 'jamban'.
PS: We Malaysians need not read this new doctored interviews made into book form, the recent Wikileaks is already enough for us, as they say,
" if you have neighbours like them, you dont need enemies "
....................................
Dr Nik Howk,
Re your comments on your cardiologist conference in Singapore. Let me comment as an economist. We should compare apples and apples. We should compare the statistics of the average Singaporean Malay and the average Malaysian Malay in terms of per capita income, jobs, housing, education, access to medical services, transport, % of protein in daily calorific food intake, safety and security of pension funds and statutory contributions, honest administrative service, the environment, future prospects, etc.
Never, as you claim, a Malay president in Singapore? Not true. How about Aziz Ishak? No Malay cardiologist? Perhaps not, but it is not a recognized index. They may be in other specialties or are GP's. Or engineers, pilots, teachers, etc. Who knows for sure?
Finally, re a Malaysian 'jamban': Allow me, most respectfully, to differ. Give me clean Singapore toilet, against a Malaysian jamban, any time I need to 'bomb'.
Regards, and a Happy New Year!
Dato' H
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Dato' H,
Yes, I do remember Aziz Isahak. How can we forget him. But after him no more. Malays have regressed under LKY. Not even good to be taxi drivers. Malays in Singapo only are good enought to be guards and jaga's. For the ladies,probably those who have the modernity to replace their tudungs,sspg's [ singapo sarong party girls ], thugging tightly to their Mat Saleh boyfriends. No Dato, this is not state of the art statistical academic analysis. This is just my firasat and gut feeling about things Singapo!
Which bring us way back to Tunku's time in the early 60's during the split. Thank God Tunku had the foresight to split.
LKY would have driven a wedge too difficult to solve with his insistence of Malaysian Malaysia. Must have tormented the old gentleman quite a bit at that time. YB Musa Hitam and a young YB Dr M making loud animal noise in the background and all that. Wisdom is not cheap.
Had we gone Dr M's way then or Jaafar Albar from the Amenu Youth Wing, they could have easily persuaded Tun Dr Ismail, Home Minister to easily lock up young recalcitrant LKY under the pretext of ISA and the whole region would have been in complete turmoil.
Had we followed LKY's Malaysian Malaysia instead, could we have been a better nation?...you may not have ended being the proud owner of Cempaka Incorporated, not so very bright Daim Zainuddin may just be a simple failed salt trader in Kota Bharu or a failed third rate lawyer, Nik Isahak may just make it as a primary school teacher teaching English. Affirmative Policy in 2011, we still need this, more so in this globalised 'Mandarinised' world of future world Chinese dominance.....otherwise we will end up like the Malays of Singapo.
Two billions Chinese and oversea Chinese who think money, money money. Money is everything. Money is God.
Take a drive just 60 kilometres away from KL city centre and you will agree with me...you do not need to go to Gua Musang, Slow Temiang or Kuala Ketil.
It may sound irrational and racist but why give up NEP when the rest does not want to part with their schools, languages etc etc for the sake of unity and good education. You want me to move towards the centre but you want to remain there away from the centre. You want to have your cakes AND YOU STILL WANT A BIGGER SHARE OF MINE AS WELL.
The horse trading in NTR's 1Malaysia is a failure right from the onset because the others are not moving towards the centre, only we move..
Some irrational thots no doubt, as I move back across the Causeway!
I am thinking like an old goat you may say Dato'........
Nik Howk
.......................
Doc,
First of all, dear Doctor Nik Howk, may I make a small observation? We in our family company Cempaka (my wife, my sons, and I), worked very hard to get to where we are today. Not a cent or favour from the NEP. We started in 1983 in a small rented house in KL, in a low rent area. We used our small savings. We could not afford contractors, so we washed, painted, and fixed the house ourselves. We borrowed operated on OD from commercial banks at commercial rates (between 8 and 9% p.a.). We grew gradually, as parents got to know and trust us. Later, to build our own (purposed-designed) school, we needed to borrow substantially from the banks to purchase the land and construct the school.
We had no assets as collateral for the loan. We went to a few Malay banker friends. They were social friends, and were very polite, but demanded a substantial collateral. We had none. They sighed, offered us tea and curry puffs, and said goodbye. As a last resort, we went to see a Chinese banker friend. We immediately confessed that we had no substantial assets. He said, "Don't worry. I know you and Freida well. Your character is your asset." He called in his GM (a Kelantan gentleman from Kota Baru, also a Nik) and told him to grant us the loan on the spot. We used the loan to build the Bukit Damansara Cempaka. That was the start. We worked hard, and paid off the bank loan in good time. We led a spartan life. My wonderful wife worked very hard, and made do without the luxuries other wives might demand. Our priority was our children's education. It grew to become a concern for other people's children as well.
Since then we grew with vision, hard work, and disciplined cost control. We gave young Cempakans honest quality education. Parents from far and near (even from Sabah and Sarawak, and from Penang) trusted their most precious possessions, their children, in my wife's care. From 10 children at Cempaka on Jalan Bukit Bintang in 1983, we are now 3,000 in enrollment strength in the three campuses, with 500 teachers and supporting staff. In all this, how much help did we receive under the NEP? You guessed it: ZERO! A BN minister who later visited Cempaka, was impressed by our students' performance, and asked me, "How much subsidy do you get from the government?" When I said, "Nothing." He repeated the question in a different form three times. Then he sighed and shook his head in disbelief.
My dear Doc Howk, I was a staff member of Tun Razak's MAGERAN in 1969/70. I understood and supported Tun's desire to uplift the socio-econpomic status of the Malay community. (Among my colleagues in the secretariat were Abdullah Badawi, Hanif Omar, Azizan Zainul Abidin, and Joe Ghazali Che Mat. Three Tuns and a Tan Sri, now!) We all worked hard as officers to help design the NEP. But now, it appears that the implementation of the NEP benefitted mainly the UMNOputras, not the hardworking and deserving Bumiputras that the late Tun Razak had intended. For example, our application for soft loans complied all the conditions, were verbally welcomed, but on paper were rejected time and again. Why? Because, I was made to understand, we are non political. Honest and hardworking Bumiputra business people, yes, but non political and non-UMNOputras. The NEP will continue, for sure, who will it benefit? Not simple, ordinary Bumi folks like us. And not the people you so earnestly feel for in your email to me.
We have a culture that is based on entitlement by association, not on merit and hard work. I have Malay friends in Singapore (not brilliant academically to become cardiologists) but they are proud of their education and achievements. They have no hang-ups about being a deprived minority. On the contrary they feel sorry for the Malays here for still being on crutches after 53 years of independence. They asked me, will this go on forever? And where is our pride? I just smiled politely and did not respond. Re your comment on Malay girls in Singapore on the arm of Mat Sallehs, I have not seen any. I don't move in the right circles?
Secondly, I did get a university scholarship to study overseas. But there were no Petronas, or JPA, or MARA scholarships in 1956. Many of us competed for only three available MCS (as the PTD was known then) scholarships. The winners were a student from MCKK, a student from RI in Singapore, and me. We could go on scholarship to any university of our choice, but we later had to return and serve the government. All three of us treasured our scholarships, studied hard, and came home to serve our country.
As for you I am sure, with your intelligence and hard work, you would have become a huge success in any chosen field. It is fortuitous that you chose Medicine, as you now do much good for people who need your skills. As for salt traders- turned-politicians, I wonder of the country would have been better off. There has been so much rape and pillage of our economy that they merit no repetition. Yet I wonder, how come no one takes any notice of them?
You are right in that Tunku made the right decision to split. I was in the Service at that time. My boss at Wisma Putra (the late Tun Ghaz) was shocked when he heard the news. We were having tea at the Dog at that moment. After the initial impact of disbelief and sadness, we all recognised that it was the better of two awful alternatives. Now, decades later, we in Malaysia should recognise that the world is indeed global, and we must be highly competitive in order to survive in it with dignity. With a sense of competitiveness, not entitlement.
I agree with you that everyone should move to the centre. But we do need to embrace meritocracy, step by step. After all, your practice is flourishing because you are a very good cardiologist. So is my cardiologist and good friend Dato Dr. Annuar, and my surgeon Dato Dr. Rozali Watooth. Patients go to all of you because you are really good in your profession, not because you are a Malay. We need efficient producers and honest policies and implementors. However, I recognize the impossible structural problem of ethnicity, religion, and bigotry that are entrenched in our economic-political landscape. C'est la vie.
Sigh!
Regards.
Dato' H,
...............................
Dato',
Thanks Dato'. I must agree with you that if you are not the right Bumiputra ie if you are not UMNOputra, and especially if you are in the technical fields, you have to give your 200 % to be up there because you not only have to face the UMNOputras but you also have to face the chagrin and anger of the other races for the perceived injustice these people thought you and your lot impact on them. If you are an architect, consulting engineer,lawyer, building industry or in business,[ or even a doctor ], on your own, you really have to be much better than Nathan or Chan or Lee to really get 'work ' from non bumis. That is a sad fact of life in Malaysia.
But for the sake of clarity let us talk statistics as statistics do not bluff...
Let us talk statistics and since our very loud friends from HINDRAF may query Malaysian statistics, let me use Singapo statisitics of us instead.
Indian ....7 %, Chinese 23 %...Malays 54 %
Average monthly income from work:
Indian..939USD Chinese 1205USD...Malays 735USD
Top 10 Malaysian billionaires:
Indian....1 Chinese 9 ....Malays 0
Look around us who are the architects, engineers,doctors, lawyers and other high income earners in the country?....Now only then can we talk about meritocracy more rationally.
Now tell me Dato', is really LKY's meritocracy not a skewed one compared to the Malaysian experiment,wart,carbuncle and pus not withstanding?
The Malaysian dilemma in 2011 perhaps is not whether we ought to discontinue the NEP beyond 2010 but rather that whether we Malaysians in general and Malays in particular need to ditch this present leadership who lacks both honesty and is not God fearing enough to make Affirmative Policy work for the poorer segment of the population. They just make it work for themselves and their cronies: Chinese, Malays and Indians to the detriment of the rest of us. This has been going on for over 40 years!
Yours Sincerely,
Nik Howk
.........................
Nadzru Azahari, an old form One classmate joining the fray.....
Dear Nik Hawk,
With a historical porosity between people of Singapo and then Malaya and now Malaysia it is difficult to see the two countries now in strict differences and hermetically sealed socio-political development. When we were young and in school in the 1960s, Nik Hawk, I cannot recall any of our classmates of Chinese ethnicity doing better than you academically or in sheer talents. In fact many of them were of very deprived background. I could recall that it was after a dozen or so Malay boys that the Chinese came close in studies achievement. The Indians like Rattan Singh, Paul Adhigam et al were permanent features at the bottom pile of the class. Only one Martin Abraham was somewhere behind the dozen Malays. The dozen Malays were also deprived Malays, not as you say the boys who were sons of Datuk Bentara Kiri and Kanan. Only Goh Beng Tin could equal you from time to time, just about though, Foo Lai Sin was always somewhere behind the dozen Malays and above Rattan Singh and Paul Adhigam. That was in maths and science. When it came to English literature and the arts, two dozen Malays were above the nearest Chinese fellow.
You were a natural expressionist, deep into reading Ivanhoe, Twelfth Night and A Mirror of the Times. It was many years later that I realised how advanced was that English literature text , A Mirror of the Times was. Yes, we were kampung and small town boys but I don't think I could ever remember that we were down the ladder in meritocracy. Dr Goh, Dr Foo are now surgeons like your goodself, but in school it was them struggling to be somewhere near you, not you to them.
I had to leave you in Kota Bharu as my late dad had to take me with him to Alor Setar. He was a poor YB UMNO defeated in the hands of a PAS challenger and had to leave Kelantan. So I finished school in Sultan Abdul Hamid College instead of SIC.You too went off to MCKK. Then affirmative action came and I would like to accept the fact that I was a beneficiary of that education policy.
I ended up reading for an Engineering degree with your classmates in MCKK. So you and I ended having the same circle of classmates when we finished our academic life. I was in the same class and University as scholars from the SAF, the Singapore Armed Forces. They too were underprivileged students. One of them was from a family that lived on stilts and pontoon squatter dwellings just off the East Coast Road in the sea. Now that part of the sea has been reclaimed and the highway to Changi Airport runs over where his house once stood. One of them became a top Singapo minister, a DPM in fact , BG Teoh Chee Hean. I cannot remember him grasping the subject taught much faster than I did.
Singapore is a city state. Malaysia is a proper country and a Nationhood. Naturally our philosophy of nation building differs.
There is nothing left that we could do to alter history but we can build a common future based on change and we can become leaders of that change. I think we are not short of capable people that can agitate and fight for that change.
One agitation for change that I find most encouraging is the ASEAN Roadmap draft prepared under the auspices of the current Secretary General of ASEAN, the Rt.Hon Dr Surin Pitsuwan. He is a Thai of Malay extraction. His household speak Malay in pure Kelantanese accent and are budu soakers with a vengeance. It is about unionising ASEAN countries with a porous cultural bondage, like an EU with more soul in it.
Cobbling up countries into unwieldy nationstates is an artwork of the Colonialists. We cannot uncobble that any more but we can make it work to our favour. Greater Sudan was from the beginning a British cobbler's job. It will now split as the cobbling got unwieldy and the Central Government of Sudan was not politically savvy enough in constructive engagement and in standing to international political manoeuvring.
Geography and space are very important factors to create strong competitive societies. The old german adage still carry truth, the need for a bigger 'lebensraum ' ( living space) and ' spracheraum ( the language space coverage). Add South Thailand, Mindanau and the biggest blessing of all - the Republic of Indonesia , we have a huge 'spracheraum'. Now we need to think, act and thrive in a ' lebensraum' called ASEAN. Which includes Singapo! Our malay spracheraum is by far the biggest, we are the anchor tenant of ASEAN.Do not limit our lebensraum and we will be counted as superior.
By sheer combination of lebensraum and spracheraum, the malay speakers are the biggest patent holders in the ASEAN region, the top scientists too! NUS has to run breathlessly and had to resort to pinching to stay in queue with the patents and research work done in ITB, UI, UnPad, Airlangga, UM, UKM and UTM. In the oil industry this is more glaringly so. Books written in malay of high quality and research work written in malay ( bahasa indonesia that is ) pile up in Gramedia, Gunung Agung, Kinokonuya more than any work that NUS can ever keep up with. The Institute of South East Asian Studies, based in Singapo, is still living because of research work on Indonesia and Thailand, not on Singapo. Even life style magazines could not write about Singapo! What is there to feature about pigeon holes in the sky?
So relax Nik Hawk. We will do well.
Wassalaam
Nadzru
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Dato' and Nadzru,
LKY boasted to the world about ruling his pigeon-hole-nation-in-the-sky on a staple diet of meritocracy and meritocracy only but in practice it is very skewed to his kinds.Any form of opposition he labelled them as ultra radical or communist and sent them off to jail. We on this side of the Causeway preach a more kinder form of meritocracy with some degree of affirmative policy for the slow 'turtles'.
Despite carbuncle , pus and all, it seemed to work. Statistics are there, though imperfect. Disgruntled people still talk within polite circles about being treated as second class citizen but where in the world can second class citizens hold on to their mother tongue, free to have their own belief and even preach their religion and end up being the priveledge class economically across the board.
Granted that we Malaysians, our political leadership especially need to reexamine ourselves with respect to our practice. Corruption and nepotism are becoming standard practice.But as they say,' we deserve the shit we deserve '.We keep voting these clowns year in and year out. We should take a leave or two from the Tunisians. Send all these faceless clowns to Timbuktu or into the sea, irrespective of their race and religion.
At the end of the day, on both sides of the Causeway we actually need God fearing leaders actually. A numero uno who is always reminded of 'The Burning'! The rest of his flock would just follow suit. The political will of the NUMBER ONE leader must be supremely clean and unblemished.
"Then We shall pluck out from every sect whichever of them was most stubborn in rebellion to the Beneficent. (69) And surely We are best aware of those most worthy to be burned therein. (70) There is not one of you but shall approach it. That is a fixed ordinance of thy Lord. (71)"
Maryam , 19 : 69- 71
Do we have one in 2011 ?
Yours Sincerely,
Dr Nik Howk
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Dr Nik Howk,
The statistics you quoted are at variance with the authoritative Abstract of Statistics, and it is not clear whether they
refer to Singapore or Malaysian populations. Hence, no valid conclusion can be drawn from them. Nihil factum nihil argumentum est. No fact, no argument.
Thirdly, I have no particular affection for the arrogant LKY. And he doesn't care whether we like him or not.
Fourthly, we have to admit that we have much to learn from the Singapore experience, management style and public ethic. There is a fine management university in Singapore, for a start. You don't have to like a people to learn and benefit from their knowledge and skills. Two thousand years ago, the native British hated the Roman soldiers viscerally. But they learned and benefited from the law, administrative structure, and technical skills that the Romans brought with them. It is perfectly fine not like Singapore but, as I mentioned in my earlier missive to you, we can benefit from observing and learning from their experience. It is also fine to admit that we need to learn more. We should be confident, not defensive: Abusing them will neither compliment our judgement, nor will it benefit our skill in statecraft in any way.
Finally, we should not be woolly minded about "angst" and "lebensraum" and "sprechensraum". Those words reflected the foggy and emotional years of pre World War II Germany. If I may draw on my very rusty German, so is schadenfreude, an emotion that one should avoid altogether. It is dangerous and fruitless to fashion policy from them. When China was backward, nobody cared to learn Mandarin. Now business executives from Sweden to San Francisco attend Mandarin classes. Why? The answer is obvious: The 'martabad' of a language, or culture, comes from economic strength, not from slogans.
Policy today should be guided by enlightened self-interest toward creativity, co-existence, technical skills, and economic strength. Singapore is not China, and does not see eye-to-eye with that country on every issue. But the two countries have found a smart modus vivendi. China is an economic giant and will grow even stronger in the next decade. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the US, Japan and Europe, even when combined together, can do about it. Blustering with words of Germanic origin cannot help either. We need to think strategically to survive in the coming decades. Diplomatically, we need to explore ways and find niches to cooperate with China and prosper.
My point is this: We get out of the time warp of the 1960's. We are better than that. Let us be calm and serious: We should design smart domestic and foreign policies that are peaceful and effective, and thereby ensure that our children inherit a better world.
Dato' H
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Dear Nik Hawk,
I am back in Bangkok. I will continue on subject of Singapo.
I have difficulty to contribute to your morning religious sermons but I enjoy the pieces on socio-politics.
Wassalaam
Nadzru
...................................
Nadzru,
Please feel free to write direct into the' comment section'.
Dato H and an ex ambassador friend of his "scolded" me diplomatically for being incorrigible in my writing towards LKY.
But, reading The Star yesterday, I am somewhat vindicated by the fact that when interviewed, by the Sinapo Straits Times, LKY felt that he did not he have to apologise for spending billions annually on state of the art weopenry.
That is Sinapo's right as a pigeonholes-of-a-state in the sky as you might say ,but his intention and feeling in this was very important : HE FEELS very STRONGLY THAT SINAPO could be attacked by Malaysia or Jakarta and make no apology about it. That missiles thing was real. Priveledge information in the 90's.
To him if Malaysia stop supplying him water for half a day, that would constitute an act of aggression, an attack on Sinapo!
He is an old goat from my perspective! When we have neighbours like him , we dont need enemies!
Nik Howk
.................................
Doc Nik Howk,
Please rest assured that I am aware of my position, and at no
time did I 'scold' you. Who am I to 'scold' a distinguished
cardiologist? We just happened to have divergent views and we
discussed them robustly. That is all. But I continue to hold you in
the highest esteem.
However, at our monthly lunches about a dozen former ambassadors did
discuss your views. One agreed with you, the others did not. Just idle
chatter among the old chaps.
Dato' H
...................................
Dato',
Just my typical incorrigible way of expression Dato'. No malice intended.
I am happy at least one retired ambassador agrees with me, for we have been to soft with LKY or rather our numero uno past and present cannot measure up to him...probably apart from Dr M.
Let me put it this way:
It would be mad for Malaysia even in the 90's and especially now to want to handle another 5 millions or so of "you know what". We cannot even handle even aging Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng!
A group of HINDRAF characters making animal noise on a common word which you and me made out as a classic descriptive term and now becoming an international expression[ eg 'pariah' states], how can we handle another 5 millions . And LKY have been thinking all the years that we want them back . If this is not paranoia of the 1st order I do not know what it is.
This old chap need to be put in his proper place sometime....I do not like Dr M and his ways but at least Dr M knew how to put LKY in his proper place and that was 'down there'....We miss Dr M for that.
At the end of the day, I think my friend Nadzru put it in a proper perspective: Sinapo is just a state of pigeonholes in the sky, if I am allowed to add, with an old goat overlooking it's affair..... We should not get excited about what LKY and what Sinapo does or does not do anymore. They are not friendly people certainly.
Nik Howk
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Dear Nik Hawk,
Indeed we should not get excited about it. I think you should no longer think about LKY, the Old Goat is indeed old and soon he will be deceased or drawn senile. If he writes more folly, it is at his own peril, it will be recorded as a comedy of an old fellow obsessed with his own notion of social engineering. Not unsuccessful though and has been very effective even for us Malaysians to emulate,which we did , influenced by spill over.For we too, in our uncivil behaviour with our sputum ,garbage throwing and poo habits needed a Sinapo LKY treatment. It was the porosity of our civil and municipality behaviour, we were as dirty as they were.We have a critical mass of Hakkas, Hokkiens and Kelantanese on both the peninsular and the island. LKY was one of them and we can understand how he detested the behaviour of his clansmen.
The little Red Dot ( to quote President Dr Ir Bachruddin H Habibie) that needed reclamation of land to exist decently will remain as it is, a City State, living ( if not sponging) off the proceeds from its neighbours, its hinterland. Singapore is a socio-political necessity that came out of a post-colonial era, world wars and revised economic orders. If LKY had not existed, he must be created. Fortunately he existed for a creation may not be as good as the real McCoy. He did what is best for a small island, 22X11 kilometres, not fit even for a municipality. When he took it over it was still a quagmire of swamps, marshlands,mosquito infested and prone to floods. Squatters and slums all the way from Paya Lebar airport to downtown. He had to cleverly hide them behind a cordon sanitarie of creepers. It was a teeming mix of a port and harbour city of squalor and enclaves of order and elegance ,with a populace deep in an inferiority complex of being chinese in a colonial administration.
It even has a creole language called singlish that when spoken on a hakka tongue makes it the expression of the most abysmal. So ugly is a hakka lawyer in an english wig and so ugly is a hakka lady in stilletos. He has done a great job, like the Nahyans and the Maktoums of the former Trucial States. He has made that equatorial squalor and incessantly hot, muddy,humid island livable and respectably elegant.
However Nik Hawk, how much can one ever glorify a City State where people live in pigeon holes and work in airconditioned cubicles? How much can quality of life be simulated in designer portacabins? LKY did quote that two products of recent times that revolutionised Sinapo and make it livable ( I think bearable) are the airconditioning units and the excavator. The latter to revamp the swamps and the marshlands and the former to cool those ugly pigeonhole HDB flats so that Sinapoleans can live and breed in those holes.
In Bangkok and Jakarta one can buy wonderful architecture, environment design monthlies like Ban Nai Fun, Ban Nae Suen, Laras, Asri etc. In Sinapo no one reads about how to put half dead roses in flower pots on tiny balconies. I can't even remember if they have any of such monthlies.There is a limit to imagination, on how you can imagine at how 'cool', 'spacious' and cultured your pigeonholes are. The old German socio-political engineering adage that I recited, 'lebensraum' and 'spracheraum' are about real physical spaces and linguistic access, not conceptual spaces and mangled english.
I am fascinated by a socio-economic and political philosophy promulgated by HH King Bhumipol Adulyadej of Thailand. He calls it the Economics of Sufficiency ( not self sufficient economics!) and the base and extended Prathet ( the domestic and regional nationhoods). I think we are more suited to this than the meritocracy of a port and harbour economy of LKY's. Almarhoum WS Rendra ( he was poet and it is a wonder that he could also speak economics) spoke about the basis of a 'Lander to Lander' economics of the Nusantara, where Pattani , Kelantan and Makkassar can trade point to point and not dictated by Silk Air or Airasia preferred routes that are granted by political patronage.HH The King's development philosophy and nationhood simply cannot work in a 22X11 land space. It needs a hinterland and land mass. It needs mountains and rivers. It need space with temperature range. To succeed in the long run, a country must be geographically correct. No built environment can sustain for long.
Nik Hawk, come 2015 and our economies will be seamless. Countries are administrative units in ASEAN, no longer badly cobbled Nationstates out of the nationalism of the post-colonial era. LKY will become irrelevant beause his school of thought will be obsolete. Our poor Sinapolean cousins will be driven to compete feverishly with us.They will choose to work with us instead in expanded corporatisation. Those poor fellows cannot compete working in sterile airconditioned pigeonholes while we work in healthy spaces! We have strong fundamentals in mother tongue lingua franca of sophisticated languages like Bahasa Indonesia ( sorry folks, Bahasa Melayu will remain as the language of surau religious discourses and the MAIK khutbah texts) and Thai ( with its less sophisticated variants, Lao ,Cham and Khmer). Sinapoleans will be burdened with the mangled singlish and half-baked mandarin. A port and harbour society of neither here nor there, with one good novel written per year and research work done by emigre bangladeshis in their universities. Singapolean bookshops will be Borders and Kinokonuya with imported english books while ours in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok will be full of quality literary and sicentific works done in our mother tongues. Creative thinking in mother tongues and not an intellectual culture of the transient and dilletance in port and harbour english.
So Nik Hawk, a plumber though I am not, I am a positivist. I love the Nusantara and the Suwarnabumi, its forests ( and the vast store of knowledge in it), the land and the economics of sufficiency and the beautiful space. Yes Sir, SPACE to breathe oxygen.SPACE to sleep.SPACE under the skies. Give me more, not the pigeonholes under whatever name!
Let Sinapo be, a port and harbour size 22X11, soon to be inundated by its own excess. For all that it spoke of as a developed society, the indices show otherwise. It is and it will remain a port and harbour site for a long time to come.
Nadzru
..........................................
Nadzru,
I think we better stop this here. The rate we are 'punching' that old chap, the next time you or me visit 'down under', even our toilet bowls will be thoroughly checked!
Or perhaps we would finally be officially permanently honoured as 'persona non grata'to Sinapo!.....Better than any Datuk'ship perhaps which is becoming far too common. Bila nak dapat cucu ?
Nik Howk
Related Article:
The Malay Dilemma, 2008
Our Education System has Failed, Oct 2008.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Rise and Fall of The Ottoman Empire
"Even if your reign on the imperial throne seems everlasting , don't be taken in
One day a hostile wind will blow...."
Suleyman the Conqueror
Ottoman Empire 1
Ottoman Empire 2 : Click Here
Ottoman Empire 3 : Click Here
A BBC perspective:
Part 1 : Click Here
Part 2 : Click Here
The Fall of the Ottoman Empire
The Big Picture from 1895 to 2011, from Disraeli to Truman , to Angela Meckel, Sarkozy, Blair and Bush.... is OIL.
From Kennedy to Obama, throw in The Great American 'Military-Industrial complex' and more thirst for cheap OIL. To compound the 'spanner in the engine' China and India have woken up to greater thirst for more OIL.....
America, Germany, France, Russia, all of Europe, China , India all mostly permanent members of tthe UN Security Council.......all want and need cheap OIL.
Do the democratic aspiration of peoples in Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and even Saudi have a chance with all these shadowy 'wolves' in sheep clothes?
Next week Sudan will be splintered. Then Iran, perhaps Yemen in the future or any 'Muslim' place with decent oil under the ground....Create unrest, dissension, pariahrization and talibanization, UN resolutions, sanction, referendum if possible, outright invasion if not, and the rest is history...hang a few dictators and their assistants for good measure. While the real war criminals like Bush and Blair are free to spend their retirement getting drunk.
One day a hostile wind will blow...."
Suleyman the Conqueror
Ottoman Empire 1
Ottoman Empire 2 : Click Here
Ottoman Empire 3 : Click Here
A BBC perspective:
Part 1 : Click Here
Part 2 : Click Here
The Fall of the Ottoman Empire
The Big Picture from 1895 to 2011, from Disraeli to Truman , to Angela Meckel, Sarkozy, Blair and Bush.... is OIL.
From Kennedy to Obama, throw in The Great American 'Military-Industrial complex' and more thirst for cheap OIL. To compound the 'spanner in the engine' China and India have woken up to greater thirst for more OIL.....
America, Germany, France, Russia, all of Europe, China , India all mostly permanent members of tthe UN Security Council.......all want and need cheap OIL.
Do the democratic aspiration of peoples in Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and even Saudi have a chance with all these shadowy 'wolves' in sheep clothes?
Next week Sudan will be splintered. Then Iran, perhaps Yemen in the future or any 'Muslim' place with decent oil under the ground....Create unrest, dissension, pariahrization and talibanization, UN resolutions, sanction, referendum if possible, outright invasion if not, and the rest is history...hang a few dictators and their assistants for good measure. While the real war criminals like Bush and Blair are free to spend their retirement getting drunk.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Empire of Faith
A Ben Kingsley/Jonathan Bloom documentary/narration on Islam : a dry, academic but nonetheless absorbing and honest look at the spread and influence of Islam from the perspective of Orientalists...
Part 1 : Click Here
Part 2 : Click Here
Part 3 : Click Here
"Even if your reign on the imperial throne seems everlasting , don't be taken in
One day a hostile wind will blow...."
Suleyman the Conqueror
An Islamic History of Europe : Click Here
A broad guideline for Muslim unity:
"Whoever prays as we pray and turns to our qiblah and eats what we (ritually) slaughter is a Muslim and is under Allah's and His Prophet's protection (dhimmah)."
As to the rest of our differences, leave them to God to decide.
Salafism, Wahabism,Sunnah WalJamaah, Tarekat, Sufism, Sunni, Shiite, Arab, non Arab , Ajami, African, Asian,Malay, Indonesian, European, American, Traditional and liberal.........Leave that all to God to decide. "The best of you are the ones who have piety".
The alternative could be worse: We at the present time are in the varying states of being swallowed whole by the 'wolves' of the 21st century that appear in many forms and shapes, more shadowy now than The Ferdinands and Isabellas of the Andalusian era. Our very aqidah are in tethers.
The Andalusions of the 15th century knew what was in store for them : compliance or death. We in the 21st century are lulled by 'the feel good factors'. What they are doing must be good for the ummah! A catharsis of sort....removing the 'bad guys' from the main body...the carbuncles ,the pus...
Demonisation, talibanization and 'pariahrisation' of whole people and nation states
Is that true??!!
If people in the K2 area or Afghanistan want to run their lives according to Shariah the way they interpret, why not. What business has America and its cohorts to decide otherwise?
Just next week yet another Muslim country will be cut and divided. Soon South Sudan will be run by Exxon, Royal Dutch etc and etc. African Union armies financed by UN will maintain enough peace for the plunder.
Iran is waiting in line for the next slaughter. What next?
Related Articles:
Conversation with Robert Fisk[ 20 / Nov/ 2010 ]
State Terrorism: Prof Noam Chomsky [ 11 / 11/ 2010 ]
War on Terror Thru Muslims' Eyes[ oct / 2010
Part 1 : Click Here
Part 2 : Click Here
Part 3 : Click Here
"Even if your reign on the imperial throne seems everlasting , don't be taken in
One day a hostile wind will blow...."
Suleyman the Conqueror
An Islamic History of Europe : Click Here
A broad guideline for Muslim unity:
"Whoever prays as we pray and turns to our qiblah and eats what we (ritually) slaughter is a Muslim and is under Allah's and His Prophet's protection (dhimmah)."
As to the rest of our differences, leave them to God to decide.
Salafism, Wahabism,Sunnah WalJamaah, Tarekat, Sufism, Sunni, Shiite, Arab, non Arab , Ajami, African, Asian,Malay, Indonesian, European, American, Traditional and liberal.........Leave that all to God to decide. "The best of you are the ones who have piety".
The alternative could be worse: We at the present time are in the varying states of being swallowed whole by the 'wolves' of the 21st century that appear in many forms and shapes, more shadowy now than The Ferdinands and Isabellas of the Andalusian era. Our very aqidah are in tethers.
The Andalusions of the 15th century knew what was in store for them : compliance or death. We in the 21st century are lulled by 'the feel good factors'. What they are doing must be good for the ummah! A catharsis of sort....removing the 'bad guys' from the main body...the carbuncles ,the pus...
Demonisation, talibanization and 'pariahrisation' of whole people and nation states
Is that true??!!
If people in the K2 area or Afghanistan want to run their lives according to Shariah the way they interpret, why not. What business has America and its cohorts to decide otherwise?
Just next week yet another Muslim country will be cut and divided. Soon South Sudan will be run by Exxon, Royal Dutch etc and etc. African Union armies financed by UN will maintain enough peace for the plunder.
Iran is waiting in line for the next slaughter. What next?
Related Articles:
Conversation with Robert Fisk[ 20 / Nov/ 2010 ]
State Terrorism: Prof Noam Chomsky [ 11 / 11/ 2010 ]
War on Terror Thru Muslims' Eyes[ oct / 2010
Friday, January 7, 2011
Divinity of Jesus [ and redemption of sin by ultimate sacrifice ]....
Prof Bart Ehrman in Conversation:
Jay Smith and Shabir Ally:
[ or the not 'so fine art' of going in circles...]
On the day when We shall gather the righteous unto the Beneficent, a goodly company. (85) And drive the guilty unto Hell, a weary herd, (86) They will have no power of intercession, save him who hath made a covenant with his Lord. (87) And they say: The Beneficent hath taken unto Himself a son. (88) Assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing (89) Whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall in ruins, (90) That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son, (91) When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son. (92) There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave. (93) Verily He knoweth them and numbereth them with (right) numbering. (94) And each one of them will come unto Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone. (95) Lo! those who believe and do good works, the Beneficent will appoint for them love. (96) And We make (this Scripture) easy in thy tongue, (O Muhammad) only that thou mayst bear good tidings therewith unto those who ward off (evil), and warn therewith the froward folk. (97) And how many a generation before them have We destroyed! Canst thou (Muhammad) see a single man of them, or hear from them the slightest sound? (98)
Surah Maryam , 19 : 85- 98
Jay Smith and Shabir Ally:
[ or the not 'so fine art' of going in circles...]
On the day when We shall gather the righteous unto the Beneficent, a goodly company. (85) And drive the guilty unto Hell, a weary herd, (86) They will have no power of intercession, save him who hath made a covenant with his Lord. (87) And they say: The Beneficent hath taken unto Himself a son. (88) Assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing (89) Whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall in ruins, (90) That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son, (91) When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son. (92) There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave. (93) Verily He knoweth them and numbereth them with (right) numbering. (94) And each one of them will come unto Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone. (95) Lo! those who believe and do good works, the Beneficent will appoint for them love. (96) And We make (this Scripture) easy in thy tongue, (O Muhammad) only that thou mayst bear good tidings therewith unto those who ward off (evil), and warn therewith the froward folk. (97) And how many a generation before them have We destroyed! Canst thou (Muhammad) see a single man of them, or hear from them the slightest sound? (98)
Surah Maryam , 19 : 85- 98
Khutabah Series : Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick.....Slavery, Islam,and Keys to The Garden
Bio of Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick
Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick is a historian, social activist and religious leader of African and Native American descent. He has travelled to over 58 countries doing research and delivering lectures to various communities. His qualification in Islamic Studies comes from a BA from the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia and his history background is shaped by an MA and PhD from the History Department of the University of Toronto, Canada.
" There will be a time in the future when my Ummah would read the Qur'an in perfect melodious tone but their reading would not get beyond their throat"
Unto Allah (belongeth) whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth; and whether ye make known what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will bring you to account for it. He will forgive whom He will and He will punish whom He will. Allah is Able to do all things. (284) The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying. (285) Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget, or miss the mark! Our Lord! Lay not on us such a burden as thou didst lay on those before us! Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk. (286)
Al Baqarah , 2 : 284-286
Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick is a historian, social activist and religious leader of African and Native American descent. He has travelled to over 58 countries doing research and delivering lectures to various communities. His qualification in Islamic Studies comes from a BA from the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia and his history background is shaped by an MA and PhD from the History Department of the University of Toronto, Canada.
" There will be a time in the future when my Ummah would read the Qur'an in perfect melodious tone but their reading would not get beyond their throat"
Unto Allah (belongeth) whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth; and whether ye make known what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will bring you to account for it. He will forgive whom He will and He will punish whom He will. Allah is Able to do all things. (284) The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying. (285) Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget, or miss the mark! Our Lord! Lay not on us such a burden as thou didst lay on those before us! Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk. (286)
Al Baqarah , 2 : 284-286
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Redzha Revisited......
All aspects of this life are litmus tests for all of us mortal beings. Especially in sorrow, loss, poverty and hardship and even in wealth, pleasure and relative abundance. But of all these, sorrow and loss represent 'pain' to the inner souls of men.
An unexpected death of a sister from a fatal car accident some 31 years ago affected us siblings in many different ways. The persistence of pain and loss coloured indelibly our ongoing lives forever. At the personal level I was not new to this kind of pain having lost my dear father at the 'ripe old age' of eight, nonetheless 'sibling loss' usually is more painful to the young soul. It persisted forever and this kind of personal 'heartache' one seldom have the capacity to share with the spouses however close we are, or with other siblings.... as it is a very private inner sadness.
I cannot help but shed a few tears as I read this heartfelt sorrow expressed by Dr Hajjah Wan Maimun ,another sister of mine, in her blog entry yesterday.
I hope to God that this state of sorrow and loss is not entirely reflective of our varying state of 'non redza' to His "al qada' wal qadar". God forbid.
Insyaallah, inner sorrow and loss, if taken in the right spirit, should be looked upon as part of the 'experiential' route towards faith.
Unto Him is the journeying.
http://wanmaimun.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Redha
I read my brother's blog regarding his subsequent redha on the death of our beloved sister due to a fatal accident in Pahang in September 1979. He wrote "My other brothers and sisters and even parents were fast to redza and after a short period of mourning ,life went on as usual for them ,alhamdullillah. I had fits of depression and lounging for years to come." How wrong he was - his depression was the guilt but mine was the loss.
I was depressed for years as I was closer to her than to any other persons in my young life. We shared alot together. She was a big part of my life - guiding me and always being there for me. For the few months after her passing I was virtually under the care of friends in college who ensured that I go through my daily life safely as I just wanted to die along with her. I would crossed roads without looking at the traffic as I just don't care. I didn't care about my personal hygiene for days as I don't care if I rot as I didn't have the will to live. I felt empty and hollow inside. Everything was a blur as I numbed my feelings and emotions. My brain was shut down and I think I was able to pass my 4th year in university due to compassion from lecturers. I was just going through the motion. Every free moments I had I would be praying for her - I would be imagining her crying at the gate of our house, calling out our names, wanting to be back with us and the feeling of helplessness was heart-wrenching and excruciating.
I was angry at my brother and sister for delaying our departure to the hospital where she was in coma. I could still remember the sadness and the tense mood in the car and my complete breakdown upon seeing her body laid on the stretcher. She died alone - on a stretcher at the cold corridoor of an alien hospital. The subsequent events - being in the van with her from Pahang to our hometown in KB, holding her, praying and hoping that she would move or open her eyes and that this was just a bad dream, and then the burial, was and still is the worst time of my life. The last night I remembered her alive was on her wedding night - all of us were exhausted and sleeping. She woke me up in the middle of the night and asked to borrow my "kain sembahyang" as hers was too small and kept slipping. Too tired and too sleepy I did not get up to give her mine but sleepily told her to tie up her sarong in a double knot and she quietly went out of my room. Three days later I was at the public phone in UTM trying to call her, when my brother came to the university to inform me about her accident. I didn't believe him and prayed intensely to hear her voice over the phone - she's going to pick up that phone and I felt at that moment I need to tell her how much I loved her, to say sorry for all the selfish things I did to her while she had unconditionally loved and cared for me. I carried the anger, the guilt but most of all the deep sadness and longing for years and years.
I still dream of her. Whenever I have the opporturnity I would tell my husband and children about her - how pretty she was, how everybody loved her, how all of us would call out to her at the dinner table to tell her our day, how she helped me to find my books or things lost, how she would patiently coax me whenever I sulked, how she ate her rambutan and asam boi, and how compassionate she was. To me at that time she was my anchor, she was perfect and like an angel.
I guess all of us siblings and my mum suffered in our separate ways - we never talked about how deep the loss was to us. On the exterior "life went on as usual". But we never play the game of cards "Ginrami" as a family again - the laughter, the secret code, the excitement can never be replicated and be echoed ever again. I could never see anyone who looks like her without an ache and longing. Redha? - of course we redha it is God's will. I never question that. But her death changed me forever. AlFatihah.
Posted by Wan Maimun at 6:25 PM 0 comments Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Google Buzz
Older Posts
....................
That my friends, is 'redza' ,a simple word but deep in meaning and connotation .Shaikh Abdul Qadir al Jilani in a short discourse put Islam as "Following what are prescribed for you by The One and Only ,enjoying what is halal and avoiding what is haram ,and lastly Redza to what is thrown in your way " .One does not have to have an IQ like Einstein to enjoy our faith .
Related blog entry:
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/01/pearls-gem-redza.html
....
An unexpected death of a sister from a fatal car accident some 31 years ago affected us siblings in many different ways. The persistence of pain and loss coloured indelibly our ongoing lives forever. At the personal level I was not new to this kind of pain having lost my dear father at the 'ripe old age' of eight, nonetheless 'sibling loss' usually is more painful to the young soul. It persisted forever and this kind of personal 'heartache' one seldom have the capacity to share with the spouses however close we are, or with other siblings.... as it is a very private inner sadness.
I cannot help but shed a few tears as I read this heartfelt sorrow expressed by Dr Hajjah Wan Maimun ,another sister of mine, in her blog entry yesterday.
I hope to God that this state of sorrow and loss is not entirely reflective of our varying state of 'non redza' to His "al qada' wal qadar". God forbid.
Insyaallah, inner sorrow and loss, if taken in the right spirit, should be looked upon as part of the 'experiential' route towards faith.
Unto Him is the journeying.
http://wanmaimun.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Redha
I read my brother's blog regarding his subsequent redha on the death of our beloved sister due to a fatal accident in Pahang in September 1979. He wrote "My other brothers and sisters and even parents were fast to redza and after a short period of mourning ,life went on as usual for them ,alhamdullillah. I had fits of depression and lounging for years to come." How wrong he was - his depression was the guilt but mine was the loss.
I was depressed for years as I was closer to her than to any other persons in my young life. We shared alot together. She was a big part of my life - guiding me and always being there for me. For the few months after her passing I was virtually under the care of friends in college who ensured that I go through my daily life safely as I just wanted to die along with her. I would crossed roads without looking at the traffic as I just don't care. I didn't care about my personal hygiene for days as I don't care if I rot as I didn't have the will to live. I felt empty and hollow inside. Everything was a blur as I numbed my feelings and emotions. My brain was shut down and I think I was able to pass my 4th year in university due to compassion from lecturers. I was just going through the motion. Every free moments I had I would be praying for her - I would be imagining her crying at the gate of our house, calling out our names, wanting to be back with us and the feeling of helplessness was heart-wrenching and excruciating.
I was angry at my brother and sister for delaying our departure to the hospital where she was in coma. I could still remember the sadness and the tense mood in the car and my complete breakdown upon seeing her body laid on the stretcher. She died alone - on a stretcher at the cold corridoor of an alien hospital. The subsequent events - being in the van with her from Pahang to our hometown in KB, holding her, praying and hoping that she would move or open her eyes and that this was just a bad dream, and then the burial, was and still is the worst time of my life. The last night I remembered her alive was on her wedding night - all of us were exhausted and sleeping. She woke me up in the middle of the night and asked to borrow my "kain sembahyang" as hers was too small and kept slipping. Too tired and too sleepy I did not get up to give her mine but sleepily told her to tie up her sarong in a double knot and she quietly went out of my room. Three days later I was at the public phone in UTM trying to call her, when my brother came to the university to inform me about her accident. I didn't believe him and prayed intensely to hear her voice over the phone - she's going to pick up that phone and I felt at that moment I need to tell her how much I loved her, to say sorry for all the selfish things I did to her while she had unconditionally loved and cared for me. I carried the anger, the guilt but most of all the deep sadness and longing for years and years.
I still dream of her. Whenever I have the opporturnity I would tell my husband and children about her - how pretty she was, how everybody loved her, how all of us would call out to her at the dinner table to tell her our day, how she helped me to find my books or things lost, how she would patiently coax me whenever I sulked, how she ate her rambutan and asam boi, and how compassionate she was. To me at that time she was my anchor, she was perfect and like an angel.
I guess all of us siblings and my mum suffered in our separate ways - we never talked about how deep the loss was to us. On the exterior "life went on as usual". But we never play the game of cards "Ginrami" as a family again - the laughter, the secret code, the excitement can never be replicated and be echoed ever again. I could never see anyone who looks like her without an ache and longing. Redha? - of course we redha it is God's will. I never question that. But her death changed me forever. AlFatihah.
Posted by Wan Maimun at 6:25 PM 0 comments Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Google Buzz
Older Posts
....................
That my friends, is 'redza' ,a simple word but deep in meaning and connotation .Shaikh Abdul Qadir al Jilani in a short discourse put Islam as "Following what are prescribed for you by The One and Only ,enjoying what is halal and avoiding what is haram ,and lastly Redza to what is thrown in your way " .One does not have to have an IQ like Einstein to enjoy our faith .
Related blog entry:
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/01/pearls-gem-redza.html
....
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Theist vs Atheist Debate
The Height of Arrogance......
And Pharaoh said: O chiefs! I know not that ye have a god other than me, so kindle for me (a fire), O Haman, to bake the mud; and set up for me a lofty tower in order that I may survey the God of Moses; and lo! I deem him of the liars.
Surah Al Qasas, 28 :38
Part 2 : Click Here
Part 3 : Click Here
Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindleth fire, and when it sheddeth its light around him Allah taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, where they cannot see, Deaf, dumb and blind; and they return not.
Surah Al Baqarah, 'The heifer', 2 : 17-18
I shall turn away from My revelations those who magnify themselves wrongfully in the earth, and if they see each token believe it not, and if they see the way of righteousness choose it nor for (their) way, and if they see the way of error choose if for (their) way. That is because they deny Our revelations and are used to disregard them.
Surah Al Araf, 'The high ground', 7 : 146
The Originator of the heavens and the earth! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. And those who have no knowledge say: Why doth not Allah speak unto us, or some sign come unto us? Even thus, as they now speak, spake those (who were) before them. Their hearts are all alike. We have made clear the revelations for people who are sure.
Surah Al Baqarah, 'The heifer', 2 : 117-118
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?
Surah Al Anbiya, 'The Prophets', 21 : 30
Is he who goeth groping on his face more rightly guided, or he who walketh upright on a straight road?
Surah Al Mulk, 'The Dominion', 67 : 22
What I cannot see, feel nor measure, does not exist...
The 'consumate' 21th century 'materialist-secularist'
RELATED TOPIC:
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/01/divine-decree-qada-wal-qadar.html
And Pharaoh said: O chiefs! I know not that ye have a god other than me, so kindle for me (a fire), O Haman, to bake the mud; and set up for me a lofty tower in order that I may survey the God of Moses; and lo! I deem him of the liars.
Surah Al Qasas, 28 :38
Part 2 : Click Here
Part 3 : Click Here
Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindleth fire, and when it sheddeth its light around him Allah taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, where they cannot see, Deaf, dumb and blind; and they return not.
Surah Al Baqarah, 'The heifer', 2 : 17-18
I shall turn away from My revelations those who magnify themselves wrongfully in the earth, and if they see each token believe it not, and if they see the way of righteousness choose it nor for (their) way, and if they see the way of error choose if for (their) way. That is because they deny Our revelations and are used to disregard them.
Surah Al Araf, 'The high ground', 7 : 146
The Originator of the heavens and the earth! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! and it is. And those who have no knowledge say: Why doth not Allah speak unto us, or some sign come unto us? Even thus, as they now speak, spake those (who were) before them. Their hearts are all alike. We have made clear the revelations for people who are sure.
Surah Al Baqarah, 'The heifer', 2 : 117-118
Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?
Surah Al Anbiya, 'The Prophets', 21 : 30
Is he who goeth groping on his face more rightly guided, or he who walketh upright on a straight road?
Surah Al Mulk, 'The Dominion', 67 : 22
What I cannot see, feel nor measure, does not exist...
The 'consumate' 21th century 'materialist-secularist'
RELATED TOPIC:
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/01/divine-decree-qada-wal-qadar.html
Monday, January 3, 2011
Divine Decree : "al qada' wal qadar"
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Alif. Lam. Mim. (1) This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil). (2) Who believe in the Unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them; (3) And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter. (4) These depend on guidance from their Lord. These are the successful. (5)
Al Baqarah , 2 : 1-5
That which Allah openeth unto mankind of mercy none can withhold it; and that which He withholdeth none can release thereafter. He is the Mighty, the Wise.
Al Fatir , 35 :2
That is because Allah never changeth the grace He hath bestowed on any people until they first change that which is in their hearts, and (that is) because Allah is Hearer, Knower.
Al Anfal , 8 : 53
Allah created you from dust, then from a little fluid, then He made you pairs (the male and female). No female beareth or bringeth forth save with His knowledge. And no-one groweth old who groweth old, nor is aught lessened of his life, but it is recorded in a Book, Lo! that is easy for Allah. (11)
Al fatir , 35 : 11
That no laden one shall bear another's load, (38) And that man hath only that for which he maketh effort, (39) And that his effort will be seen. (40) And afterward he will be repaid for it with fullest payment; (41) And that thy Lord, He is the goal; (42) And that He it is who maketh laugh, and maketh weep, (43)
An Najm , 53 : 38-43
In my humble estimation if anyone were to explain the complex intracacies of 'divine decree' or 'qada wal qadar',Shaykh Mokhtar Al Maghroui would be in the best position to do just this. He has a double PHD in Physics and Electrical Engineering...he delves in the physically visibles...the intellectually visibles[ photons,atoms,CERN particles, the nature of light,etc and etc],...and by his sufic background, the purely INVISIBLE, The Unseen !
I have been looking for a definitive explanation of "al qada' wal qadar" or rather the nebulous concept of divine decree for over thirty years and this has eluded me. At best, at the end of the day, over these years I know my intellectual limitation and come to accept the safe and rather simplistic notion that:
[1] perfect understanding of "al qada' wal qadar" belongs to the realm of 'ilm al ghaiba', 'ilm of the Unseen', and it is beyond my comprehension,and
[2]that the will of God is supreme and within that context there exist some freeplay of my own will,as allowed by Him, within the overall context of the will of God!,and
[3]The 'pen and ink' with respect to my life in this universe and all the quantum within this universe, is already 'dry', the die had already being 'casted' but that His knowledge before 'time' and 'beyond time' does not negate the free will that He afforded to his abdals and all created things.
A mouthful but insyaallah by this way my simplistic aqidah remained intact! Insyaallah.
Our comprehension are limited by TIME, SPACE, MATTER, cause and effect which are just part of created things....matter, anti matter, space, wills and thought and even time, are all created things, all within the socalled four dimension. Allah's realm is 'the realm beyond realm', the realm of KUN FAYAKUN
HE is the CREATOR. We are just synonamous with that 'gold fish in a silver goblet rested near a windowsill in downtown Manhattan'. An example I gave in an earlier article on destiny a year back. We can hear the din of the city,crowd, trains and people down below. The best and brightest of us can theorise from those'din' and noise, and make postulates and hypotheses of the world beyond the goblet, but none us 'gold fishes' could comprehend what goes in the head of the owner of The White House, how he looks like, and worse still , the extent of his knowledge. Some of us may not want to know or refuse to aknowledge that he exist ! That in analogy is the level of our ignorance and 'kufrness' !
Shaykh al Maghroui today has opened up my comprehension a lot better, insyaallah, putting my aqidah on firmer ground. Mashaallah! Alhamdullillah! May Allah bless his soul and give him long life to carry on his daawah.
Listen, and please do listen hard.....as "al qada wal qadar" is in the dimension of aqidah.'Qada wal qadar' is the ilm of Allah, and in this respect Al Maghroui in this 3 hours of lecture or so has simplified things for our understanding. Philosophers and thinkers in the past have lost their way navigating on this issue of 'qada' wal qadar'. Do enjoy this almost sublime lecture.
[ I posted it some 2 years ago, but only now discovered the most important missing part 1 !]
part 1:
[ at 15.00 ]
..........God's knowledge is instantaneous and comprehensive; all reality is totally and simultaneously accessible to Him. Dimensions of time and space lose all their properties. God alone knows the 'hows', 'what' and 'when' of the future: "And verily We know who go forward among you and verily We know the laggards. Lo! thy Lord will gather them together. Lo! He is Wise, Aware " ( Ibrahim : 24-25).
[ at 52.00 ]
......we in this temporal world is a '3-dimensional entity',the soul is a 'four dimensional entity', it is freer...
part 2 :
[ at 04.15 ]
.....Oh my son, you would not taste iman until you know that what befalls you is not meant to miss you, and what misses you was not meant to befall you.....
[ at 07.00 ]
Oh 'Pen', write!..What do I write?....Write the 'muqadir' of every thing till the Day of Judgement.....Ilmu al-Ghaiba.......
part 3:
part 4:
And no burdened soul can bear another's burden, and if one heavy laden crieth for (help with) his load, naught of it will be lifted even though he (unto whom he crieth) be of kin. Thou warnest only those who fear their Lord in secret, and have established worship. He who groweth (in goodness), groweth only for himself, (he cannot by his merit redeem others). Unto Allah is the journeying. (18) The blind man is not equal with the seer; (19) Nor is darkness (tantamount to) light; (20) Nor is the shadow equal with the sun's full heat; (21) Nor are the living equal with the dead. Lo! Allah maketh whom He will to hear. Thou canst not reach those who are in the graves. (22)
Al Fatir , 35 : 18-22
These 'ayats' from Surah Al Fatir though still definitely related to the above topic of discussion, but I put it here because of it's beautiful cadence[ in its original Arabic prose, must have been more beautiful ], the lonely sense of isolation our lives are, and the sadness related to our fate if we CHOOSE to remain impervious to His message for our own salvation. That CHOICE, constitute FREE WILL.
One may be born an orphan or gifted with a silver spoon; has an IQ of 80 or endowed with a brain like Einstein or Dawkins; become a billionaire or remain just a pauper; lives long life or rightaway strickened with poor health or foreshortened by cancer....such are the trials and tribulations of life...but the choice of being with HIM or going against HIM remain ours.
That to me is what constitute 'al Qada wal Qadar'.
Our life on this planet is just a transient 'sojourn', a test if you may. The hereafter is the ultimate joy and our final station.
Unto Him is our journeying
Alif. Lam. Mim. (1) This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil). (2) Who believe in the Unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them; (3) And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter. (4) These depend on guidance from their Lord. These are the successful. (5)
Al Baqarah , 2 : 1-5
That which Allah openeth unto mankind of mercy none can withhold it; and that which He withholdeth none can release thereafter. He is the Mighty, the Wise.
Al Fatir , 35 :2
That is because Allah never changeth the grace He hath bestowed on any people until they first change that which is in their hearts, and (that is) because Allah is Hearer, Knower.
Al Anfal , 8 : 53
Allah created you from dust, then from a little fluid, then He made you pairs (the male and female). No female beareth or bringeth forth save with His knowledge. And no-one groweth old who groweth old, nor is aught lessened of his life, but it is recorded in a Book, Lo! that is easy for Allah. (11)
Al fatir , 35 : 11
That no laden one shall bear another's load, (38) And that man hath only that for which he maketh effort, (39) And that his effort will be seen. (40) And afterward he will be repaid for it with fullest payment; (41) And that thy Lord, He is the goal; (42) And that He it is who maketh laugh, and maketh weep, (43)
An Najm , 53 : 38-43
In my humble estimation if anyone were to explain the complex intracacies of 'divine decree' or 'qada wal qadar',Shaykh Mokhtar Al Maghroui would be in the best position to do just this. He has a double PHD in Physics and Electrical Engineering...he delves in the physically visibles...the intellectually visibles[ photons,atoms,CERN particles, the nature of light,etc and etc],...and by his sufic background, the purely INVISIBLE, The Unseen !
I have been looking for a definitive explanation of "al qada' wal qadar" or rather the nebulous concept of divine decree for over thirty years and this has eluded me. At best, at the end of the day, over these years I know my intellectual limitation and come to accept the safe and rather simplistic notion that:
[1] perfect understanding of "al qada' wal qadar" belongs to the realm of 'ilm al ghaiba', 'ilm of the Unseen', and it is beyond my comprehension,and
[2]that the will of God is supreme and within that context there exist some freeplay of my own will,as allowed by Him, within the overall context of the will of God!,and
[3]The 'pen and ink' with respect to my life in this universe and all the quantum within this universe, is already 'dry', the die had already being 'casted' but that His knowledge before 'time' and 'beyond time' does not negate the free will that He afforded to his abdals and all created things.
A mouthful but insyaallah by this way my simplistic aqidah remained intact! Insyaallah.
Our comprehension are limited by TIME, SPACE, MATTER, cause and effect which are just part of created things....matter, anti matter, space, wills and thought and even time, are all created things, all within the socalled four dimension. Allah's realm is 'the realm beyond realm', the realm of KUN FAYAKUN
HE is the CREATOR. We are just synonamous with that 'gold fish in a silver goblet rested near a windowsill in downtown Manhattan'. An example I gave in an earlier article on destiny a year back. We can hear the din of the city,crowd, trains and people down below. The best and brightest of us can theorise from those'din' and noise, and make postulates and hypotheses of the world beyond the goblet, but none us 'gold fishes' could comprehend what goes in the head of the owner of The White House, how he looks like, and worse still , the extent of his knowledge. Some of us may not want to know or refuse to aknowledge that he exist ! That in analogy is the level of our ignorance and 'kufrness' !
Shaykh al Maghroui today has opened up my comprehension a lot better, insyaallah, putting my aqidah on firmer ground. Mashaallah! Alhamdullillah! May Allah bless his soul and give him long life to carry on his daawah.
Listen, and please do listen hard.....as "al qada wal qadar" is in the dimension of aqidah.'Qada wal qadar' is the ilm of Allah, and in this respect Al Maghroui in this 3 hours of lecture or so has simplified things for our understanding. Philosophers and thinkers in the past have lost their way navigating on this issue of 'qada' wal qadar'. Do enjoy this almost sublime lecture.
[ I posted it some 2 years ago, but only now discovered the most important missing part 1 !]
part 1:
..........God's knowledge is instantaneous and comprehensive; all reality is totally and simultaneously accessible to Him. Dimensions of time and space lose all their properties. God alone knows the 'hows', 'what' and 'when' of the future: "And verily We know who go forward among you and verily We know the laggards. Lo! thy Lord will gather them together. Lo! He is Wise, Aware " ( Ibrahim : 24-25).
[ at 52.00 ]
......we in this temporal world is a '3-dimensional entity',the soul is a 'four dimensional entity', it is freer...
part 2 :
[ at 04.15 ]
.....Oh my son, you would not taste iman until you know that what befalls you is not meant to miss you, and what misses you was not meant to befall you.....
[ at 07.00 ]
Oh 'Pen', write!..What do I write?....Write the 'muqadir' of every thing till the Day of Judgement.....Ilmu al-Ghaiba.......
part 3:
part 4:
part 5:
And no burdened soul can bear another's burden, and if one heavy laden crieth for (help with) his load, naught of it will be lifted even though he (unto whom he crieth) be of kin. Thou warnest only those who fear their Lord in secret, and have established worship. He who groweth (in goodness), groweth only for himself, (he cannot by his merit redeem others). Unto Allah is the journeying. (18) The blind man is not equal with the seer; (19) Nor is darkness (tantamount to) light; (20) Nor is the shadow equal with the sun's full heat; (21) Nor are the living equal with the dead. Lo! Allah maketh whom He will to hear. Thou canst not reach those who are in the graves. (22)
Al Fatir , 35 : 18-22
These 'ayats' from Surah Al Fatir though still definitely related to the above topic of discussion, but I put it here because of it's beautiful cadence[ in its original Arabic prose, must have been more beautiful ], the lonely sense of isolation our lives are, and the sadness related to our fate if we CHOOSE to remain impervious to His message for our own salvation. That CHOICE, constitute FREE WILL.
One may be born an orphan or gifted with a silver spoon; has an IQ of 80 or endowed with a brain like Einstein or Dawkins; become a billionaire or remain just a pauper; lives long life or rightaway strickened with poor health or foreshortened by cancer....such are the trials and tribulations of life...but the choice of being with HIM or going against HIM remain ours.
That to me is what constitute 'al Qada wal Qadar'.
Our life on this planet is just a transient 'sojourn', a test if you may. The hereafter is the ultimate joy and our final station.
Unto Him is our journeying
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Surah Al Rum , 30 : 1-8
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Alif. Lam. Mim. (1) The Romans have been defeated (2) In the nearer land, and they, after their defeat will be victorious (3) In a few (less then ten) - Allah's is the command in the former case and in the latter - and in that day believers will rejoice (4) In Allah's help to victory. He helpeth to victory whom He will. He is the Mighty, the Merciful. (5) It is a promise of Allah. Allah faileth not His promise, but most of mankind know not. (6) They know only some appearance of the life of the world, and are heedless of the Hereafter. (7) Have they not pondered upon themselves? Allah created not the heavens and the earth, and that which is between them, save with truth and for a destined end. But truly many of mankind are disbelievers in the meeting with their Lord. (8)
Ar Rum, 30 : 1-8
Emperor Heraclius suffered defeat at the hand of the Sasanian king, King Sabur in their skirmishes over Greater Syria. This was noted by Allah in Surah Ar Rum. 'But you Muslims, do not despair, the Romans would come back victorious within 10 years'.
That was divine information given to Muslims during their early persecuted Makkan days. The Muslims were rooting for the trinitarian Romans to win while the pagans and idolaters of Makkah were behind the fire-worshipping Persians. Much like MU versus Bayern Munich of present day football!
The Romans did came back on the seventh year to hammer Sabur back into present day Iran.
Back to the present century, Judeo-Christian hegemony has spread far and wide,entrenching themselves physically deep into Muslim hinterlands. Afghanistan[ centre of knowledge and birth place of many Muslim thinkers ie Bukhari, Rumi, Imam al Ghazali, Jamaluddin Al Afghani just to name a few ], Iraq [ centre of Islamic thoughts and excellence ],Pakistan and India held Khasmir, Palestine and Syria. After next week, most probably Sudan.Yemen, almost there and not forgetting Somalia where successive syariah inspired governments were overthrown, directly or covertly. If the Royal House of Al Saud would have their ways, even Iran by end of 2011!
As for the rest of us.....we are already hearts and souls under Judeo-Christian influence, spiritually, morally and physically....
You don't believe me?
Ask ourselves and our children:
What we collectively think of the syariah [ Good Tan Sri, but a wee bit out of touch and not implementable in the current economic and social millieu ]; our dress code; our education system; our choice of life partners; our daily thoughts and aspirations and our vision of 'the here' and 'the hereafter'.
Only we are now left with our names: Ahmad, Ali, Isahak, Aminah, Zawahir and Nik Nathasha, Nik Anna Karennina, Carina and Karen and Karl....!
"Allah is He Who sendeth the winds so that they raise clouds, and spreadeth them along the sky as pleaseth Him, and causeth them to break and thou seest the rain downpouring from within them. And when He maketh it to fall on whom He will of His bondmen, lo! they rejoice; (48) Though before that, even before it was sent down upon them, they were in despair. (49) Look, therefore, at the prints of Allah's mercy (in creation): how He quickeneth the earth after her death. Lo! He verily is the Quickener of the Dead, and He is Able to do all things. (50) And if We sent a wind and they beheld it yellow, they verily would still continue in their disbelief. (51) For verily thou (Muhammad) canst not make the dead to hear, nor canst thou make the deaf to hear the call when they have turned to flee. (52)"
Ar Rum , 30 : 48-52
Alif. Lam. Mim. (1) The Romans have been defeated (2) In the nearer land, and they, after their defeat will be victorious (3) In a few (less then ten) - Allah's is the command in the former case and in the latter - and in that day believers will rejoice (4) In Allah's help to victory. He helpeth to victory whom He will. He is the Mighty, the Merciful. (5) It is a promise of Allah. Allah faileth not His promise, but most of mankind know not. (6) They know only some appearance of the life of the world, and are heedless of the Hereafter. (7) Have they not pondered upon themselves? Allah created not the heavens and the earth, and that which is between them, save with truth and for a destined end. But truly many of mankind are disbelievers in the meeting with their Lord. (8)
Ar Rum, 30 : 1-8
Emperor Heraclius suffered defeat at the hand of the Sasanian king, King Sabur in their skirmishes over Greater Syria. This was noted by Allah in Surah Ar Rum. 'But you Muslims, do not despair, the Romans would come back victorious within 10 years'.
That was divine information given to Muslims during their early persecuted Makkan days. The Muslims were rooting for the trinitarian Romans to win while the pagans and idolaters of Makkah were behind the fire-worshipping Persians. Much like MU versus Bayern Munich of present day football!
The Romans did came back on the seventh year to hammer Sabur back into present day Iran.
Back to the present century, Judeo-Christian hegemony has spread far and wide,entrenching themselves physically deep into Muslim hinterlands. Afghanistan[ centre of knowledge and birth place of many Muslim thinkers ie Bukhari, Rumi, Imam al Ghazali, Jamaluddin Al Afghani just to name a few ], Iraq [ centre of Islamic thoughts and excellence ],Pakistan and India held Khasmir, Palestine and Syria. After next week, most probably Sudan.Yemen, almost there and not forgetting Somalia where successive syariah inspired governments were overthrown, directly or covertly. If the Royal House of Al Saud would have their ways, even Iran by end of 2011!
As for the rest of us.....we are already hearts and souls under Judeo-Christian influence, spiritually, morally and physically....
You don't believe me?
Ask ourselves and our children:
What we collectively think of the syariah [ Good Tan Sri, but a wee bit out of touch and not implementable in the current economic and social millieu ]; our dress code; our education system; our choice of life partners; our daily thoughts and aspirations and our vision of 'the here' and 'the hereafter'.
Only we are now left with our names: Ahmad, Ali, Isahak, Aminah, Zawahir and Nik Nathasha, Nik Anna Karennina, Carina and Karen and Karl....!
"Allah is He Who sendeth the winds so that they raise clouds, and spreadeth them along the sky as pleaseth Him, and causeth them to break and thou seest the rain downpouring from within them. And when He maketh it to fall on whom He will of His bondmen, lo! they rejoice; (48) Though before that, even before it was sent down upon them, they were in despair. (49) Look, therefore, at the prints of Allah's mercy (in creation): how He quickeneth the earth after her death. Lo! He verily is the Quickener of the Dead, and He is Able to do all things. (50) And if We sent a wind and they beheld it yellow, they verily would still continue in their disbelief. (51) For verily thou (Muhammad) canst not make the dead to hear, nor canst thou make the deaf to hear the call when they have turned to flee. (52)"
Ar Rum , 30 : 48-52
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