Thursday, September 29, 2011

Life Changing Lecture Series....Ilm, Iman & Amal

This month and a few to come I would 'insyaallah' walk through some Utube lectures [ and real time lectures if I happned to come across them ] that I think can change and give direction to our lives. I had recently attended one such lecture held in PJ, a short discourse on Ilm, Iman and Amal by Dr Abdullah Yasin.

The lecture remained well imprinted in my mind as a life changing lecture for me as it's content coincide to me with my long held belief that a life examined should really start with our continual striving for 'ilm, ilm, ilm and ilm '.
From there we would be able to graduate to 'Fikr and Dhikr '.

It underlined my previous occasional forays into things religious and philosophical early in my life. Started in late primary with Datuk Yusuf Zaki's philosophical and religious rantings in his very own Pustaka Dian publications; Reader's Digest; Dale Carnegie's writings and even Rev Dr Norman Vincent Peale's motivational writings. I was a voracious reader even those days. In the early 60's, books were rare,and money even rarer !.

I had to walk miles from my Jalan Teliput house to the only library in Kota Bharu near 'Opeh Salbia', as we locals call it, [ local linggo for the State Survey Office right smack in town] , the Carnegie Library, for free reading of even such texts. In my early secondary schooldays, even laid my hands on Dr Herbert W Amstrong's Plain Truth Magazine, weekly posted free to school children my age. A California based missionary work with a capital Z for super-zealous effort to spread the Christian Doctrine.That was in the early 60's, the age of innocence. We grab anything we can. Children in the 60's talk and dream in English !

In my late secondary school life at MCKK, to nurse my pangs of loneliness and homesickness, I immersed myself into the humanists, Schopenhauer and Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russel and Descarte. Found them all depressing...the same whole circuits of tragicomedy of secular life revolving around the perpetual lust for pleasure and happiness, which finally without fail end up in abject depression with failing health, broken and unfulfilled hopes and aspirations, and failing cognitive faculties.

Life, to these thinkers revolve around only the HERE and NOW.
How hollow and stupid can one be when one think one is too clever !

From there I graduated to al Ghazali's Ihya Ulumiddin, which inevitably lead me on to HAMKA's Tafseer al Azhar in my early 30's. And the rest is history.

Subhanallah, Alhamdullillah, I did not get lost along the way despite being exposed early in my life to Amstrong, Carnegie and Rev Vincent Peale! Perhaps the counter 'normalising' effect of having to attend ToK Guru Haji Nor's [ Kelantan's mufti in the 60's ]weekly lecture at Kampong Panambang kept my young and impressionable soul intact !.

My late mother, Nik Kelthom Nik Daud [ she was unschooled,cannot even read, remembering many surah of The Quran only by heart ] always insisted on this despite we the younger children not having any clue as to what the grand old man was talking about. Every other Friday morning or so we all of the Wan Abdullah clan would be coerced into taking that 7 mile journey to listen to this old man. May his soul be placed amongst the blessed !

Back to IHYA, If I could recall anything, it is that al Ghazali,[ and numerous other traditional scholars of his time ], once stated that the difference in 'barakah' between the prayer of one with Ilm compared to one without is the difference between heaven and earth, or between day and night, or something to that effect.

What a digression, now back to what I recalled of Dr Abdullah Yasin's short but meaningful discourse :


ILM, IMAN and AMAL
He started by saying that at 40, Rasullallah had the experience with Jibrail's 'RECITE, RECITE IN THE NAME OF YOUR LORD !"
That by itself give preeminence to ILM in Muslim theology.

For the initial 13 years during his 23 years of prophetship, the ayats were all coming just to build ILM and IMAN. At the end of year 13th, came the command for MIKRAJ,[ the heavenly accent ], and from the realm of the quintessential border beyond border, 'The Quadratul Muntaha', the command for Solat. Later , on 'terra firma', subsequently the need for Zakat, Ramadan, and finally Hajj.
The essence is, while solat forms the ' beam and pillars' of Iman and Muslim theology, the foundational basis of Islam was and is still back to ilm, ilm and ilm.
That explained the 13 long years before any substantive 'rituals' was included.

With respect to ILMU, there are 2 substantive 'Books', The Quran from HIM, and Book of nature ie men's study and observation of his universe. That constitute ILMU, the former has preeminence over the later but both important.[ very nice to hear this from Ustaz Dr Abdullah Yasin, given his leaning ]

Iblis, according to one hadith, according to him, is more happy if one chap with ILMU dies, over a few hundreds with just AMAL without much ilmu. Quality over Quantity .

Then he went on to discuss LIFE.:-
LIFE, according to all ulama muktabar, is PERMANENT !
PERMANENT,Fullstop!
One cannot opt out of this life. One can opt out of this 'duniya' by killing oneself but LIFE is essentially PERMANENT. This 'duniya' is just a small beginning stage in four stages of LIFE.
9 mths or so in the FOETAL stage, 60 to 70 years in the DUNIYA stage for the average, then an X number of milleniums in the ALAM BARZAKH stage, and finally an eternity in the ALAM AKHIRAT. There are only 2 stations in the Alam Akhirat needless to say....Heaven and Hell.

2. YOu reap your 'rewards' continuosly while you are alive and when you are in the Alam Barzak as well. If you teaches, preach or write books read by others, or build masjid , orphanage, or establish 'bridges' figuratively and literally etc and etc you continue to reap its reward in the Alam Barzak. Death is just a transitional station, it is not even a stop. When one dies, the veil is suddenly opened and one start the actual LIFE. Mashaalah , Ustaz Abdullah is talking like a sufi ! How true.
Conversely speaking if you do' ' tyranical things and establish satanic practice or wrong ilmu followed by others,encourage kufr practice in your lifetime and has your followers, you also reap the collective'negative' rewards.

For example, when one, inundated with much ill gotten wealth from corruption or 'illegal hoarding until you can see practically dollars and ringgit coming out from his every orifices, send his young children for example to 'public schools' in the UK for study, he came back after some 20 years of secularization,fully corrupted in his lifestlye... one continue to reap one's rewards in one's grave. Do not expect 20 years of secularization to produce a son that continually doa you to have compassion from your Rabb when you are lying in the Alam Barzakh.[ for that matter, do not expect your young and pretty trophy 3rd wife to do likewise. She would be too busy doing things with your ex-driver with the ill ogtten millions you left her. That is about 'barakah'...sorry,this is my addition, not from Ustaz...but to stress yet again, you reap the negative effect ]

3.Then he touched on the Quran. It is back to ILMU, ILMU ILMU and ILMU.....that is refreshing to hear from Ustaz Dr Abdullah Yasin.
Your Quran need to be READ and RECITED, if possible with Tajweed
It need to be understood
Its injunctions need to be AMAL and its prohibitions need to be avoided. Out of 6600 plus ayat in the Quran only around 80 are said to be 'consisted of 'rules and regulations'.
The message of The Quran above all need to be spread....minimum to your immediate family.
There again it is back to ilm ,ilm, ilm and ilm.

Now let us leave Dr Abdullah Yasin and move on to the dry, cold and analytical ambience of Cambridge University, the world most premier university, and peep into the world of Dr T J Winter aka Abdal Hakim Murad [ best remembered as translator of al Ghyazali's ' Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife '. A bloody good read indeed ! ]. He was giving a long academic lecture/discouse on 'Muslim Theology and Islamic Mysticism ' to a small group of post doctoral students in comparative religions.

In Cambridge, all things, profane and secular, sublime and religious, undergo scrutiny,' microscopically' examined and defined by 'dull profesors in grey suits and white coats'.Let us now peep into this world of academia. If we can come out with something substantive and life changing, alhamdullillah. If not , that is just around 2 hours of our earthly life wasted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=CbvG4KffgSI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylx7bDbEA3U&feature=relmfu




"And if all the trees on the earth were pens and the sea
added to seven seas (were ink in the writing), (yet) would
not the Words of Allah be exhausted; Verily Allah is the
Mighty, the Wise."


Muhammad Asad aka Leopold Weiss in his 'Message of The Quran' ,
wrote these 4 important words :
" FOR THOSE WHO THINK "
Those of us who have stopped reading the Quran and derive lessons from it, we are the heedless.
Those who have not even read the Quran yet, they are afraid of thinking !

Sunday, September 25, 2011

9/11 Revisited

My friend, 3 time world champion endurance rider, Ms Valerie Kanavy sent me this following images below. I rode agianst her twice, 1st in Dubai's 160km World Endurance Championship in 1998 and second in Jerez, Spain at the World Equestrian Games in 2003. She was America's best export, an ambassador par excellence in her sport. At 65 now, still very active in endurance.

The images she sent are both painful and tragic. It somehow epitomize the resilience and true grit of the ordinary American people : the boatmen and firemen ,ordinary citizens unfortunately caught in the middle of a senseless global debacle and total failure to see reasons and facts,to separate the root cause from the maladie of symptoms and emotions, a failure for fellow humans across the globe to embrace compassion and peace . click here

My reply to her was this :

Tragic Valerie. Truly tragic.
Unfortunately there may be more 9/11 if presidents, dictators and politicians of the world choose to be extremely myopic and refuse to not learn lessons from the past.

We in Asia, and for that matter all nations across the globe except some NATO countries perhaps, thought Obama is gonna be a breath of fresh air after Bush.
But he is a big disapointment. His post inaugural speech given in Cairo several years back seem to us that this finally is an American president who can make a difference. But it is not to be. Just today, on the eve of yet another momentous event related to world peace, America is again a total failure. Your veto of the new Palestinian initiative at the UN speaks volume of America's impotence and selective myopia and biase.

America can churn and mourn 9/11 for years and decades to come but if your guys within the governmenr and administration choose rather to get lost in trees and leaves and fail to see 'the green forest' outside and fail to address the root causes, the anger and the grief of others, the injustice..... there will be no world peace..

America cannot afford to go to war against 1.5 billion humanities. You guys are already on the verge of a moral, leadership and economic bankruptcy !
Some degree of sanity must transcend all these madness and blatant selective myopia.

Just look at these images here for you guys to be able to appreciate how the rest of the world view American, The Bully. The Ugly American of the 60's has come back with a vengeance. click here




Related articles on the blog :
Conversation on Islam : Karen Amstrong , click here
Conversation on Islam part 2 : Karen Amstrong , click here
Empire of Faith, click here
Does Peace Has A Chance in Palestine, click here
A Common Word between Us and You, click here
Hamzah Yusuf Hanson , ON The West and Islam, click here

Friday, September 23, 2011

My Personal Journey Thru The Quran : " What is that ?..."



"WHAT IS THAT ?"
click here


I must confide a personal secret here that when I first viewed this classic Greek trajicomedy in the privacy of the doctors common room at SDMC, I did shade some tears and even sob a little. I was lucky there was no one there. It would be embarassing for me to be caught sobbing. I was surprised actually: How come a most hardened specie of 'mankind' like me, shade a tear ?. My God ! It was a relief though.

I am quite human after all.

In the not too distant future,
perhaps a couple of years now down the lane for even some of us,
a decade or two for some lucky blokes in our batch :
when faculties start failing us,
when generalities and the specifics merge to just become one continuous blur image,
when days and weeks no further has real meaning,
when that creaking joints and limbs no longer able to follow exact instructions,
when we even need help to have a good pee,
"what is that" do indeed become a frightening reality.

Have we prepared ourselves and our offsprings for such an eventuality ?
Have we ever sat down with them like what one Lokman Hakim did a couple of millenium ago?



يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِن كُنتُمۡ فِى رَيۡبٍ۬ مِّنَ ٱلۡبَعۡثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقۡنَـٰكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ۬ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطۡفَةٍ۬ ثُمَّ مِنۡ عَلَقَةٍ۬ ثُمَّ مِن مُّضۡغَةٍ۬ مُّخَلَّقَةٍ۬ وَغَيۡرِ مُخَلَّقَةٍ۬ لِّنُبَيِّنَ لَكُمۡ‌ۚ وَنُقِرُّ فِى ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِ مَا نَشَآءُ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٍ۬ مُّسَمًّ۬ى ثُمَّ نُخۡرِجُكُمۡ طِفۡلاً۬ ثُمَّ لِتَبۡلُغُوٓاْ أَشُدَّڪُمۡ‌ۖ وَمِنڪُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّىٰ وَمِنڪُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرۡذَلِ ٱلۡعُمُرِ لِڪَيۡلَا يَعۡلَمَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ عِلۡمٍ۬ شَيۡـًٔ۬ا‌ۚ وَتَرَى ٱلۡأَرۡضَ هَامِدَةً۬ فَإِذَآ أَنزَلۡنَا عَلَيۡهَا ٱلۡمَآءَ ٱهۡتَزَّتۡ وَرَبَتۡ وَأَنۢبَتَتۡ مِن ڪُلِّ زَوۡجِۭ بَهِيجٍ۬ (٥)

O mankind! if ye are in doubt concerning the Resurrection, then lo! We have created you from dust, then from a drop of seed, then from a clot, then from a little lump of flesh shapely and shapeless, that We may make (it) clear for you. And We cause what We will to remain in the wombs for an appointed time, and afterward We bring you forth as infants, then (give you growth) that ye attain your full strength. And among you there is he who dieth (young), and among you there is he who is brought back to the most abject time of life, so that, after knowledge, he knoweth naught. And thou (Muhammad) seest the earth barren, but when We send down water thereon, it doth thrill and swell and put forth every lovely kind (of growth).
al Haj , 22 : 5


وَقَضَى رَبُّكَ أَلاَّ تَعْبُدُواْ إِلاَّ إِيَّـهُ وَبِالْوَلِدَيْنِ إِحْسَـناً إِمَّا يَبْلُغَنَّ عِندَكَ الْكِبَرَ أَحَدُهُمَا أَوْ كِلاَهُمَا فَلاَ تَقُل لَّهُمَآ أُفٍّ وَلاَ تَنْهَرْهُمَا وَقُل لَّهُمَا قَوْلاً كَرِيمًا وَاخْفِضْ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ الذُّلِّ مِنَ الرَّحْمَةِ وَقُل رَّبِّ ارْحَمْهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّيَانِى صَغِيرًا
And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be excellent to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them, but address them in terms of honour. And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: “My Lord! Bestow on them Your mercy as they did bring me up when I was young. (Isra 17:23-24)






Related articles in the blog :
HE does not want to see you....click here
Lina Joy, she started me blogging....click here
Ustaz Dr Abdullah Yasin on Surah 17 : 23-25 , click here
Let us all burn The Quran , click here
Go Figure It Out , Mr Obama !, click here
The Silver Arrow that Pricked My Heart, click here

Oh My Dear Son !, click here
Is Malayisa being run by a bunch of Morons ?....this one done in 2008 is definitely unrelated but I like it, click here

Thursday, September 22, 2011

PKFTZ for the layman like you and me....

'AT last count the PKFTZ scandal stood at 12.5 billion RM. It started with 2 RM psf secured from poor Malay fishermen and farmers in Pulau Indah, sold to Government of the day at inflated price of 25 RM psf , and if you think that is already bad enough, finally after extrapolating and computing future interest and loss and what not, finally settled at a whooping 50 RM psf '

That, my dear friends, is great governance from a government that profess 'Malaysia Boleh'

If one visit the scene of the crime now one can see acres and acres of huge buildings build at 5 times inflated price for 'god knows what function ?'

Across the board now it is beginning to look like a special 'muhibbah type' of National Looting with both MCA and UMNO playing the lead roles.
Unlike 'cimB' [ Cina, India ,Melayu bodoh ], Seem Velloo et al is most significantly missing in this Malaysian only suspense thriller of 'daylight robbery' that has far outstripped all previous 'daylight robberies'.

In our short history as a nation we have had too many of these nonsense. We are a stoic type of people. We have great propensity of tolerating pain and humiliation as a nation. Great stuff, we Malaysians !

At the end of the day, by virtue of the nature and gravity of the individuals involved, it would most likely end up as an open verdict.
You rub my back I rub yours.
Finally it is the common people who pay, thanks God !

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Teganung and Kelantang.....

Those were the days
Teganung and Kelantang........
The Mat Che Su and Dali Omar days in the late 60's and early 70's.
When over a football match, a whole bus could get burnt in Jertih.
Kelantan could win over giants like Singapura [ Wilfrid Skinner and Majid Ariff come to mind !]or Selangor [ Ghani Minhat, even the Koreans feared him ].
Teganung could even lose to minnows,Perlis
But when Kelantan meet Teganung...all hell broke lose.

And why Jertih, where buses of either side got burnt or stones and abuse hurled.
It is still very well at least some 15 kilometres in Teganung territory but Jertih in Besut represent 'disputed' territory. Just like the West Bank in Palestine. Disputed borders probably some 100 years back, rightly belonging to Kelantan, I was told. So disputed that the then Kelantan Sultan at that time, probably out of wisdom, decided to 'lose' it sportingly to his brother Sultan from Teganung over a 'cock' fight.

Up to today, The people of the Teganung district of Besut bear dual 'stateship' : They are 'orang Teganung' in technical term but in spirit and in linggo they are Kelantanese.A Kelantanese when meeting a Besut chap in neutral territory say KL, would say, " Demo orghe kito.... ".

The Besut chap would not say no with rare exceptions, except perhaps ex YB Idris Jusoh. Even then perhaps because of 'Petronas Wang Ihsang'. [ Tok Pha, of Kelantan now is in similar predicament,you can see it coming out of his orifices even ! ].I am still wondering though why he did not last long as A Teganung MB ! A one term MB, just like what is currently feared most by Najib Tun Razak....
A one term PM, oh my God !!

There is a definite stigmata to being a 'one term anything', since usually the 1st term is usually more the rule than not that it is usually a gift from someone or va gift from the 'inbuilt' system like the archaic UMNO intra party presidential electoral system .

ISA is a gift from Najib Razak to us Malaysians. It certainly does not come free or due to any feeling of altruism from the beleaugered PM !. Your guys have to thank BERSIH etc etc and etc and etc,last but not least to hundreds of bloggers like me who collectively add up to the total collective National 'animal noise' going on in the country that finally break Najib Tun Razak who certainly does not want to see the spectre of a 'one term PM'.

A PM has very little choice when his trusted SB tells him he would not see the light of the day come next General ELECTION ! I can imagine the PM and his Mrs waking up in the wee hours of the morning, breaking up in cold sweat :
"One term PM, Darling ! No way, we have to do something !",
said the clever one of the two.

My God ! Tun Razak would certainly turn in his grave !
Whoever in the past predicted that the proverbial 'lallang' rarely moves!
When it move, IT MOVES. Thank you Najib!

Back to the subject of Teganung and Kelantang,one similarity though which Teganung and Kelantan share very well is the preponderance of 'ulama' who unlike the 'West coast variety' are always ready to speak their minds freely and openly, from 'time immemorial'. One of my current favourite is Ustaz Azhar Idrus. He has a 'funny' and candid way of giving 'daawah and ceramah' :
click here,for 'Melayu dok leh masuk shurga'
'Asal usul maknusia', click here
'Pakailah topi keledar', click here
He is 'funny', even on serious matters. His Teganung linggo is 'classic'.
But his message , we need to give some serious thots !
I like him.




Some relevant topics on the previous blog :
One Billion RM Frigate ,click here
Are We Ready for Good Governance ?, click here
BERSIH, click here
From Libya to Tok Bali, click here

Mohd Hassan Marican, click here

Saturday, September 17, 2011

'Talk to the monkeys !'...

A newly appointed GLC CEO to the world biggest plantation conglomerate ,one year ago, talked down to his people that they need to 'double their input to increase the profit'. This kind of 'talk' is cheap. Any fresh MBA graduate can talk this way....work harder and double the output !
Creative accounting and asset stripping are two other common and cheap way of showing the profits !

Too much of that in the recent past happening in our GLC's : selling off MAS Building by our very own celebrated Mat Derghih Yala to make the books look good, and recently Sime's sale of it's troublesome Oil and Gas Division. For the millions we pay these CEO's, it is fair that we should be able to expect them to perform better than 'over glorified overpaid clerks'!

Selling asset and disposing non performing branch of the company is not exactly rocket science. I am sure they can do better.

And if your core business is in petroleum for example, and you want to go into medical, expect to lose a couple of hundred millions [ 500 million RM to be exact at last count]..They call it tuition fees..I know Petronas has a bottomless pit but why waste on unnecessary tuition fees.

Likewise, if your core business is 'PLANTATION' and you decide to go into banking or real estate/construction which is not your forte, expect to lose a few hindred millions as well as well. And we just lost 1.2 billion RM out of the Qatar debacle. Some 1.2 billion from Sime Bank several years back and we never seem to learn lessons. I say 'WE" here because this is my money and your money. Sime Darby is PNB. PNB is bumiputra money. Our ASB and our ASN. Not some dirty politician's war chest or grand father's company.

Sime should be in Africa, Latin America, Fiji, Papua New Guinea opening cheap tracts of lands for food production and estates, not duplicating another construction company up north and paying thorugh the nose for it. Leave that to the small boys. We have the software, the hardware and the money to go beyond our shores. Our planters are world class. Our genome collection of palm seeds are incomparable.

Sorry Sir', I beg to differ. You may be my top boss but I am not impressed so far!
You have to do better than what you are doing now to earn people's respect all round ! I see ex central committee members, middle range managers, junior managers and your bottom rung boys from the plantations everyday. I know what is the mood 'downstairs'. Dont just listen to your 'still wet in between the ears' corporate guys. Do also talk to your 'boys' downstairs. You could get a better feel of the business. Coming from TH or FELDA is nothing great.

You guys should actually need to take a leaf or two from Pak Mat Nyadap of Padang Pa' Amat, Pasir Puteh, Kelantan who did his 'mba' at Idongoto University :

" DR NIK HOWK, IF I WANT TO DOUBLE MY COCONUTS I TALK MORE TO MY MONKEYS. OFTENTIMEs I HAVE TO BRIBE THEM WITH FRESH COCONUT WATER AND LOTS OF PEANUTS !"
That coming from Pak Mat Nyadap of Padang Pa' Amat, Pasir Puteh, Kelantan. And he usually get his ways with his monkeys.

By the way, Congratulations to Ahmad Jauhari Yahya on his recent appointment to the hot seat at Malaysian Airline.
Yes Dato', do 'turun padang' and talk to your monkeys !
We have faith in you Dato'.
Malaysians have had enough of this nonsense of 'crops of over glorified clerks replacing another crop of overglorified clerks'.
Our CEO's manning the GLCs have to be thinkers

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Of Life, Dying , Death and Life After Death........

Alif. Lam. Mim. This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil). Who believe in the Unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them; And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter. These depend on guidance from their Lord. These are the successful.

The above, representing the English translation of opening five ayats of Surah Al Baqarah [ 'chapter' two ]from the Holy Quran, enumerate succinctly in essence of what it is to be a Muslim :
A belief in The Unseen, The Al Ghaiba,
A worshipful life,
A life dedicated to others ie your neighbour, the indigent, the fellow traveler, the poor.
A life following the way of Muhammad, the last messenger who followed a long line of brother messengers before him : Jesus, Mosses, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Lot, Noah and subsequently Adam.
And finally a life cognizance of living, dying, death and Life after death.

Life after death, involve in the main, the 'alam barzark', a millenium or two or hundreds perhaps between now and the second sounding of 'The Horn', and the eternity that followed beyond 'The Horn' : The Mahsyar, The Siratul Mustakim, The Judgement and subsequently depending on which hand you were handed 'your book', our 'final abode'.

And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth swoon away, save him whom Allah willeth. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the earth shineth with the light of her Lord, and the Book is set up, and the prophets and the witnesses are brought, and it is judged between them with truth, and they are not wronged. And each soul is paid in full for what it did. And He is best aware of what they do.
Az Zumar , 39 : 68-70


Shaykh Abdal Qadir Al Jilani in his book,'Sublime Revelations' said ,
"The clever ones amongst us live two lives, one foot in the here and the other firmly planted in the hereafter", echoing what was said some 300 years earlier by the perfect man, Muhammad, messenger of God.

Death and Dying are issues we mere mortals do think about, and for the 'unfortunate' some like me, see very often in the course of our short lives. But 'life after death' is part of the Al Ghaiba. No one has ever come back to tell us what it is about anyway. It is part of the Al Ghaiba.

The expose' here by Shaykh Ninowy of Georgia, USA is just about the opening gambit of life after death, the initial soul's journey...The Al Ghaiba complex : God, angels, souls and life after death,.... 

click here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=qWxeTyRWaQA

Elsewhere in the blog :
Steps to Jannah, click here
Unto HIM is the journeying, click here
Some Random Thots on Death, click here

Prayers of The Cicadas, click here
Light, click here
Tan Sri, We can use the ISA on him !, click here
Tok Guru Nik Aziz interview in French, click here
Democracy, Islam and present day Muslims, click here
Divine Decree, click here
Hamza Yusuf Hanson, click here

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Ugly American.......

America hypes, mourns and churns 911 year in and year out,
while the rest of the sub-human people of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan are expected to keep mump, stomach it and fade away..........
Let us look at America's very own 911 over history....and judge for ourselves whether indeed America can qualify as a 'Terrorist' state !

Palestine:
click here
click here
click here

Iraq :
click here
click here
click here
click here

Lebanon :
click here

Somalia :
click here


Libya :
click here
click here
click here

Chile :
click here for Allende's assasination

Vietnam :
American war crimes in VIetnam
click here

Korea :
American war crime in the Korean War
click here

Nagasaki and Hiroshima :
click here



...and finally my expose ends with Robert Fisk's short but succinct essay on
" Lies We Tell Ourselves on 911 " in the Independent on 3rd Sept, 2011

Lies We Still Tell Ourselves about 9/11
Have we managed to silence ourselves as well as the world with our own fears?
by Robert Fisk



I'm talking about the volumes, the libraries – nay, the very halls of literature – which the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001 have spawned. Many are spavined with pseudo-patriotism and self-regard, others rotten with the hopeless mythology of CIA/Mossad culprits, a few (from the Muslim world, alas) even referring to the killers as "boys", almost all avoiding the one thing which any cop looks for after a street crime: the motive.

Why so, I ask myself, after 10 years of war, hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, lies and hypocrisy and betrayal and sadistic torture by the Americans – our MI5 chaps just heard, understood, maybe looked, of course no touchy-touchy nonsense – and the Taliban? Have we managed to silence ourselves as well as the world with our own fears? Are we still not able to say those three sentences: The 19 murderers of 9/11 claimed they were Muslims. They came from a place called the Middle East. Is there a problem out there?

American publishers first went to war in 2001 with massive photo-memorial volumes. Their titles spoke for themselves: Above Hallowed Ground, So Others Might Live, Strong of Heart, What We Saw, The Final Frontier, A Fury for God, The Shadow of Swords... Seeing this stuff piled on newsstands across America, who could doubt that the US was going to go to war? And long before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, another pile of tomes arrived to justify the war after the war. Most prominent among them was ex-CIA spook Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm – and didn't we all remember Churchill's The Gathering Storm? – which, needless to say, compared the forthcoming battle against Saddam with the crisis faced by Britain and France in 1938.

There were two themes to this work by Pollack – "one of the world's leading experts on Iraq," the blurb told readers, among whom was Fareed Zakaria ("one of the most important books on American foreign policy in years," he drivelled) – the first of which was a detailed account of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction; none of which, as we know, actually existed. The second theme was the opportunity to sever the "linkage" between "the Iraq issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict".

The Palestinians, deprived of the support of powerful Iraq, went the narrative, would be further weakened in their struggle against Israeli occupation. Pollack referred to the Palestinians' "vicious terrorist campaign" – but without any criticism of Israel. He wrote of "weekly terrorist attacks followed by Israeli responses (sic)", the standard Israeli version of events. America's bias towards Israel was no more than an Arab "belief". Well, at least the egregious Pollack had worked out, in however slovenly a fashion, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had something to do with 9/11, even if Saddam had not.

In the years since, of course, we've been deluged with a rich literature of post-9/11 trauma, from the eloquent The Looming Tower of Lawrence Wright to the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, whose supporters have told us that the plane wreckage outside the Pentagon was dropped by a C-130, that the jets that hit the World Trade Centre were remotely guided, that United 93 was shot down by a US missile, etc. Given the secretive, obtuse and sometimes dishonest account presented by the White House – not to mention the initial hoodwinking of the official 9/11 commission staff – I am not surprised that millions of Americans believe some of this, let alone the biggest government lie: that Saddam was behind 9/11. Leon Panetta, the CIA's newly appointed autocrat, repeated this same lie in Baghdad only this year.

There have been movies, too. Flight 93 re-imagined what may (or may not) have happened aboard the plane which fell into a Pennsylvania wood. Another told a highly romanticised story, in which the New York authorities oddly managed to prevent almost all filming on the actual streets of the city. And now we're being deluged with TV specials, all of which have accepted the lie that 9/11 did actually change the world – it was the Bush/Blair repetition of this dangerous notion that allowed their thugs to indulge in murderous invasions and torture – without for a moment asking why the press and television went along with the idea. So far, not one of these programmes has mentioned the word "Israel" – and Brian Lapping's Thursday night ITV offering mentioned "Iraq" once, without explaining the degree to which 11 September 2001 provided the excuse for this 2003 war crime. How many died on 9/11? Almost 3,000. How many died in the Iraq war? Who cares?

Publication of the official 9/11 report – in 2004, but read the new edition of 2011 – is indeed worth study, if only for the realities it does present, although its opening sentences read more like those of a novel than of a government inquiry. "Tuesday ... dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States... For those heading to an airport, weather conditions could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey. Among the travellers were Mohamed Atta..." Were these guys, I ask myself, interns at Time magazine?

But I'm drawn to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan whose The Eleventh Day confronts what the West refused to face in the years that followed 9/11. "All the evidence ... indicates that Palestine was the factor that united the conspirators – at every level," they write. One of the organisers of the attack believed it would make Americans concentrate on "the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel". Palestine, the authors state, "was certainly the principal political grievance ... driving the young Arabs (who had lived) in Hamburg".

The motivation for the attacks was "ducked" even by the official 9/11 report, say the authors. The commissioners had disagreed on this "issue" – cliché code word for "problem" – and its two most senior officials, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, were later to explain: "This was sensitive ground ...Commissioners who argued that al-Qa'ida was motivated by a religious ideology – and not by opposition to American policies – rejected mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... In their view, listing US support for Israel as a root cause of al-Qa'ida's opposition to the United States indicated that the United States should reassess that policy." And there you have it.

So what happened? The commissioners, Summers and Swan state, "settled on vague language that circumvented the issue of motive". There's a hint in the official report – but only in a footnote which, of course, few read. In other words, we still haven't told the truth about the crime which – we are supposed to believe – "changed the world for ever". Mind you, after watching Obama on his knees before Netanyahu last May, I'm really not surprised.

When the Israeli Prime Minister gets even the US Congress to grovel to him, the American people are not going to be told the answer to the most important and "sensitive" question of 9/11: why?
© 2011 The Independent

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Case History 2.......

When I was research registrar at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, some 3 decades ago, come Fridays we registrars on call for the weekend always cannot help feeling 'abandoned' and that familiar deja vu feeling of melancholia invariably seeped in. Why not ! We could feel the rest of the hospital medical staff, juniors and seniors already in 'weekend' mode. By 2 pm, 50 % already disappeared to some pubs [ some lucky blokes with eager-to-please young student nurses in tow ] somewhere near Smithfield Meat Market [ the biggest meat market in Europe during those old empire days ] around the vicinity of Little Britain and EC1A area.


Weekend calls those days were pretty long and 'lonely' affair, at least for me : Friday, Saturday, Sunday and you see your bosses only on Monday morning. Of course they are contactable but the unwritten rule is, if you are 'worth your salt', you don't call them.[ 'God' is there all the time, but you don't call him on Sunday ! ] You are the substantive registrar and 'consultant' and you hold the fort! I find being the boss and 'coolie' at the same time in a substantive Central London teaching hospital, at my level of incompetence at that time, for an extended period of 3 days, very daunting and stressful experience plus plus. Till Monday you are the boss lording over an active cardiac unit with your senior house officer, unless of course someone almost at the same level of the Queen of England get admitted in Bart's. Only then would you have the reason to call 'god'. [British medical consultants those days have a class and style of their own.]

In egalitarian London of the 80's, that would be rare. The Queen's hospital was St Georges anyway, and I think still is at the present time though Prince William was delivered at St Mary's, another hospital of mine before I moved to the more fashionable and more reputable St Barts.


St Bart's, though in the City and surrounded by lawyers offices, barristers and Queen's counsels and brokers, was still working class, a wee bit stiff in the upper lips, but not yet quite enough!

I would come on Friday morning, with some 'gloom' already working up in my head, with a big loaf of bread and a turperware full of my favourite dish,' beef or mutton kuzi' cooked by my dear wife, to cheer me up, nicely stored in the junior staff quarter's refrigerator. The frozen 'kuzi' would be cut a block at a time and defrosted for breakfast , lunch and dinner for the next 3 days. By Monday morning , just mention 'kuzi' and I would want to vomit. They did serve steak and fish and chip at the cafeteria but despite reading HAMKA and all [ HAMKA is quite liberal in these situations ], I find these 'junks' could not get beyond my glottis!

St Bart's is one of the oldest hospital in London , if not the oldest. History has it that in the old days, when the internist physicians could not treat their cases of carbuncles, tumours and growths, they 'refer' these rather troublesome and embarassing cases to the excellent butchers across the street. These 'gentlemen' by virtue of their 'working class standard' usually creeped into the hospital and 'operate' by night. In the grand round the next day, the internist physician would lord over their patient and claim the glory of success. That, I was told by a senior, was the beginning of surgery as a speciality. No wonder the British still calls them 'Mister' and not the usual honorific 'Dr'.

Even now, years as a 'big time' consultant I still take weekend calls as a pain in the neck....2 days [ Saturday and Sunday ]you find yourselves unable to go anywhere or plan anything. I am on for this week.
Just as I was about to go home for lunch this 52 year old gentleman, a Malay chap. supervisor at a factory somewhere in PJ owned by a multinational company [ on a scale of things, MNC and Japanese companies treat even their non executive staff well, not like most Chinaman companies ! GLC quite OK, TNB and Bank Negara are best. Petronas, I dont know why, is slipping quite significantly on their staff care !!!! RM factor ? ].,was admitted with central chest pain and breathlessness of sudden onset. Risk factors :Diabetic and hypertensive over 4 years, with poor control and surveillance and a smoker. Diagnosis : Hyperacute phase of an inferior myocardial
infart.

Standard operating procedure : Admit for primary myocardial infarct angioplasty.
Angiogram showed severe triple vessel disease with culprit right coronary artery totally occluded. Passed guidewire across occlusion, aspirate clot plus plus. Lost wire access in the process and unable to rewire across lesion due to probable change in the plaque configuration.

No improvement to wire access even after a bolus shot of RHEOPRO [ 5 ml of this precious fluid cost more than gold ! ]. Last ditch effort since a life at stake, add 5000 units of METALYSE [ more expensive than rheopro ]given intracoronary, wire still not crossable. Patient's haemodynamics stable ! Mashaallah ! Alhamdullillah !
10 minutes post intracoronary infusion, another cine taken. RCA still totally occluded. Call it a day since patient still stable and procedure already 1.5 hours.
Patient had VT/VF [ cardiac arrest on the table ] prior to transfer to CCU. Duly defibrillated successfully. Alhamdullillah ! That is a good sign of delayed recanalazation by chemical fibrinolyis [ rheopro and metalyse ]. Totally dead muscles usually are quiet. Semi dead muscle due to microcappilary re-canalization ' fibrillate' and thus has reperfusion arrthmias such as VT/VF needing even defibrillation [ electric shock]. My Cath lab staff went blue. 'Dont worry,Good sign. You guys will see him Monday, God willing !', I told them .

Today, Sunday, patient in CCU stable and well.
For check angiogram tomorrow expecting to see some reopening of the occluded RCA. Check Angiogram this time to prepare patient for possible bypass surgery in 2 months time. If RCA reopens somewhat he goes for CABG. If not, we will have to optimise his medical therapy. We seldom refer patients for CABG these days unless they need at least 3 vessels to be bypassed.

..........

Just now 5 pm get called by Dr Shu, neurologist on-call to see a young Indian girl, 32 years old, with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura [ ITP , ie severe dysfuction and reduction of platelet due to unknown cause ], moribund, in coma and fully ventilated in ICU. Her BP is on the bfloor at 50 / ??, had a run of VT. She had earlier being on state of the art therapy under hematological consultant who successfully upped her platelet to al most normal count. Today brought in with severe headache and shortly after admission had massive intracerebral bleed needing to be ventilated in ICU and in deep coma .Urgent referral plus plus.

Over phone order:
IV bolus xylocard 100 mg given STAT.
IV infusion of dopamine and noradrenaline, BP normalised in 10 minutes to 120/ 70.
Earlier MRI brain showed huge, 6 cm diameter intracerebral bleed in the motor cortex and building bigger with time. Wth stable hemodynamics now we needed to bring in the primadonna, the surgeon. Neurosurgeon on call still busy operating . Got to call 2nd neurosurgeon.

2nd neurosurgeon in KGNS improving his golf shots.
He has to come in and decompress the brain right away, otherwise this nice looking young girl will not survive the night..........and given the bleeding tendency, she may not even survive the op. Hobson's choice but what choice do you have when faced with a young 31 year old dying due to a 'burst and leaking' pipe in the brain and a bleeding disorder problem ?

Reminded me of this poem we standard six school children of the past memorized by heart. Was it by Anonymous or was it by William Henry Davies, I have forgotten ? I think it must be Davies :

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


post script : Monday morning, 7 am,

The young girl had emergency burrhole and decompression surgery done late last night.
This may not even be helpful for her as her bp plummeted down this early Monday morning to unrecordable despite being on full dose triple inotropes. I do not see any prospect of survival. Primary physician, the hematological consultant discuss and explain in lenght grave prognosis to close family.
....again an example of the transience and fragility of life.

The 52 year old diabetic factory supervisor survived the weekend very well. Check angiogram done at 2 pm today showed 'recanulated' right coronary artery. I resisted a natural urge to just dilate , balloon and stent this lesion in view of the fact that his left system is adequately diseased as well though not totally occluded.
He is for CABG [ bypass surgery ] 4 to 6 weeks time.

And that young body builder [ case history 1 ] got married this weekend.


وَقَالَ ٱرۡڪَبُواْ فِيہَا بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ مَجۡر۪ٮٰهَا وَمُرۡسَٮٰهَآ‌ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّى لَغَفُورٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬ (٤١)
Bismillah himajreha wa mursaha inna Rabbi la Ghafur ru Rahim.
{Hud , 11 : 41 }
[ In the name of Allah be its course and its mooring. Lo! my Lord is Forgiving,
Merciful.]..Prophet Nuh alaihisalam on the eve of 'The Big Flood'.

Berkeley's Conversation with History : Tariq Ramadan

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Oxford University Professor Tariq Ramadan for a discussion of his new book, "What I Believe." Reflecting on the formative experiences of his life, Professor Ramadan traces the influence of his family, his education in Western philosophy and Islamic studies, and the impact of his different careers including high school principal, philosopher, and Islamic scholar. Articulating his commitment to universal principles and resistance to inequality, He analyzes the tensions facing Muslims in an era of globalization as they strive to be fully engaged as citizens committed to Western values.
click here



Elsewhere in the blog,
click here for A European Muslim
click here for ' Conversation on Islam' with Prof Wan Mohd Nor

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Case History

I am 'insomnic' tonight. How to sleep!? Just back from my 'energy sapping.' Ramadan umrah' and now on call. From 12 midnight till now 230 Am, I have had 3 nonsense calls from the hospital. Dr Syed at ER is not giving me any reprieve. He is currently at it with a vengeance !

Something crossed my mind, CASE HISTORIES.

A year ago,
AHW, 22 year old young Malay man. Could have called him 'boy'.[ My 2nd son is younger and much much heavier thanks to his mum who think she has to remain champion cook in Subang Jaya ]. Trainee bank officer, just slightly overweight for his height of 170 cm, ie 78 kg. Central chest pain and heart burn whole day . Seen and scoped by gastroenterological specialist colleague, no obvious redness or ulcer in stomach. About to be discharged with some antacid and proton pump inhibitor, Controlloc. His GP father, who was my student during his med-school student days, obviously not quite happy, requested me to see as a second opinion prior to discharge.....

Coronary angiogram later that same evening showed a myocardial infarct, fortunately involving a non major artery, that was why the presentation was non classical !
Culprit : smoking and trainee bank executive ,with stress plus plus and uncertainties. Young trainees nowadays made to work for several years on probation on pittance [ someone has to look at the banking industry, especially the goings on in Ex Bank Bumiputra's CIMB,...with bumiputra Nazir and Charoen at the top, the rest at the bottom and middle, I dunno ! I am being very cheeky here. ]...??. Cholesterol neither too high nor normal, nothing spectacular.

Just now at 7 pm : Seen at ER, KRS...
27 year old Malay gentleman, ex body builder. 2 years on cyclical oral anabolics with two weekly intramuscular injection of stanazolol [ 'Doc, 100 %of body builders on anabolics '!, he said as a matter of fact ...]. A maddening 30-egg, 2 whole chicken daily suprahigh protein diet. Came to ER with heart burn and chest pain that radiated to neck. Resting ECG looked suspicious but not aggressively abnormal. KRS is 85 kg with a body like Arnold Apakahnamadiadah Susahsangatnakeja. Even I could send him home on anti gastric medication had not the TropT blood test showing some positivity [ We heart doctors and ER doctors sometime live on our wits and could get to be in our under-wears if we get sued often enough. Patients do not come with the diagnosis emblazoned on their foreheads !. Oftentimes just a sixth sense that something is amiss, do help us... most time if we are unsure, admit for observation when things begin to unfold to give a fuller picture ! ].

Told mum upfront,the current observable cold statistics : procedure mortality risk 2 % with primary infarct PTCA/stentin. Conventional chemical thrombolysis treatment, if just involve proximal anterior descending artery, chances of opening blockade, 70 %, mortality risk 30 %. If Left Main Stem involved or near Left Main Stem, whatever we do conservatively, mortality risk 90 %. Our hands more or less are tied towards PTCA/stenting whatever the risk. Time of intervention is of the essence. Must conclude I have never met a most decisive mum this side of the Southern Hemisphere.
She did not bet an eyelid.Made our side of the 'business' easy.

" Please proceed Doc, He is only 27. He is getting married to his fiance next week "

Pushed straight to the cath lab from ER for primary infarct angioplasty and stenting[ Angioplasty, 30 years old technique now, or PTCA as anacronym, is European, Swiss in origin by Andreas Grunzieg 1980's; stenting, an extension of PTCA, is an American innovation] :
a 90 % blockade at the ostium of Left anterior descending artery [ Federal Highway numero uno ], barely 0.5 mm away from 'The Widow Maker's Junction' [ Left Main Stem artery...my God ! ]. Immediately crossed lesion gingerly [ Malaysian, with a wee bit of prayer, just the ubiquitous and truncated, 'bismillah' without the Hirrahmanirrahim ]with BMW 0.014inch guidewire [ German or British ], clot aspirated with an Export Catheter [ American ], advanced in a 'monorailed' fashion[ a technique initially popularised by the Japanese and the French ] advance via guidewire guidance. Thereafter, culprit lesion dilated with Terumo/Ryujin balloon [ Japanese] at 10 atmospheres. Removed terumo/Rugin ballon and advance a 3.5 millimetre diameter,15 mm length, Xience Stent [ American ], over the BMW Guidewire, and duly implanted at site of narrowing deployed at pressures of 19 and 21 atmospheres respectively. Another tense moment and another series of 'Bismillah'. A burst artery at this juncture could spell doom. 'Bloody' Stent moved a wee bit forward on implantation as very close proximity to 'Widow Maker's junction make very precise positioning crucial but the 'damn heart' of course cannot stop moving and shoving. BP/Pulse hemodynamics stable, patient concious, cooperating and importantly well sedated and quiet, not in distress. A series of 'Alhamdullillah' here is in order.

Doctor's heart dropped to the floor and his BP transiently skyrocketed to the roof following a sudden purge of internal adrenaline......followed by a small cursory four letter 'curse' and another "bismillah". Have to implant another stent, slightly shorter proximally, juxtaposing and kissing the 1st stent, as the 1st one did not cover the culprit lesion wholly due to the slight shift due to heart's continuous movement. Done."Alhamdullillah". Everything in place and OK and patient seem quiet and happy and hemodynamics stable. End of procedure.

Called anxious mum and family in and discussed the cine loop on video. Patient on the table ready for transfer to CCU. Mother and son had a small chat and both seemed relieved. Fantastic feeling.

Patient alive and well at CCU in half an hour asking when he could start his body building programme again ???? My God these young people nowadays, they are in a hurry !

Reminded me of my distant cousin, aggressive businessman, whom I managed some 20 years back, Mr FY, must be around 45 then, who had had a massive infart and left with a left ventricle hardly pumping [ LV ejection fraction of 15 % ], who asked on his 3rd hospital day:
" Doc Nik Howk, when can I start my badminton again ".
He died in his house a month later of cardiac arrest. Tired heart.

Now Dr Syed of ER is calling me again, this time no false alarm : He is admitting a 26 year old Malay gentleman, with a heart as big as a football , bp 170/90, in pulmonary oedema [ euphemism for heart failure or 'water in the lungs' ]. This gentleman has IDIOPATHIC DILATED CARDIOMYOPATHY and on follow up with my junior colleugue Dr Nizar, but absconded on his medications for a week. Nizar still 'skiing' his hard earned 'ringgits' with family somewhere in Europe. Nice and lovely to be still young and hopeful !. And Hari Raya and Ramadan can sometimes make us do stupid things [ our patients , I mean...like missing on the meds ]!

Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, reminded me of my St Mary's Hospital,Praed Street Jewish mentor some 30 years back, the late Dr Peter Kidner, cardiologist par excellence :' We doctors are IDIOts because we do not know the actual cause of this problem, and our patients generally PAtheTHIC, because our line of management could only at best be conjectural and 'cookery'... ' ]

From my vantage position,I must accept now that, at best, LIFE IS PRETTY FRAGILE !....and very unpredictable too.
Always tell my friends and patients that, for some special men, CEO's and those 'gladiatorial', type A sorts especially, to the chagrin of their missus if they are around during the discussion, that LIFE REALLY STARTS AT FIFTY FOR MEN. But the damn clock starts ticking well before their proverbial forty.

Go figure out how you want to live your life with these two incongruous variables.
If I ponder and discuss over it too long you would not call me a 'Doc' anymore. An 'Ustaz' prefix would seem appropriate.

I must be going now............that young man with water in his lungs is waiting in the cardiac ward. Our CCU is 'chockerblock full' to the brim !

That young body builder, I was told by the CCU nurse in charge, is still dreaming good dreams in cloud nine. He is going to be married in a week's time. Insyaalah he should be fully recovered by then.

Mashaallah, this is my life.......
It is cases like these that keep me coming back and glued to my job.
A vocation that continually remind me on a daily basis the 'fragility and transient nature of this life'.

Hublum minallah....Love of Allah.
Hublum minan Nas.....this is is the difficult part for most of us mere mortals.
We easily get clouded by greed, nepotism, crass materialism, ignorance and intellectual impotence.

Rivalry in worldly increase distracteth you Until ye come to the graves. Nay, but ye will come to know! Nay, but ye will come to know! Nay, would that ye knew (now) with a sure knowledge!
For ye will behold hell-fire.
Aye, ye will behold it with sure vision.
Then, on that day, ye will be asked concerning pleasure.

al takathur, 102 : 1-8




For similar articles on Heart Attack and Angioplasty on this blog,
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