time : mid august 1984, wukuf time, the hottest of summer for many years
place: field of arafah, saudi arabia
was walking around our field hospital like a field general, dressed in ihram, overlooking 150 other anxilliary medical staff and doctors. temperature outside our tented hospital was 55 degree centigrade. inside no better, probably 50. medical orderlies with modified anti-malarial pressure pump strapped to their bodies, walking 2 step behind spraying ice water on to doctors and nurses . we had over 150 inpatients in varying degree of heat stroke on iv drips.......outside some 200, malaysians, pakis, arabs and afghans sprawled on the desert sand, getting medical attention.
i particularly remembered the afghans. brought in unconcious, ice-sprayed,iv dripped and resuscitated. once consious, got up, thanked our staff profusely and walked out. a malaysian dato on the other hand, onced concious, got up and cursed us blue in the face for conduct unbecoming. he thought he was back in kl and in pantai !
azan magrib sounded from the minaret of nearby masjid arafah, echoed by thousand other azan from the tented city of arafah , temperature had somewhat cooled down to 40.
we stopped for prayer
the imam read surah al asr and i wept and sob spontaneosly, unashamedly.
that was the magic silver bullet that pierced my 'qalb'............................
life, for me, was never the same again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA9hbR9iMsQ
[ tgna: i am sorry it is in 'french' ]
for english version, listen to imam suhaib webb,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK-_elKaPD8
ps :
do not compare the two. tgna was addressing the peasants 'french' people of pulau melaka and kedai buloh ; while suhaib webb was talking to an enlightened group of already arab speaking 'natives' of amerikaya............
the division in ilm ,ilm and ilm and native background need to be appreciated.
[ i meant to be naughthy here in future blog , already thinking of a possible scenario : faith without ilm = melayu ; much ilm without faith = levin, bernard apakahnamadiadah, esposito et al ]
similar articles in the blog :
on life, dying, death, and life after death,
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/09/f-dying-death-and-life-after-death.html
Unto HIM is the journeying,
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/02/unto-him-is-journeying.html
Some random thots on DEATH,
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/05/some-more-random-thots-on-death.html
1 comment:
Dr Nik Hawk; surah alAsr so short so much power. Allah swears by the time and to me time is a mystery - it moves on each second forward but not backward. It's entropy. Had we known one hour ahead before death we would go crazy of fear, had we known NYSE share 30 minutes ahead, we each a billionnaire. Each second ticks we are one second older. Masha Allah.
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