A Matter of the HEART : My Magic Bullet

The magic bullet that pierced my Qalb.
It must have been 1984
Field of Arafah
Maghrib time,
Our imam was rendering a very short surah, Surah Al Asr,

Surah Al-Asr

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

By the declining day, (1) 

Lo! man is a state of loss, (2) 

Save those who believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance. (3)

[ pickthal's translation ]

Our only way to salvation, to Jannah: 

A firm belief in the al Ghaiba

following  the ways of Muhammad

& exhorting one another to truth and sabr

......translated the last prerequirement  for jannah

means exhorting our wife or wives, and children, friends;

 Lim  Ah Cheng and Ramasamy, our next door neighbours; Paul and Anthony,

in America and Italy;.... Ahmad and Faridah and Zarinah, our fellow 'so-called'

Muslims who despite their Cambridge  and Harvard education still seemed lost

in their futile dreams ; Muthusamy, the friendly newspaper vendor;.....all of them to Islam.
Doing away with political 'correctness'.

Can disregard people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hithens types who think they are too clever.

In fact, more clever than god.
There are enough of the clever Ahmads, Faridahs and Zarinahs, running around here, for us to work on, to waste our much limited  breath on Richards and Christophers.....

....translated it means daawah, at all level.

To do daawah means arming oneself with ilm, ilm, ilm, and ilm.

Responsibility of all Muslims.

WAJIB.

Case History : Young Deaths....

Remembered this conversation [ monologue from Ru's viewpoint, probably ] with my somewhat morbidly obese son while vacationing in Redang a year ago...
" Ru, In Maui, Hawaii you dont get to see coconuts like this. All the fruits, young or old, get pruned off early, for fear of litigation, in case it fall on the hotel guests. This Berjaya people are cavalier. You only need one coconut to fall down on one American tourist, then  there will be a multi illion ringgit suit, preferably in America and Berjaya will be out of business elsewhere in the world..... But Ru, Papa is not not worried about Berjaya  going out of business.....TS Vincent Tan is filthy rich, they can afford that sometime as a lesson...this coconut trees reminded papa that even young coconuts  also do fall and they do fall with as much regularity as the old ones !"
Even now, I was sure  Nadzru could not understand his dad's oblique  and dry sense of humour. Eating and lazing about are still his hobbies. His idea of exercise is having a short walk from the car park to the nearest restaurant Syed with some of his equally obese friends !


Too much young deaths this one month. Two to be precise. 
Case 1 :
E Shazwani, 26, [ not her real name of course], came in via ER, with an abruptio placentae [ bleeding from the placentae ] at 37th week pregnancy with a bp of 170 systolic and 120 diastolic...Preexclampsia , as well, by our definition . 
Had  generalised convulsion shortly after in the ward.  That prompted a Code Blue and that  was where I came into the picture.


As cardiologist on called, it is our job to respond to all hospital Code Blue  at whatever time it is.[ hospital euphemism that someone's heart is stopping, someone in a 'great hurry' to carry on to the next phase of 'the journey' ]. 
E S duly intubated and ceasarian section in progress when I reached there. Her gynae was super quick to response.  She need to be, otherwise, both baby and mum would not make it.... maternal  and neonatal mortality is a no no no....It will a negative impact on our index of being a progressive nation state.


Baby and mother sent to  neonatal ICU 2 hour later, mother on huge doses of IV antihypertensives for her very labile BP.  Her initial Bp surge  had pushed her to transient heart failure.She  responded well to treatment and by third ICU day post OP, mother and child were reunited and good enough to be sent to postnatal ward. 
Heart echocarcardiogram and chest xray being normal.


3am , got called by another Code Blue..
' Doc, there is a Code Blue in Postnatal', retorted the operator.
' What the f..ck ! I am not on call !!'
" Your patient in postnatal , sir ..'


E Shazwani died in her sleep, her husband sleeping next to her on the couch.
Possible cause of death :
??Primary Ventricular Fibrillation. 
?? Sudden massive brain haemorrhage due to sudden  burst of high bp surge. 
? Pulmonary embolism. Most probably.
But  all highly conjectural as far as I am concerned, since Postmortem request refused.
[ Those  theoretical  'assholes'  warming their bottoms at the District and  State level Maternal Mortality review board are going to have a field day looking through their 'very  very clever retroscopes' ]. 
Why this , why that, why not this why not that ?
Have you considered this, have you considered that ?
Damn it.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilai hirojiun.


Case 2, just yesterday, 9th day of Ramadan :
Muhammad, 32, [ not his real name of course, but my God !, just about my son's age ], Kuwaiti student at that 'universiti under the highway', MSU. Refered from DEMC Hospital. Presenting symptom : chest pain, veryhigh bp,  210/80, tropT positive, ECG changes of acute coronary syndrome. Obese plus plus 


Duly underwent cardiac cathetherization on admission  at 2 am, with  a view towards ad hoc angioplasty and coronary stenting 'on sight' with intravenous anti hypertensives on board.
Some slight aberration in the right coronary artery seen and a  smallish circumflex but why ??
....Looking  down at the  thoraco- abdominal aorta, Lo and behold ! This young man has a bigger plumbing problem plus plus than just  his coronary. He has acute thoracic aorta dissection !!  His main blood vessel, the aorta, that come off the heart  has a major crack in the wall ! It is not bursting yet otherwise he would be dead on arrival. It cracked, tearing the wall into a false lumen within the wall and  the crack progressing upward  towards the root of the heart and downward within the vessel towards the groin arteries. Dire emergency plus plus.. CT abdo and thorax confirmed the 'extent and gravity of the problem. His aortic dissection right from the root of the heart, right down to his scotum, one kidney was already devoid of blood supply and his mesenteric arteries [ blood supply to the gut and colon] are closing. He need cardiovascular surgery now. 


Two to three experience surgeons all working on him at the same time. There is only one place in KL having that number working on one patient :...IJN. 
Major plus plus plus cardiovascular surgery and even then it is 50 : 50.


" Young man, I am going to have to tranfer you to IJN now . I just talk to the boss number one there and he is waiting for you. You need major surgery"...Half reassuring and reminding  myself that he could make it. The CT thorax told me he is already a 'gone case'...beyond help.
" Doc....why am I feeling this short of breath..."
" Muhammad, try not to waste your breath talking  to me or anyone... Just concentrate your mind on this..I want you to just close your eyes and concentrate on ..Laila hail llallah..laila hail llallah...laila hail llallah....".  I knew he would not make it.


Events oftentimes got the better of us whatever we do.
30 minutes later he went into coma and died.
His parents still in the air between Kuwait and KLIA.
I wish I could tell them that their son , did the shahadah..... it make a world of difference if you are an Ahmad or a Mustapha !


It is cases like this that keep me going at 60 plus. being reminded of the 'inevitable' some 30 times in a day, 30 days a month
.
Inna lillah hiwainna ilai hirojiun.......
We are from Him, to Him we all do return.


Related Articles in the blog :
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/09/f-dying-death-and-life-after-death.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/02/unto-him-is-journeying.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/09/pearls-gem-couple-of-milenium-forward.html

The Table Spread : Surah Al Maeda,[ 5 : 112-120 ]

[ biblical stories in the quran ]


When the disciples said: O Jesus, son of Mary! Is thy Lord able to send down for us a table spread with food from heaven? He said: Observe your duty to Allah, if ye are true believers. (112) (They said:) We wish to eat thereof, that we may satisfy our hearts and know that thou hast spoken truth to us, and that thereof we may be witnesses. (113) Jesus, son of Mary, said: O Allah, Lord of us! Send down for us a table spread with food from heaven, that it may be a feast for us, for the first of us and for the last of us, and a sign from Thee. Give us sustenance, for Thou art the Best of Sustainers. (114) Allah said: Lo! I send it down for you. And whoso disbelieveth of you afterward, him surely will I punish with a punishment wherewith I have not punished any of (My) creatures. (115) And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I had ever said it, then Thou wouldst have known it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower of Things Hidden? (116) I spake unto them only that which Thou commandedst me, (saying): Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. I was a witness of them while I dwelt among them, and when Thou tookest me Thou wast the Watcher over them. Thou art Witness over all things. (117) If Thou punish them, lo! they are Thy slaves, and if Thou forgive them (lo! they are Thy slaves). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Mighty, the Wise. (118) Allah saith: This is a day in which their truthfulness profiteth the truthful, for theirs are Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they are secure for ever, Allah taking pleasure in them and they in Him. That is the great triumph. (119) Unto Allah belongeth the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and whatsoever is therein, and He is Able to do all things. (120)

translation of The Holy Quran by pickthal, surah al maeda [ the table spread ], chapter 5 : verses 112-120, 

http://quranexplorer.com/

how interesting, 18 million jews, some 3 billion christians and 1.6 billion muslims, all from the same abrahamic faith !
fighting  over crumbs....entirely missing the essense....


"La illa haillallah"
there is no god but Allah

Postscript :
O ye who believe! Ye have charge of your own souls. He who erreth cannot injure you if ye are rightly guided. Unto Allah ye will all return; and then He will inform you of what ye used to do. (105)

Taqwa......Shaykh Haitham al Hadad

My good friend, Nadzru Azhari,from Ranhill Worley, recently elevates me to the status of a ' moral policeman'. I know he was just pulling my leg but coming from him, an Arabist par excellence, even if he meant it just by 10 %, I take it as a compliment. Thank you Nadzru.
He is a keen reader of minds


Talking of  'policeman' pushed me  some 40, 42 years back to Cik Gu Muzzafar Desmond Tate, our Malayan studies teacher cum career master at the Malay College.


"Nik, what do you want to be after Malay College? "
"Sir, I want to be like James Bond double 'O' seven with a license to kill....a spy",  with all the 'works' thrown in, the sultry Greek 'goddess' Ursula Undress, dripping wet coming out from the Jamaican ocean in her bikini, fresh in my mind.......
"You can't...Malaysia do not have that kind of spy service!"
" Sir, in that case, just let me be a policeman".


No!  I was not thinking of  the Tun Haniff type. I was thinking of  those wonderful time I had with Sherlock Holmes. The 'cerebral' , intellectual 'policeman'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsFAGo6i4gY&feature=relmfu

From the perspective of mechanism we are back to Imam Hasan Al Basri's triad of :
SOLAT
ZIKIR
RECITATION OF THE QURAN,
from amongst others.




Related articles in the blog :
1 http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/09/f-dying-death-and-life-after-death.html 
2 http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2010/10/all-we-ask.html
3 http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/04/happiness-revisited.html
4 Mufti Menk on Taqwa, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhvGaQR5HqU&feature=related

Transland Journey : We Are Moving.....

Transland Journey is moving over to :
http://translandjourney.blogspot.com/