Arab Class....

...at a time before time, in the 'alam ruh', on the day of the Primordial Covenant, this conversation took place:

Alastu biRabikum? [ Am I not your Lord? ]
Qaloo, bala shahidna  [ Yea, verily. We testify. ]



"Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! of this we were unaware; "( al-A'raf : 172)

On 25/02/2013, at 8:15, Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah <drnikisahak@hotmail.com> wrote:

At the opening session of our Sunday night arab class in USJ last week our Algerian born tutor, Mr Bahaeedine Muhammad who is English and French-speaking tutor said this:

"Consider this as a 'fardu' of sort since your learning Arabic is part of your ' religious duty

and since you are Muslim, Arabic is your language, you are coming home!"......

This is my third class after prematurely dropping out from the last two in a period of 10 years.

Insyaallah I will stick this time. I am learning 'my language'.

Additionally at 60, it will help keep my trillions of brain neurons together.

It is easy for  neurons to just disappear from lack of usage at this age.In medical parlance we call it 'disuse atrophy'. CT scan of people above 70 generally show  smaller brains due to'cerebral shrinkage'. Exercise them, say by learning new skills like picking up a new language. This is akin to 'cerebral gymnastic'.

           Remember: there are more than 200 ways of describing a lion in Arabic!

 nik howk

 ps : nadzru my 'arab' friend , i can almost hear him chuckling in the background.

 this chap can sell sand to the libyans....that is how good his Arabic is !

           He feels people should take up Arabic for the 'culture'  etc and etc. Taking up Arabic for     
          
           the religion is plain " pathetic".
       
          I am not at all surprised....he can sell sand to the Libyans..that is how good he is!

 



From Tasnim, who wrote in,

Assalamualaykum,

Whoever u r..thanks for this short inspiring notes..it has surely drive me to attend this class..hope its not too late as missing the fist few basic ones is definitely a loss....anyway..insha'allah to attend the next one..

Thanks shima and also Dr Nik Isahak..

Sent from my iPad

Puan Husna  of Ampang wrote in:

Salam Shima,

The Arab language can be very difficult to learn, as what I saw at last night's class.  But the fact that we all learned to read the quran early in life probably put us all in a better stead.  I do hope the teacher will not go totally Arabic during class as he promised to because like many people, I think in English, I would be totally lost.

I hope experienced Arab language students like yourself can give some tips on how you mastered  it, every now and then.

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:47 PM, Shima Derus <shimaderus@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

wa'alaikum salam w.w. dear sis

Arabic language is not easy but it's not impossible to learn it, either! It hits me very hard post-911, within a very short span of time, watching scores of non-Muslim journalists from CNN, BBC , et al, interviewing Arabs!! 

They can read & converse in the language that I recite everyday in my solat, (without understanding what I was reciting)?!!

Then in 2002, when I was in Masjid Nabawwi I met a college girl who asked me if I speak Arabic, since I was then reciting the Qur'an. She was baffled when I said No cos how can read the Qur'an then, without understanding it??!! BUt as usual, being a busy corporate woman then, didn't do anything afterwards.. It was until after I quitted my job in 2005 I strated to learn Islam, tajweed and then the urge to learn Arabic was revived again..  like Dr Nik, I attended 1 semester night classes at UiTM. No Semester 2 cos not enough students... Then I organised a class at the masjid but this time the teacher (the same UiTM lecturer) dropped out!!  He was too busy juggling between his lectures, meetings that we had to reschedule our classes many times. Then I joined yet another class at a friend's place. Also lasted several months - too technical. About 2 years ago I got acquainted with a native Arab speaker, Ustaz Mo'az. Gathered my 3 children and a few mualafs fr Philippines we started another class. Dr Nik also joined in then, for a while...The mualafs' (all  reverted less than 5 years) determination drives me to continue the class. Then Ustaz Mo'az passed on the class to his friend Ustaz Bahae, as the former stays in Gombak whereas the latter in USJ.

So, it was a very2 slow journey for me to come to stage I am now, which is still elementary, actually! But they as they say, Winners never Quit!!! InshaaAllah one day I will win the battle!!! So can you! Sit at the front row; then you can be more attentive. Ask questions; take down notes (bring a note book). read them again (at least once, before you come to the next class!). The next time you read the Qur'an, read the meaning. Then you'll start to get familiar with words that we learn in the class. We are lucky that there are many BM words that are derived from Arabic.

InshaaAllah I will try to share the little knowledge with you. Together we can make it!

Ma'as salaamah wa ilal liqo', inshaa Allah.

(Goodbye and see u again, inshaaAllah)

Wasalam,

Shima Derus

From Nadzru Azahari, 'The Arabist', who wrote in:


Dear Nik Hawk, friends, Romans and countrymen;

I wish you all the best in your arabic language class and I hope you are enjoying it very much.

Very soon Nik Hawk will be saying, ' as-sakt ad-damghi min ajl ad-dakh dam al-aali al-mu'aqata - stroke due to momentary high blood pressure. He will also remark, ' aj-jaltan amama al-mafraq ghaira saaleh bish-shurayyan AVM' - a clot before a poor AVM junction. Then he will repeat the usage in a different context, ' al-hukuma al-mu'aqata qabla al-istifta' ' - a temporary goverment before a referendum. Then he will say, ' al-wadh'iya fi mafraq al- nadzariyat as-siyasiya' - the position before a junction separating political thoughts. The word ' sharayan' to Nik Hawk can refer to a vascular system or a political consensus building access network.

At that time we will confer him with a 'Kelas Dewasa' KEMAS certificate in arabic!

All the best and May Allah bless you all. I am very proud indeed of your efforts.

Nadzru Azhari





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Basic Quranic Arabic can be accessed on this site:

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/05/basic-quranic-arabic.html

Case History : Two Contrasting Cases...A Day in the Clinic

Yesterday I had two contrasting 'cases' in one morning at my outpatient clinic session.

Case 1 :

Young Malay man, hardly 30, accountant, just married with one child.
Had a major ' anterior myocardial infarct ' [ heart attack ] about a year ago and seen early in Kajang District Hospital. Duly given streptokinase [ agent that 'breaks blood clots', we call them 'thombolytics' ]by admitting physician. The right thing to do in a small hospital where primary infarct angioplasty needing a cardiac catheter lab with 24 hours cardiological specialist coverage is not available. Was referred to me three days later when an angiogram was done and balloon angioplasty and stenting to culprit artery instituted. A late damage limitation exercise I would say, as 'primary infarct angioplasty and stenting' at the earliest possible time is the gold standard therapy for the last 15 years now, without doubt. He has missed the boat, but better late than never. Left ventricular ejection fraction [ LVEF ] then was 40 %. Not great when you are just turning 30, normal being between 55 to 80 %. There was a lot of muscle loss at the point of the 'infarct'.

Yesterday was a disturbing finding. His follow up echo showed only LVEF was only 25 %.
?? Progression of disease despite his lipid and cholesterol already on the 'floor' and ideally very low.
?? Occluded stent, despite no chest pain and normal stress ECG.
Will bring him in and reangio  after these festive CNY season to reassess and get a new coronary road map...kiv stenting, I made a mental note.
Whatever the finding, the news is not great......
The chance this nice young man celebrating his 55th birthday, 'on statistical ' ground, is truncated..an automatic thought.
Unless 'heart transplantation' become epidemic and organ donation acceptable then [ highly unlikely ],
Or 'Yamaha heart' or 'Suzuki heart' is easily accessible in 2030??..most unlikely.
Got to work on his 'soul'...he look like a good practising, committed Muslim  and can take the 'bad' news....have to be extremely careful here...not many people wants to know the score....just another mental note. [ kiv]




Case 2 :

Abdal Hakim Murab [ not his real name of course ], 65,a Norwegian sailor, a convert par excellence, domiciled in JB. I am seeing his wife regularly in outpatient for a ' moderately leaking mitral valve'.
Hakim had a full  annual employment medical check up in Sinapo and the Sinapo doctor wrote "adviced not to exert himself". This small advisory note in his report, according to Hakim, is going to affect his employability in Norway where he works as chief steward on a ' mining ocean going ship' off  the North Sea, a very well paid job with great vacation periods in between. He plans to work till 72.

I know Hakim very well. He does weight training in the gym four times a week, followed by cardio, the whole session lasting two solid hours. Three times a week he does 'interval training' on the beach or runs up a small hill at the back of his house in JB. OMG, this man embarassed me. I thought my one kilometer swim at lunch time , three time a week is already exemplary!

Hakim is 172cm tall and weighs 65 kg, ideal body weight. I have a simple formulla for calculating ideal body weight. Height in centimetres minus 100. That is your ideal body weight! Anything less is an added bonus.
He is almost all muscles.

I did a threadmill on him that day. He completed Bruce Protocol stage 5, at a workload of 15.5 MET!
A year earlier I did threadmill tests for all the Sime Darby footballers aged between 20 and 25 and none of them could complete stage 5.

" Hakim, I have bad news for your wife! You are a 64 year old man in a 16 year old body...."

Exercise , to me, is the perfect elixir of youth.







Previous articles of similar vein:

1. 'You Don't Have To Be A Marathoner'
     http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-exercise-and-longevity-you-dont-have.html


2. 'Letter To Rifqi'
    http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-obesitymodified-cambridge-dietand.html


3. 'Mixing The Profane & The Sublime'
    http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/03/exercise-mixing-profane-and-sublime.html


4. 'Some Random Thots On Death'
    http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/05/some-more-random-thots-on-death.html



5. 'Unto HIM is the Journeying'
    http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2011/02/unto-him-is-journeying.html
   


6. 'Longevity: A Muslim's Perspective'
    http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/07/longevity-muslims-perspective.html