Thursday, December 8, 2016

UMRAH.......reminiscence of 'old time' and our time for renewal




Labbaik Allah humma labbaik
Labbaik la sharika laka labbaik
Innal hamda
Wan-ni'mata
Laka walmulk
Laa sharika lah.

O my Lord, here I am at Your service, here I am.
There is no partner with You,
here I am.
Truly the praise
and the provisions are Yours,
and so is the dominion and sovereignty.

There is no partner with You.




nadzru, johan, nina , shasha and yazman,


children,

we are coming to the penultimate week before our umrah.
i hope you guys are polishing up yourselves spiritually so that you would not just end up as  'tourists'.
we want to be 'travelers' not tourist....'travelers on the path to allah'
the late ustaz dr harun din once told papa in the eighties before haj and umrah that, 'haj and umrah are essentially a rehearsal of death'.
he was echoing the fact that in a haj mabrur a traveler 'dies to the duniya and lives for the akhirat' after that.

the good shaykh, shaykh ninowy here talks of attachment and detachment. 
papa could remember some years back, being an 'old kaki' at umrah and haj, when doing tawaf and papa could feel like acres of space, while some years, when papa was 'sergabuk' and unfocussed, it felt so crowded.
iman , like everything else , waxes and wane, even in the best of circumstances and place, for all of us mere mortals! 

life is a mind game.
the relative 'success' or 'failure' in life is determined largely by the paradigm or shift of paradigm that each individual make up there in his cerebral cortex.
and your 'cerebral cortex' is just a servant of  your 'heart'
the 'heart' of a believer is malleable.
it is 'moldable', but require a lot of serious work.

it is our choice, to be ok or not ok, to be a good abdal of allah or to be 'always in a state of 'irrational' anger with HIM throughout life.
there are so many example for you guys to see around, people perpetually 'angry with allah'

if you can achieve that detachment, alhamdullillah, if not continue to work on it.
it will come to you, insyaallah.
it is 'dowable' insyaallah.
and  in papa's estimation, 'umrah' is a 'great  open university' for such game plan to change towards the better.
an expensive one no doubt but you guys are fairly lucky lot since papa is very much an addict to this 'open university'!

but this is not free guys!
you guys have to some work on your own.
in the equestrian parlance, one can bring the horse to the water but one cannot force it to drink!


to achieve this end it is important in this last week to brush up on the following :

1 . prayers ie sunnat prayers around the compulsory prayers.

2.  solatul jenazah
there is jenazah prayer all the time in the haram and masjid nabi

3. solatul tasbeeh



this is papa's favourite prayer. some months ago  papa used to do it daily and in ramadan almost twice a day. 
now at least twice a week. children, iman and fervour waxes and wane. your dad is no exception.
' why solatul tasbeeh, i heard the hadith is dhaif? ', you asked.

' sons!, forget about dhaif, hasan or soheeh! you are not there 1470 years ago ! if imam al ghazali [circa 300 to 325 year, post nabi ] or al qushairi [ circa 350, post nabi ] did it, i dont care that  muhammad ibnu abdul wahab [ circa 1102 to 1192, post nabi ]  
and present day wahabbis did not think ibnu abbas' tradition is soheh.
other scholars disagree with them 

just do it. 

papa's point is this: if you are al ghazali or imam qushairy, your tok gurus were at least tabi-tabi'in or at worst, tabi-tabi-tabi'in. hadiths and memories , especially in the arabian context, were still fresh. if the 'salafis' now whose substantive tok gurus was at least 11 centuries after nabi, what basis of claim can they make that their version, and only their versions are correct , the rest are maudhu' or suspect. these modern day young blinkered wahabbis have to reexamine themselves......just because their 300 to 400 hadith which they commit to memory do not recommend  some ibadat does not mean it is bidaah. it may be in the thousands of hadith that they dont know.

in solatul tasbeeh, papa agree with the minority view . 
children!,do it  daily in the haram for size.

and when you are safely back home in KL , go do tasbeeh daily for 6 months. 
then come back tell me whether you think it is dhaif,  soheeh, hasan or maudhu'. !
we can discuss further.

chances are, you will  find solatul tasbeeh bringing in  so much solace and pleasure to you, that you would feel embarassed to discuss dhaif, hasan or soheeh anymore!
those who feel happy going  thru life wearing blinkers, go ahead.
we have no querrel with these 'blinkered'  guys!

' is'nt it  time for those who believe in the zikr of allah to taste the sweetness of iman? '

'experiential islam ' is more important than a load of hadiths and theory.
the hadith is not dhaif, the iman is dhaif.

4.night prayer [ tahajjud ]
in the haram, one don't sleep my sons!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDyF_JaiFKw [ mufti menk short take on night prayer ]


5.sembahyang israk and dhuha

6. zikr

any of those 30 or so zikr,  or more.
these are papa's favourites.
they are short and the ma'ana are quite obvious and easy.
we are not 'schooled' in the ugama, so just try do what we know best.

7. and please polish up on the rudiments  and doa involved in an 'umrah'.
if you guys find the doa during tawaf and saei too tedious, do a thousand 'kul huwalah' instead.
some 15 years back, papa did the big tawaf, around the kaabah, early morning after sahur and the crowd was too big! the big circle on haram's 1st floor is around 1.2 km or so and that equates to 750 kul huwallah each round!

in the haram, children, do your things.
on that day papa thought papa did very well well until papa met a young somalian teacher, and mashaallah the conversation went on like this:

'assala mualaikum young brother , where are you from'
'somalia...', said he, he carried one sling bag, and later i found out that was his only luggage.
'where are you staying in makkah?'
' i eat, sleep in the haram....i wash and have bath in the public rest room outside sir'
...and papa had a five star hotel room to go back to after the ordeal of the sunat tawaf!!!!


7. solawat to the nabi.
the little time we spend in madinah, try to be in continous solawat to the nabi [ pbuh ].
visit his grave every prayer if you can, otherwise everyday.
read his seerah before our journey to know him better.
martin ling's seerah of the nabi [ pbuh ] in papa's estimation is one of the best.
it is collecting dust on papa's bookshelf for over 40 years!
none of you read it, so occupied you guys with whathapp, misshaps etc etc and etc!
t o love THE BELOVED you must 1st love HIS prophet numero uno.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw7u6_DZyAI


at the end of the day guys, ' what is  the heck papa, are these all about!!?? ', you may ask.

it is all about getting closer to HIM.
when HE is your friend, the rest of the world can go and fly kites.

that young somalian teacher had very little.
but papa thought his haj and umrah was 'more mabrur' than papa's.
on the day when nothing else matter, that is the difference between the night and the day.

i am not asking you to be an average worker or citizen.
for from that.
if you are just a bandaraya worker, be the best , honest bandaraya worker.
if you are a shopkeeper in downtown pj, be the best and honest one.
does not matter you earn million rm or just a mussel here, and a mussel there.
if you are a govt doctor in shah alam, be the best medical officer.

likewise, if you are ceo of malaysia incorporated, please, please, don't be like that shameless numbskull, that clown , that badut, now sleeping and shitting in putrajaya, totally oblivious of what the whole wide world thought of him!

islam is about good intention [ niya'], good thoughts, good deeds and above all good character. islam is about excellence.
certainly it is  not about this kind of utter nonsense!
..... and being quiet on this tantamount to 'subahat'.

where are all the shakers and movers of society!!!??
are  we justa nation of 'cari makan' with no 'core' values?
no maruah and no accountability?

papa.




1 comment:

aaghaazeha said...

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