Life Is Tough.......[ but why be sad ]

Life is tough. ..fullstop.

Does not matter whether one has a Daimler in the garage and a trophy wife in bed.

Many of such blokes end up with suicides in the US, Scandinavia, Korea and Japan.

If you are 99.9 percent of what constitute the rest , life is even tougher

If you dont believe me that even those in  the rarefied 0.1 % of the strata find life tough, just look at who wrote a book about it recently, in fact a bestseller... Prince Ghazi, of Jordan.

Or if you have her personal phone number, you can ring Ms Melinda Gates and ask her.

Even Bill Gates probably is finding life, tough currently, disregard the changing SYT's that are sharing his bed at night.....[ a pun no doubt , but what business has one of the richest man in the world to do with lowly characters such  as Jeffrey Epstein etc etc and etc...... ]

On a more serious note, let us listen to what Paul Williams of 'blogging theology' has to say about life:

" Why Is My Life So Tough? ": Exceprt from Prince Ghazi' book...

(from https://bloggingtheology.com/2021/05/10/why-is-my-life-so-tough/)

 

Life Worth Living : Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad..

a wee bit watered down prescription, to appease the secular minds as well, but well, he wrote for everyone, if I can read his mind, and that is very good  of him. 

Very generous heart to share our secrets' with everyone.

That is his global daawah, I presume

In the process , if a few may have their hearts touched, they get the hidayat....they connect it to Islam. 

If they dont, it is OK, this is after all a free world.

    

[     https://youtube.com/watch?v=6tI0lAyW7pI&t=17s       ]

I pick Hamza Yusuf's short discouse , not to provide you guys any simple formullae towards happiness, but just to prepare a platform , a preamble, for you guys to be able to comprehend, the next one by  Khiai Muhammad Bhakiet's discourse, which is several notches up the scale into the realm of aspiring for both ' surga ' in this current realm, and the next..........a very tall order!!!

[    https://youtu.be/3tZRXTOyA_k      ]

"....are fame, wealth, health, all keys to happiness?   "

OK guys from here on, if you are non Muslim, you dont need to carry because you may not comprehend the discourse. It is super heavy stuff.

If you are just Muslim, and not yet Mukmin, you can also stop here. Hamza Yususf's is already good enough for you.

If you both Muslim and Mukmin, put on your seat belt......you can continue but it is going to be tough and rough journey ahead

Jannatul Firdaus in the next realm and 'surga ' in the current is not cheap!

One has to be super tough ' up there '.

It is a tough mental game for the few.

[ ..if I am beginning to sound like that character, Tom, in Mark Twain's 'Adventure of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn ' to my son Joe, who is familiar with my prodding and suffers well and silently so far, I dont blame him. This is a my way of prodding him along in this tough journey called LIFE.

He also have read ' Tom Sawyer ', out of curiosity.

A compulsory reading for all of us form 1 pupils at Sultan Ismail College, Kota Bharu in the early 60.s

Tom, the main character was tasked by her aunt to whitewash and paint the concrete pagar of their house. A dreary task. He had his friends lining up to join in the 'fun' and each of them paying him in return for the 'pleasure'. In present day scenario, Tom would have landed himself a very successful marketing or advertising career! ]

......................................
 

If you want to have the 'no hold barred' formulla to happiness, and want it NOW!!!, the one word answer is RIDHA, in all circumstances. The accent, is on " IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES......"

In Islamic parlance,  the formullae is very simple, just 3 words in Arabic,  Alhamdullillah fi Kullihal , ie tranlated, " Praise be to Allah, in all circumstances. "

In time of 'expansion',  Al Hamdullillah .

Very easy this one....

In time of dire constriction, still able to say, Al Hamdullillah , or at worse, Al Hamdullillah..Inna lillah Hiwinna Ilai Hiro Jion .

This require a life long of data collection of ilm , ilm and ilm.

A life of Sabr, Ta'at, Shukr and Riddha

A maqam not easy to comprehend , let alone to aspire, especially if our mainly secular minds " banyak sangat songeng " and have too many , ifs , buts , whys and hows ". The problem inherrent with our secular upbringing and millieu.

Listen to Khiai Muhammad Bhakiet, and don't ask me...., if you cannot comprehend him, it is because you have not been able to leave your  " ifs, buts, whys and hows..."

[     https://youtu.be/tbA-kVESfQM    ]

But comprehension  is one thing, achieving it is another....

A lifetime of practice.......

My Dear Maryam & Sarah

 

[      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06TMMKjCfD0   ]

my dear maryam & sarah,

both you young punks 'floored' atok last week when you guys asked atok about 'the arash'.

frankly, atok dont know exactly, where 'the arash' is as, its immensity is beyond atok's imagination.

but what atok know is that atok must pay your  school  at sungai buluh a visit, and congratulate both your class teachers......

for giving both atok's cucus great education and aqidah grouding,  at these tender age of 5 and 7 respectively. the founders and patrons of the school , syabass to them all!!

during atok's time at 7, atok's teacher was just teaching atok, " this is a man, and this is a pen. a man and

 a pen ", from the the then famous book from longman of uk.

this earth to both of you , and to even atok,is huge.....super, super  huge.

just to fly from KL to London will take minimum 14 hours and that is only around 8,000 kilometres 

away!

but in the whole scheme of things,this planet earth is nothing.......it is very very tiny, just like a 

speck of dust, compared to the universe. 

the size of this universe is a figure with 25 zeros kilometres  behind that number, in dimension.

...and later in the year both your ugama teachwer will teach both of you a short ayat from surah al

 baqarah, ayat 255 to be precise, that is when you finish you muqaddam, insyaaallah.

in that ayat allah talks of HIS 'foot stool', known as 'the kursi'.

beyond the 'kursi' is the 'arash'

adults as old as atok, [and to you guys atok must be very very old, as you already consider both 

your parents already ancient ], had from time immemorial being arguing to no end about the

 nature of the 'kursi' and

 the 'arash', so if you two young guys cannot comprehend, it is nothing to worry about.

the 1st group of people  take the meaning of 'kursi' and 'arash', point blank, as what are

 mentioned in the quran.

the other group name called this group as the 'literalists'. another name given to them is '

 neosalafist '.

when the other group are  awee bit angrier and a wee bit impatient with thye 1st group because 

oftentimes the 1st group can behave like 'arseholes' and 'pain in the neck', the 2nd group called 

them 'wahabis'.

not a nice name to give,  a deragotory term, but that is the real world out there and even older

 people can got hot in between

 their collars!

the 2nd group, who like to call themselves, 'ahlil sunnah wal jamaah' think 'kursi' and 'arash',

 the understanding are much much beyond them, and that reflect the super immensity of allah's 

being and attributes.

a famous thinker and poet from amongst them known as rumi, 10 centuries ago, term it as 

'the place of the placeless, and a time of the timeless'.

more imaginative from amongst them put it in a more understanding way,[ as described in the utube ]

"imagine the universe as a ring, lost in the sahara desert...that sahara desert is the kursi.

now imagine the kursi as a ring. throw it in the sahara desert....that is the arash!! "

.....but they are quick to point out that this expression is only allegorical and figurative.

..........even at that  time and even with that expression,they feared to be termed

 'anthropomorphic' by later day people.

dont ask atok what 'anthropomorphic' means.

go ask your dad!

atok......

ps: " atok love you guys immensely!! "

Harta Kita Yang Sebenarnya | KH Muhammad Bakhiet

on fikr & dzikr..........

Subject: ........fikr, dikr and their relation to each other

if you are rather confused thus far about fikr and dikr; whether they are 2 in 1, or 2 separate, or 2 inseparable; ...which is the chicken and which is the egg...? ; chicken 1st or egg 1st or both together?

this one here is an erudite scholar's perspective of the subject:

[  http://kud-logos.si/2016/tafakkur-and-tadthakkur/   ]

very lenghty scholarly discourse, but if you like the short cut, and find yourself lost in the labyrhine of discussion, or you find the discourse rather too convoluted , then just follow hasan al basri's equation of happiness for this life and the hereafter.

hassan al basri was  a tabi'in .
spent  his childhood being brought up in one of our nabi's wife's household.

al hasan [ d. 728 ],of modern day basrah in iraq,  famous early ascetic and gnostic said:

“Seek pleasure in three things: the [ritual] prayer, the remembrance of God’s name, and in the recitation of the Quran. If you find pleasure in these, fine. If not, then know that the door is shut.” 

In short: the invocation as “repetitive recitation of sacred formulas or sacred speech, whether it be aloud or inward” is the very foundation of the Sufi path, “for one can only reach God by constantly remembering His name.''

in short, a trilogy of regular :

solat

dikr

reading the quran with understanding.



states and maqam..............

[    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltecfsbO-5A   ]

UMRAH.......on to the next level

ru, joe, nina , shasha and yazman,


ok guys, you have all completed 5 makkan days following tabung haji's directives from their small booklet to the T.
now papa want you guys to move to the next level. let us all leave the  ground level piazza and move on  to the next level, to the upper level floor.

join me here for tawaf sunat minimum twice a day for more 'exercise'! it is 0.9 to 1 km in circumference and the whole exercise will take us about 2 hours if we walk daintily and slowly.
with the hard marbled floor and just your stockinged feet,  papa would advice that you guys do just that: walk slowly and daintily. or else you will get plantar faciitis in no time , and our spiritual and physical experiment in the masjidil haram will fail right after the 1st attempt!

papa do not want that to happen because papa want to share with you some of the secrets that the haram has to offer, if just its millions and millions of  adherrents care to consider.

let us leave the 'too noisy indonesians , malaysians, turks and bangla with their cacaphony of group zikr and oftentimes 'irritating and noisy' and distracting group chanting on the ground floor of the 'mataaf', the pearl white marbled floor of the piazza surrounding the kaabah..

let us also leave those people who are too busy clicking their way in tawaf doing 'selfies' and answering calls on their handphones, to themselves. too many of these nowadays!

come children! join me on the 1st floor.
papa has not entirely abandoned the piazza yet, but when the crowds get busy and noisy, papa go to the relative peace of the upper levels.

over here let us throw away all pre-prepared long doa's and standard chantings.
it is a silent world up on the upper level.....we do zikrullah silently up here,
zikr of the heart rather than the lisan, the mouth.

we have the Qur'an, the 99 names of the asma ul husna and the tasbih, tahmid and tahlil to choose from.
any one of them in xcombination. 
the permutations and combinations are endless!

on the upper level papa has even done away with 'la illa haillallah' .
and why not!?

right here, around the kaaabah, 'la illa haillallah' seems superflous.
if you have so far reached the haram, it is a given thing already!
HE is the one. the only substantive one. the rest, including all of us, living and non living, are non entities!

papa's favourite for the 1st round is 'ya allah'
it encompasses all the 99 names.
it is indefinable.

the 2nd is 'ya rahman'.

Allah's mercy does not differentiate whether you are buddhists, christians, jews, muslims or downright secular. HE is mercy to everyone, including the stones and birds....

then we move on to 'ya rahim'.
while 'ya rahman' is for everyone, 'ya rahim' is extra special. 'ya rahim' is only for the people who submit.

by the beginning of the 4th circumbulation, you guys must have covered some three plus kilometres.
tired feet and sore muscles.....but 'ya hayyu ya quyyum', the ever living and the eternal, will soldier you on.

then on to 'ya rabb ya zaljalaliwal ikram'.
you guys will be energized and motivated by now.

if by the beginning of the sixth circumbulation, 'ya fattah ya razak ya wahab ya ghoniy ya mughni' fail to excite you, papa will be utterly disappointed. these most beautiful names are about power, richness, generousity and benevolence.
some shyakhs and tok gurus even dare to suggest that if one make this 'mantra' a daily occurrence, one's life will be 'rich'. 
papa is not into this

finally we finish our tawaf with 'ya khadeem,ya daim, ya ahad ya wahid ya samad'.
the one who has no beginning, no ending, no equal , the one and only and the eternal.

you guys have four more makkan days to elevate yourselves beyond the din and commonness of everyday life.
after that we leave for kuala lumpur, back to our ordinariness and oftentimes daily chores and rigours.

when we circumbulate the kaabah, our hearts and mind are focussing on the Owner of the kaabah, the 'ya fattah, ya razak, ya wahab, ya ghoniy ya mughni, ya khadeem, ya daim, ya ahad, ya wahid, ya samad, ya rahman, ya rahim , ya hayyu, ya qayyum, ya rabb, ya zaljala liwalikram'.....in all HIS indefinable majesty, splendour and power.

the trick really is to bring back some hidden secret of the 'baitullah' into one's mundane ordinary day to day life and work,
how can one do this, you may ask?

as papa have told you in our previous communication,umrah is a great open university of life.
it is back to zikrullah during your tawaf......bring it to your work place.

for shasha, do it at the operation table and your er.
yes! even when you are faced with death ond the dying throes of an eight year old down with haemorrhagic dengue.

for ru, do it while you are managing those American visitors in kuala lumpur  from remote year.
it seemed incongrous, since they are mainly 'godless and secular' to you.
but you can take it from papa that this is where 'ugama' is needed most.

for yazman, the national oil company and its strategic planning unit would benefit if you can bring back some semblance of ugama into klcc. you guys deal with billion rm projects. a wee bit of 'ugama' may help here.

and for joe, papa know on a scale of things at star cruise, you are still  'gurkha' doing the number crunching and prenegotiations for their tender committee. if you do move on later to managing the nation's ' durian and musang king' plantations, and i hope you will move on subsequently to things more 'halal', since you have the talent, don't ever leat the chinaman's disease of 'that 2.5 per cent' ever percolate into your life.

we already have too much of this lately in putrajaya.
ringgit malaysia has upped the ante and refined it to an art-form.

for you my dear nina, insyaalah, your exam next week will just be a breeze!
insyaallah.


with lots of love and fatherly tenderness,
papa

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56I7cSwg0ec

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MatM8gFMmKU

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

3. solatul tasbeeh

https://muslimvillage.com/2013/08/01/42243/an-exceptional-prayersalatut-tasbeeh/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yY6TR3XRMw

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 ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04qPe1YquE

5.sembahyang israk and dhuha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ2tQU_dWrI

6. zikr

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2014/12/a-long-prescription-for-friend.html

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?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOK4B6W67AY

papa.

...All Of Us Can Fly.......

friends, dato and tansri,

we are all fellow travelers on this planet earth.

this short sojourn in this duniya is just like a transient stop under a tree before our forward journey

our next stop is alam barzark.

a relatively very short stop compared to the next

it is just a 'small' station.

the final stop is beyond the atlantic, beyond the pacific.
it is back to our paradisal origin...the alam akhirat.

alam akhirah, just after the sirat, bifurcates into two....al jannah and al jaheem.
there is no return ticket
there is no side station

al jannah and al jaheem are for eternity.

[ oops! correction: there is a small sub station, on a plateau called al a'raf  where those with 'equal weightage on the 'al mizan' get assessed and reassessed for a couple of hundred thousand earth years , allahualam, before their on-toward final respective destination ]

here, we have a 'potpourri' of related lectures, old and current, by shaykh ninowy of duluth, usa, to invigorate us into the journey.

i count shaykh ninowy as one of my tok guru

we start in a rather inverted way, we start with the 'top end', three khutbah on the 'awliyas'.

their 'karamah etc and etc

then we go back to the nitty gritty of cleansing the 'heart', the tazkiah an naf tazkiah al qulub ,the real hard work......

shaykh abdal qadir isa, [ circa 1920-1991 ], a syrian mujaddid  and doyen of ilm tasawuf from aleppo, ,  in his magnum opus, ' haqa' iq an at-tashawwuf ', realities of sufism, opined , that the journey starts with taubatan nasuha as the first station.

the next station is muhasabah, or introspection.

the third and the fourth stations, khauf [ fear ] and raja' [ hope ], come together.

the  careful traveler goes through life till death with both fear and hope.

then the subsequent stations, shidiq, ikhlas, sabr, wara', zuhud, ridha, tawakal, and shukr..........

the fruit of all these is closeness to allah, mahabbatullah

in a tradition from umar al khatab known as hadith al jibril, ' worship allah as if you are seeing HIM and if you can't , be assured that HE is seeing you! '.

all of us want to be people of ihsan.
all of us can fly.
we just need to re-orientate our paradigm.
we  just have to re-calibrate our hearts and minds in congruence with the qur'an and sunnah

   awliya allah 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3wdh439zIA

    awliya allah 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hRMttYSEfM

    awliya allah 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEMT8V3X_iI

   on shukr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBKa9_tFQHA

   on piety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SEmGLqCEWU

    tazkiah , 4th nov.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPy8V07kPpo

    ibnu athaillah al iskandari's hikam, part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGPLC0MUNQw

[ starts after 26.05 ]

    ibnu athaillah al iskandari's hikam, part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIg7A0nxSl0

    on zikr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blJ8neV3wYU

  on detachment & attachment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK8UeZBU32s
[ a lot of us live in a spiritual winter ]

   on death, dying and the living dead...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-zCziLbbTE

   on haj

https://outlook.live.com/owa/?path=/mail/inbox

   from rituals to spiritual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOK4B6W67AY

.....and now, dato and tansri, are we ready to re-testify?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ewZ6uk_98

Two Different Worlds....'never shall they meet'

It all started when that self proclaimed secular humanist, Zukariapakahnamadiadah wrote a piece in the Malay Mail recently on the 'fatwa' of Dato' Mufti of Pahang, or was it something else, some thing on 'imam muda'....I have forgotten the actual article, but imam,ulama and muftis are Zukari's favourite punching bags, and for a 'cari makan' fellow, I must admit , he does write fairly well, His english at least, though I do not seem to have the time and patience for people like him. On matters touching on the ' Ugama ', he  writes rubbish  and without wisdom most time at least from my from my perspective.

This dato friend of mine sends an email to rub me in between the ribs......
and OOUCH !..my ribs are fairly sensitive and tender these last 10 days of the Ramadan.

..............................................................................

From: dhm@chrishichens.uk
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2016 1:51 PM
To: Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah
Subject: Sorry seems to be the hardest word — Azru

This article is NOT from your hated Zukari.   It is from another Malay Muslim journalist. The clarity and precision (and a sense of irony) of the prose reveals that he is reasonably well educated.

Would you "rubbish bin" him as well?

Selamat berpuasa.

https://shar.es/1l

..................................................................

On 27 Jun 2016 17:10, "Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah" <drnikisahak@hotmail.com> wrote:

this fasting month when we are hungry and thirsty, good breeding  ground for malay muslim apologists, i can see that......
i tend to spend better time with my qu'an and getting my friends understand the qur'an better dato.
have you read the qur'an lately dato or it is also below you?

....................................................................


 From: dhm@chrishichens.uk

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2016 10:39 PM
To: Nik Isahak Abdullah
Subject: Re: Sorry seems to be the hardest word — Azru

When one cannot answer the question, one changes the subject. Sigh. Would that be possible in Med school exams, Doc?

...............................................................

On 28 Jun 2016 08:23, "Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah" <drnikisahak@hotmail.com> wrote:

we are both beyond med  and business school exam dato
we are both in what the brits call, our 'last inning'

when do you last read the qur'an, if i may ask you?
when do you last pray earnestly?
where are you going after this ?
what are you here for?

FORGET about the likes of azru and zukari, they are young punks still wet in between the ears.
ahh! how wonderful! the arrogance and exuberance of youth.

where are you going after this dato? if i may ask again
you think you wil be fairly safe and comfortable in that 6' by 3' hole in the ground?

   or perhaps you think it is academic because you will just be dust and bones! 

...........................................................................

from dha@chrishichens.uk

You are right, doc. We are beyond university lectures, research, Term papers, tutorials, debates, exams and viva voce. We are now in real life, in the Age of Enlightenment. No longer in the Dark Ages.

We are persuaded to think on the basis of reason and evidence: To be good, kind, honest, charitable, and work in solidarity with our fellow human beings.

If God is Merciful and Compassionate, l have no fear of death. I do not, and cannot, live in terror of Hell. I have, l think, lived an honest and decent life. I fear no religious bureaucracy on earth. We all have eyes to read, an 'akal to think. 

Life should be lived to the full, in appreciation, in doing good, in reading, and educating others to think, to be curious, to do good in human solidarity.

I think life should be lived well,
In kindness, not in fear of Hell.
It would be sad and a great error,
To opt for management by Terror.

....................................................................................

On 28 Jun 2016 12:25, "Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah" <drnikisahak@hotmail.com> wrote:

dato,

omg! you sound like the late christopher hichens himself to me just now...

   the mantra of the secular humanist par excellence, who does things only and only for goodness sake; god is outside the equation; who does not believe in a tomorrow after today. 
pompous arrogance of the first kind! God, in one part of al baqarah calls you guys , 'deaf, dumb and blind '.

a pity we cannot visit and ask hichens how he personally 'is' doing now.

one sufi luminary, hasan al basri, long dead by then,however was asked, in a 'dream' by his equally illustrious sufi friend, and his answer echoed what al ghazali had said in 'real' time':

''my friend, in my position now, you can forget about the lenghty philosophical intellectual discourses and existential discussions we had had before. the levels and levels of worship.

    what seems to count is that lowly, lonely two or four or 6 rakaats that one does..in the wee hours of the morn! ''
       

but of course dato you are very much a worldly man who only 'sees the elephant  in the room' in front of you.

the 'unseen', is alas, not there.....

.........................................................................

29/ 6/ 2016 :

from today both the good dato and myself, we have reached a gentleman's aggreement:
i stop sending him 'naughty little bits about the qur'an', and he stop 'ribbing' me with articles about 'how bad we muslims are'.
a 'hudaibiyah treaty' of sort. 
the truce may last 3 days perhaps!

Levels and Levels......

Friends, Dato and Tansri,

One Abubakar al Khattani and Abu Hasan ar-Ramli asked a tok guru and Shaykh, Abu Said al-Kharraz:

"Please tell us the stations in our journey to Allah? ".

al-Kharraz answered, " It has to start with repentance, repentance and repentance.....", and he went on,

" after this station, one moves on to khauf [ fear ]. From the station of khauf one move on to raja' [ hope ].

From the station of raja' , one move on to be a 'solihin' and 'solihah'.
Then, one gets elevated to being a mureed.

From being a mureed , one moves on to the next station, a state of  
ta'at, [ in complete obeyance ].

From complete obeyance one moves on to the station of mahabbah [ a state of unqualified love ]. 

From this station the next station is rindu [ 'lovesick' ].

The penultimate station on schedule is a steep hill to climb, leading to walliallah [ allah's friend ]

The last and final stop for the mere mortals is the station of the 
al-muqarrabin [ the one near to HIM ]

[ excerpt from haqq' iq at-tashawwuf, shaykh abdal qadir isa, [ circa 1920 - 1991 ]

Another sufi shaykh, al-Junaid al Bagdhdi, sultan al awliya of all shaykhs of his time, ten centuries earlier,  was asked a more direct and personal question by his fans:
" Shaykh, how do you achieve your current stature and state? "

" By staying under that staircase for over thirty years!..." , alluding to 'istiqamah ' and 'sabr' in doing the necessary 'legwork' a traveler had to undergo before they reach their status of a sufi saint. The 'legwork' is zikrullah, zikrullah and zikrullah and zikrullah, and good behaviour manners and adab...years and years of remembrance, total dedication  to the hala and the haram,and 'hablu minal llah' and 'hablu minan nas'.

At my personal level, being without a tok guru for decades, I have been oscillating, back and forth, back and forth, like a yo-yo, between the 3rd station, khauf, and the 4th station, raja' .

I get my occasionally 'endorhin high'  when on the rare occasion, when allowed to leapfrog to  a state of mahabbah, not stopping at the station of mureed and ta'at! 
This transient abberation in the order of things and adab is not long though. 
As fast as I get to that stage, I percolate down back to the station of  khauf [ fear ] and raja' [ hope ].


When you have been in this 'business' for some years now like i do,  the spirit is ever willing, but the flesh occasionally rebel! Waking up at 4 am in the wee hours of the morning  can be done for a period of two weeks, at the most three, but is a difficult proposition if it is to be done daily , seven days a week, 54 weeks in a year, come vacation  or working. 
This is in the realm of 'hubluminallah'. Beyond this come 'RINDU'. 
One cannot fake it.
Mere mortals like you and me, we fall back to where we are.

At my age now, I wish I can turn back the clock by 20 years. Then a decent Tok Guru would have entertained me and lead me by the hand over those slippery 'slope'.

Now, at 64, I am already afflicted by phd  [ 'permanent head damage' ], and no tok guru or shaykh, in their right mind, would want to waste his precious time and emotion  to 'teach an old monkey like me  new tricks'. So here I am permanently bivouked at station, hope.

...and to make things straight for the record, it is not just the lack of a 'mursyid tok guru'.
the potential student is also mainly at fault, not wanting to remove his cloth of egoism!
it is much a problematic student than the lack of tok guru.
i am to be blamed!

I guess there are many many millions like me.

In our thirties we have more than a passing interest in things 'tassawuf' but over the years we are too choosy about which  tok guru we go to. 

Central , from our perspective, rightly or wrongly, I think is , our reluctance to 'lose' our personal 'soveriengty'' to just any charlatan tok guru.

And currently there are just quite a number in the 'business'.
Bad and wrong 'tok gurus' can oftentimes be worse than no 'tok gurus' at all!
At the end, while waiting for the 'murshid' tok guru, we 'missed' the boat........
A problem of being too careful.

But insyaallah , even the station of hope is good enough.

Allah hummakh tim lana bi husnil khatimah , wa la takh tim alaina bi suul khatimah!
[ oh allah, grant a good ending to our lives and don't let end our lives with bad ending....]

Dr Nik

A similar article in the blog :

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2015/11/three-stations.html