Friends ,
Take Bandar Permaisuri ,an example of typical brand new suburb ,one of the many ,dottering the Federal Capital .On one side of the a long street you have big bungalows and huge semi dees on top of a hill within a gated community ,all at least one million RM and above ,almost without doubt 100 % Chinese .Just across the street lines and lines of low rise and high rise apartment blocks ,low cost and at best medium cost ,at night saddled with Mat Rempits reeving and racing their bikes .90 % Malays with a sprinkling of Chinese and some Indians , the apartment owners I mean .As for the Mat Rempits ,they are 100 % Malays .Let us not talk about dadah ,less we get more depressive .
That is the economy my friends .Let us move on to something more cheerful .Politics for instance !
In one corner we have Madam Shahrizad mounting the final attack on the presidency for the UMNO Women's wing .Some people in the know alleged that her recently retired husband got lucky and landed himself a 'soft soft' free of interest government loan of 200 millions RM to dabble in 'lembu' .I am not sure how far this is true ,just informed rumour from informed sources .Though I definitely know for sure as previous CEO of Technology Park in KL , 'lembu' is not his cattle of fish .
In the other corner we have Madam Rafidah .All of us know her from the AP King scandal ,which to date had not had a proper ,satisfactory and profound rebuttal as yet from the both the government of the day and she herself .That is the state of our politics at present.Everthing best swept under the carpet .Public memory is necessarily short and we are a very gentle and accepting type of people .
Go one scale down we have a young still wet in between the ears punk ,Oxbridge basic degree holder no doubt . Make one wonder in 2008 how many of them actually still walking down the street of KL ,still jobless ,among the thousands of jobless graduates ,local and overseas ?But this one is extra special .His father in law is the present PM ,therefore he is extra bright .Head a small group of similarly wet in between the ears bright yuppies like him advising the PM to his present downfall !
On the other side we have KT who make even that Mentri Besar ,who was caught with so many millions in his briefcase but does not know a word of English , look like a saint .Along with Mr M whose father redefine our Malaysian understanding of the word nepotism .Nepotism by Mr M Senior's standard is 'when it is practised by your predecessor ,but if it happened during your own time ,it is necessary wisdom !'.
On the other side of the world we have Anwar .People like me oftentimes wonder whether Anwar has a soul .He is the new kid on the block and our big hope for an that 'alternative ' government that can replace the present one that people ,rightly or wrongly perceive as being rotten to the 'core' and beyond any form of change or redemption .The billion ringgit question in most Malays like me is whether Anwar will also sell our souls in his haste to Sri Perdana in Putrajaya .
.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Of Musang King ,Yoga and that clown called Sami Vellooo
Friends ,
Admittedly the best tasting durian now is no longer the D24 variety .If you have not yet heard of Musang King then you are not in the durian scene .Previously known as Durian Kunyit amongst the Malays,was priced lower than D24 .Then the Chinese discovered it !Then the Singaporean Chinese tasted it .Rebranded as Musang King !No longer available for lowly Malays like me since the rebranded durian kunyit is only for Singaporeans at 20 RM per kilo .Leave this 'rebranding exercise' to the Chinese ,they can even sell old teh tarik at 10 RM per cup or if they stretch their imagination harder , even their 'recycled mother in laws' as fresh virgins !
What is Musang King to us ,or for that matter any durian ,minus the smell ?Pretty worthless .Probably worse than the cheap Thai durians they sell at Giants [ mind you Giants are now Hongkies ,no longer Malaysians ,so next time your wives go 'bingeing' advice them to think also of poor Mydin !I could still remember young Mydin sitting in front of his father's sundry shop near the world famous Zain Building ,near that equally world famous Bata Shop ,in Kota Bharu way back in the early 60's ]
That bring us to the current issue of Yoga .The fatwa is long time coming actually .What is Yoga without the spiritual aspect of it .It is no longer Yoga but a series of movements .But Yoga is Yoga and if you happened to be the unlucky blokes who sit in the National Fatwa Committee ,how are you going to judge Yoga ?
If one takes the Federal Highway and drive westward ,at the middle of your journey you get to Shah Alam ,carry on further the end of the road is Port Klang .In Yoga ,even if you feigned complete ignorance , the beginning are pure physical movement ,but the spirit of Yoga ,Dr Zuraidah Atan et al my dear ,is idol worship .There is no two way about it .Mind you ,Yang Berbahagia Dr Abdul Shukor and the learned Council of Ulama' he chairs , are going to carry the collective 'sins' of millions if they decide wrongly .Let us all not follow Sisters out of Islam in yet again re-starting this sickly new hobby of Ulama' bashing by putting Islamic religious issues on the mainly secular , ignorant , so called National Press !The Sun for example is fanning the issue as far as I can see .Islam and the Quran is not yet for sale.If we Muslims do not respect our ulama' do not expect Karpal Singh or Govind Deo to do that .
Even years back I have no qualms about it being Fatwa-ed as haram knowing the background , and being honest if you guys wake me up from my dreams at 3 am and ask me whether Yoga is halal or haram for us Muslims ,I say it is haram without even needing to think .It is lawful no doubt but who is speaking about the law ?
That does not mean Dr Ramli the dancer or Dr Zuraidah Atan the new champion of Yoga or that lady who just put in her 3 million RM investment in a Yoga centre cannot go on practising Yoga if they insist on doing so .Carry on , but the rest of us Malaysian Muslims ,the great silent majority , would like to thank Dr Abdul Shukor and his group of Ulama' for their due delibration on this long expected fatwa advisory .
Why are clowns like Sami Vellooo and chairman of Malaysian Tamil Sangam Society feeling bad about the fatwa .You guys go and fly kites ,this is not your affair !Since when do we have to consult these clowns to come up with a fatwa advisory .A fatwa advisory is a fatwa advisory and it is up to the States to pick up from there .We all accept that a National Fatwa Council is a necessary evil ,that is beyond doubt ,otherwise we can get a discordant fatwa in Kelantan and another in Johore .Just need to get the right 'brains' in the council ,from religious viewpoint ,sciences etc etc .I am sure it is not a pleasure to deliberate on a fatwa .
If a Sultan or two feel slighted about the fatwa advisory ,they are doing it at their very own perils .Yes you may take your time to sit on this ,that is your right but you guys should thank the National Fatwa Committee for coming up with this very high time fatwa advisory .Mind you it is just advisory but at the end of the day please deliberate and tell us whether you guys are willing to take on the 'collective sins ' of the millions ,if the Fatwa is correct .
This is Pak Lah's Malaysia .Clowns like Sami Vellooo et al no longer know when to speak and when it is proper to keep quiet !
Dr Nik Howk
PS :If people like Dr Zuraidah Atan want to bring down their high blood pressure and stress level down via alternative holistic mode they can do more effectively by prayers ,zikir etc etc ,need not be yoga .But if they still insist on Yoga ,go ahead .This is a free country .You are free to choose your stand if you still must insist on wallowing in your ignorance !
To quote the late Prof HAMKA :"....dan satu di antara berbagai kesulitan kearah universal acceptance of Islam itself adalah umat nya sendiri yang telah di tentukan oleh sejarah bernama umat 'Islam ' ,tetapi belum mencapai 'hakikat Islam '.
Allahualam !
Admittedly the best tasting durian now is no longer the D24 variety .If you have not yet heard of Musang King then you are not in the durian scene .Previously known as Durian Kunyit amongst the Malays,was priced lower than D24 .Then the Chinese discovered it !Then the Singaporean Chinese tasted it .Rebranded as Musang King !No longer available for lowly Malays like me since the rebranded durian kunyit is only for Singaporeans at 20 RM per kilo .Leave this 'rebranding exercise' to the Chinese ,they can even sell old teh tarik at 10 RM per cup or if they stretch their imagination harder , even their 'recycled mother in laws' as fresh virgins !
What is Musang King to us ,or for that matter any durian ,minus the smell ?Pretty worthless .Probably worse than the cheap Thai durians they sell at Giants [ mind you Giants are now Hongkies ,no longer Malaysians ,so next time your wives go 'bingeing' advice them to think also of poor Mydin !I could still remember young Mydin sitting in front of his father's sundry shop near the world famous Zain Building ,near that equally world famous Bata Shop ,in Kota Bharu way back in the early 60's ]
That bring us to the current issue of Yoga .The fatwa is long time coming actually .What is Yoga without the spiritual aspect of it .It is no longer Yoga but a series of movements .But Yoga is Yoga and if you happened to be the unlucky blokes who sit in the National Fatwa Committee ,how are you going to judge Yoga ?
If one takes the Federal Highway and drive westward ,at the middle of your journey you get to Shah Alam ,carry on further the end of the road is Port Klang .In Yoga ,even if you feigned complete ignorance , the beginning are pure physical movement ,but the spirit of Yoga ,Dr Zuraidah Atan et al my dear ,is idol worship .There is no two way about it .Mind you ,Yang Berbahagia Dr Abdul Shukor and the learned Council of Ulama' he chairs , are going to carry the collective 'sins' of millions if they decide wrongly .Let us all not follow Sisters out of Islam in yet again re-starting this sickly new hobby of Ulama' bashing by putting Islamic religious issues on the mainly secular , ignorant , so called National Press !The Sun for example is fanning the issue as far as I can see .Islam and the Quran is not yet for sale.If we Muslims do not respect our ulama' do not expect Karpal Singh or Govind Deo to do that .
Even years back I have no qualms about it being Fatwa-ed as haram knowing the background , and being honest if you guys wake me up from my dreams at 3 am and ask me whether Yoga is halal or haram for us Muslims ,I say it is haram without even needing to think .It is lawful no doubt but who is speaking about the law ?
That does not mean Dr Ramli the dancer or Dr Zuraidah Atan the new champion of Yoga or that lady who just put in her 3 million RM investment in a Yoga centre cannot go on practising Yoga if they insist on doing so .Carry on , but the rest of us Malaysian Muslims ,the great silent majority , would like to thank Dr Abdul Shukor and his group of Ulama' for their due delibration on this long expected fatwa advisory .
Why are clowns like Sami Vellooo and chairman of Malaysian Tamil Sangam Society feeling bad about the fatwa .You guys go and fly kites ,this is not your affair !Since when do we have to consult these clowns to come up with a fatwa advisory .A fatwa advisory is a fatwa advisory and it is up to the States to pick up from there .We all accept that a National Fatwa Council is a necessary evil ,that is beyond doubt ,otherwise we can get a discordant fatwa in Kelantan and another in Johore .Just need to get the right 'brains' in the council ,from religious viewpoint ,sciences etc etc .I am sure it is not a pleasure to deliberate on a fatwa .
If a Sultan or two feel slighted about the fatwa advisory ,they are doing it at their very own perils .Yes you may take your time to sit on this ,that is your right but you guys should thank the National Fatwa Committee for coming up with this very high time fatwa advisory .Mind you it is just advisory but at the end of the day please deliberate and tell us whether you guys are willing to take on the 'collective sins ' of the millions ,if the Fatwa is correct .
This is Pak Lah's Malaysia .Clowns like Sami Vellooo et al no longer know when to speak and when it is proper to keep quiet !
Dr Nik Howk
PS :If people like Dr Zuraidah Atan want to bring down their high blood pressure and stress level down via alternative holistic mode they can do more effectively by prayers ,zikir etc etc ,need not be yoga .But if they still insist on Yoga ,go ahead .This is a free country .You are free to choose your stand if you still must insist on wallowing in your ignorance !
To quote the late Prof HAMKA :"....dan satu di antara berbagai kesulitan kearah universal acceptance of Islam itself adalah umat nya sendiri yang telah di tentukan oleh sejarah bernama umat 'Islam ' ,tetapi belum mencapai 'hakikat Islam '.
Allahualam !
Monday, November 24, 2008
Death & Eternal Life After Death
Friends ,
Even hardcore chap like me in a 'hardcore speciality' like cardiology ,supposedly immuned to death ,do sometime feel down ,weighted down by the sense of frailty in man when we have to face death .Too many issues surrounding death this week .
Firstly that young Indian chap who died under my care last week .Just 32 with a young Indonesian wife and 2 year old kid in tow .Her halting sob ,half Indian half Indonesian ,over the cold lifeless body of her young husband ,haunts me .
My mother in law ,her lungs and heart already riddled with cancer cells ,hanging on to dear life ,on expensive state of the art oral medication ,tarceva ,that is supposed to 'buy' time ,for a couple more months before the cancer cells get the better of it ,and invade further .
She is quite oblivious of her fate .Ignorance is bliss .We doctors oftentimes have to 'play god' a lot more than we want to in this part of the world .Asians do not generally want to know the whole bad news !Telling too much can be wrong ,too little ,you will get 'lawyer's' letter on your desk, when the 'undiscussable' do take place 'prematurely' .
In her case I can expect a couple more months of honeymoon and 'personal 'reprieve' then the progressive deterioration in breathing ,loss of cognitive functions and a generally slow slide to unconciousness ,my little 'empire' will be in turmoil.I think I have a heart of stone ,by way of upbringing [ orphaned at age 9 ! ] and training ,but to see loved ones suffer from the impending loss of their loved one ,would be difficult even for Mr Stone .
Then there is this case of a dear colleague of mine this week whom I ,inadvertently found and diagnosed to have advance cancer ,just on a routine annual check up .
If you find my conversation with him macabre or callous ,do not judge so ,because we fellow physicians do not need 'veils' .
"So my friend ,since there are already 4 focus in the lung which look like metastatic cancer ,what are you going to do ,knowing that this sort of cancer is resistant to all kind of therapy ? ".....a rather superficial stupid question on my part ,but actually not very stupid as it seem ,as I was assessing his philosophical leaning .
"There is nothing much for me to do except to accept this ,riddha ,and live my life from day to day "...was the brave and stoic reply .I know the man well .With Riddha [ for want of better word ,Acceptance of your fate ] ,half the battle is won .Won not against the Big C , but against the internal demons of fear and oftentimes kufr .Many a time we practitioners observe a deep initial sense of denial in our patients which later change to anger .Oftentimes anger towards their care givers ,and frequently towards God .The "why me ,why me" syndrome sets in which result in kufr !
In moment like this we should thank our lucky star that we are Muslim : We have Riddha to soften the blow .We have kaffarah [ see Kaffarah ,Saturday ,July 5th blog ] .We have taubat and atonement [ see Some random Thots on Death ,Thursday May 22nd blog ] .We have prayers and we have zikrullah .
As supreme optimist ,and that is what we Muslim should be ,death is not the end . Optimist not in the secular way that come what may we are going to delay that moment of death by mega vitamin doses ,old Inca medicine ,yoga ,best treatment that money can buy etc etc etc or some obscure Chinese or Mexican hospital somewhere.
No ! No ! NO ! , none of these claims and 'super' claims, but by the realization that with the inevitability of forthcoming death we are moving on to the next phase of life , a better one by any scale of measure ,if we have prepared for it .It is not even the beginning .It is the end before the new beginning :The eternal journey .
'Duniya' in arabic is not just 'world' in English as we know it as an exact transliteration of the word .'Duniya' connotes a lower form of existence ,while 'akhirat' means a higher form .We are thus moving from a lower animal like existence with all the incosistencies and inadequacies of the lower 'nafs' to a higher more ephemeral existence of the higher spirit :The eternal journey .
"My friend ,I cannot offer you anything ,but actually when I come to think about it ,you are in a better position than 'numb skulls' like me and million others who today go through life heedlessly ,never giving a serious thought about Him and our Eternal Journey ,thinking we have 20 ,25 more years and one fine day suddenly get caught with our pants down tomorrow or day after ,just like that young Indian patient of mine .In your case you know you have 6 months plus minus 6 ,and work hard at it ,while in our case we tend to forget about Allah because we think we can live forever "
As I walked away from his room ,I felt very relieved that my dear friend has 'accepted' his 'Qadar' [ see Qadar ,Qadr and Lailatulqadr in November blog ] very well with 'riddha' .Insyaallah he will be in good Hand .I cannot but remember the profound thought of that young jihadist who famously said :"To me It is like walking away from a hot furnace ,opening the door ,and walking through into an air conditioned room ".
Let us all work earnestly hard towards that kind of conviction .Death is after all the beginning of Eternal Life .
"Yes ,at the end of our time we should not fear .If we are well prepared ,It should be like walking from a hot furnace into an air conditioned room "!
That young jihadist had understood the full meaning of existence in this 'duniya' with all its shortcomings and inadequacies and look forward to a higher existence in the 'akhirat' .May their souls be placed amongst the blessed .
Dr Nik Howk
Even hardcore chap like me in a 'hardcore speciality' like cardiology ,supposedly immuned to death ,do sometime feel down ,weighted down by the sense of frailty in man when we have to face death .Too many issues surrounding death this week .
Firstly that young Indian chap who died under my care last week .Just 32 with a young Indonesian wife and 2 year old kid in tow .Her halting sob ,half Indian half Indonesian ,over the cold lifeless body of her young husband ,haunts me .
My mother in law ,her lungs and heart already riddled with cancer cells ,hanging on to dear life ,on expensive state of the art oral medication ,tarceva ,that is supposed to 'buy' time ,for a couple more months before the cancer cells get the better of it ,and invade further .
She is quite oblivious of her fate .Ignorance is bliss .We doctors oftentimes have to 'play god' a lot more than we want to in this part of the world .Asians do not generally want to know the whole bad news !Telling too much can be wrong ,too little ,you will get 'lawyer's' letter on your desk, when the 'undiscussable' do take place 'prematurely' .
In her case I can expect a couple more months of honeymoon and 'personal 'reprieve' then the progressive deterioration in breathing ,loss of cognitive functions and a generally slow slide to unconciousness ,my little 'empire' will be in turmoil.I think I have a heart of stone ,by way of upbringing [ orphaned at age 9 ! ] and training ,but to see loved ones suffer from the impending loss of their loved one ,would be difficult even for Mr Stone .
Then there is this case of a dear colleague of mine this week whom I ,inadvertently found and diagnosed to have advance cancer ,just on a routine annual check up .
If you find my conversation with him macabre or callous ,do not judge so ,because we fellow physicians do not need 'veils' .
"So my friend ,since there are already 4 focus in the lung which look like metastatic cancer ,what are you going to do ,knowing that this sort of cancer is resistant to all kind of therapy ? ".....a rather superficial stupid question on my part ,but actually not very stupid as it seem ,as I was assessing his philosophical leaning .
"There is nothing much for me to do except to accept this ,riddha ,and live my life from day to day "...was the brave and stoic reply .I know the man well .With Riddha [ for want of better word ,Acceptance of your fate ] ,half the battle is won .Won not against the Big C , but against the internal demons of fear and oftentimes kufr .Many a time we practitioners observe a deep initial sense of denial in our patients which later change to anger .Oftentimes anger towards their care givers ,and frequently towards God .The "why me ,why me" syndrome sets in which result in kufr !
In moment like this we should thank our lucky star that we are Muslim : We have Riddha to soften the blow .We have kaffarah [ see Kaffarah ,Saturday ,July 5th blog ] .We have taubat and atonement [ see Some random Thots on Death ,Thursday May 22nd blog ] .We have prayers and we have zikrullah .
As supreme optimist ,and that is what we Muslim should be ,death is not the end . Optimist not in the secular way that come what may we are going to delay that moment of death by mega vitamin doses ,old Inca medicine ,yoga ,best treatment that money can buy etc etc etc or some obscure Chinese or Mexican hospital somewhere.
No ! No ! NO ! , none of these claims and 'super' claims, but by the realization that with the inevitability of forthcoming death we are moving on to the next phase of life , a better one by any scale of measure ,if we have prepared for it .It is not even the beginning .It is the end before the new beginning :The eternal journey .
'Duniya' in arabic is not just 'world' in English as we know it as an exact transliteration of the word .'Duniya' connotes a lower form of existence ,while 'akhirat' means a higher form .We are thus moving from a lower animal like existence with all the incosistencies and inadequacies of the lower 'nafs' to a higher more ephemeral existence of the higher spirit :The eternal journey .
"My friend ,I cannot offer you anything ,but actually when I come to think about it ,you are in a better position than 'numb skulls' like me and million others who today go through life heedlessly ,never giving a serious thought about Him and our Eternal Journey ,thinking we have 20 ,25 more years and one fine day suddenly get caught with our pants down tomorrow or day after ,just like that young Indian patient of mine .In your case you know you have 6 months plus minus 6 ,and work hard at it ,while in our case we tend to forget about Allah because we think we can live forever "
As I walked away from his room ,I felt very relieved that my dear friend has 'accepted' his 'Qadar' [ see Qadar ,Qadr and Lailatulqadr in November blog ] very well with 'riddha' .Insyaallah he will be in good Hand .I cannot but remember the profound thought of that young jihadist who famously said :"To me It is like walking away from a hot furnace ,opening the door ,and walking through into an air conditioned room ".
Let us all work earnestly hard towards that kind of conviction .Death is after all the beginning of Eternal Life .
"Yes ,at the end of our time we should not fear .If we are well prepared ,It should be like walking from a hot furnace into an air conditioned room "!
That young jihadist had understood the full meaning of existence in this 'duniya' with all its shortcomings and inadequacies and look forward to a higher existence in the 'akhirat' .May their souls be placed amongst the blessed .
Dr Nik Howk
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Malaysia WEC : Some Personal Thoughts.
Maria Mercedes Alverez Ponton and puny looking arab gelding ,Nobby : Individual Gold ,World Endurance Championship ,2008 ,Lembah Bidong ,Terengganu ,Malaysia .18.2 kph average over 160 kilometres under extreme heat and humidity ,a myth blowing feat .Team UAE ,Bahrain and Qatar :Team Gold ,Silver and Bronze .Relegating the Europeans ,Australians and Americans to the 'dustbins' of endurance history .That was Malaysia WEC that was !
I am still in a state of shock .I never perceive one could go beyond 16 kph in our conditions ,especially our high humidity .We have difficulty even breaching 12 kph .When ESPN's Lisa Wong asked me ,looking at our tired Ms Laily on Jesse James walking past the finishing line at the end of phase 5 when Maria had long gone home to her hotel room to sleep , what ails the Malaysians ?: I could only offer the best classical excuse .We Malaysians are still at the wrong end of a 'steep learning curve' .
Yes ,the 100 million ringgit [ I assume the WEC cost us that much but given our penchant for the 'plus plus and more plus ,it could well be much more ! ]lesson is that we really was on the wrong side of a steep learning curve .
Could still recall one and a half year ago as I sit for a dinner pow wow with Mr Bond from the Al Raudhah fraternity[ I am sure he would just wish to be known here as Mr Bond only ] ,to discuss plan how to achieve a team of 12 with the limited resources we have .Money is there .Abundant .The Minister of Sport then was just a phone call away .Our horses could so far not breach even 12 kph average .The solution :Go Down Under and South America get good horses on the cheap ,allocate to 16 or 20 named riders ,have local 160's 2 monthly and choose the best 12 .We have then 1 1/2 years to do it .Fullstop .
Then came Equine Influenza Down Under .Followed by nonsensical FEI 'playing to the gallery 'double CoC requirement .Mr Bond's plan went haywire .Some bright spark suggest Europe ,South America to buy horses and bring back and compete .Some much more brighter blokes suggest obtaining CoC overseas .Local rides may be too tough , may not make it in time .They forget that Endurance is all about toughness .They forgot that horse traders are horse traders .In retrospect , TMKN Stable prequalified four of their horses without going anywhere ,DIET ,2 or was it 3 . [But what the heck ,MONEY was there , spend it !Was the credo of the day ]
Money was there .Then the ' National Erection' .Money still not there .Sports Minister too busy .Won 'tanpa bertanding . Still more delay .Money already there but..... but money not yet there .Rumours abound .6 to 8 months gone .No substantive local competition ,no oversea buying forays .Typically Malaysians .
By the time things got moving WEC was already only 7 to 8 months away .Double CoC in 8 months!.Frantic oversea rides on 3rd rate 'buffalos' at 1st rate price .Typically Malaysians .Local rides was worse . Only started 6 months away from WEC !We spent 9 months laying on our back from inactivity and then all the frenzy of double CoC in the next 6 months .
By the time of WEC yesterday we are either riding 'tired' local horses or 3rd rate oversea 'buffaloes' just flown in at the last minutes at 1st rate cut throat prices .Desperate people with desperate poor forward planning get to pay at desperate price
That is the story about horses .The human factor is another story .
The Americans and French ,for any important event such as WEC appoints their CDQ 2 years ahead in advance .The CDQ usually is a person who is an all rounder in endurance ,preferably has indepth knowledge of competition at the highest level .Would be great if at the same time he or she is also an efficient 'water carrier' for the team but this is not the most important of his pre-qualications .
CDQ of any respectable team call the shots in term of team selection ,strategy and discipline ,so by this alone he cannot be a 'water carrier ' .Usually fears no one .Usually the 'cerebral man' of the team .Becky Hart of America ,for example inspires confidence , even though unfortunately America did not do well this time and for many years now .The late Pierre Cazes of France was the best example and I think France Endurance missed him very much .
Malaysia change our CDQ for whatever reasons just weeks before WEC .I am still curious .Perhaps in future if Dato Awang decides to stop competing he could well be our next CDQ ?How about it Dato ?
Exclusivity Vs Inclusivity :
For sometime now I have sadly watched that Malaysian Endurance has moved towards exclusivity :certain individuals with certain State and personal affiliation got 'invited' to oversea rides time and again at the exclusion of more experienced and able riders .This trend really started way before this WEC ,even before the ill fated Asian Games .In a system where point accumulation was important this practice put most very experienced people 'excluded' out of the ball game and edged out into the wilderness .And this was done with public funding ,not private .
Ours is a very small fraternity ,inclusivity is better than exclusivity if we are still interested in the 'quantum' leapt .
From our standard 12 kph to Maria Mercedes 's 18 ,indeed we need a quantum leapt .We need to believe in ourselves .We need to prepare our own horses and not depend on people in far away lands .We need to get 1st rate horses if we pay at 1sr rate prices .We need to have 'ilm' ilm and ilm.They is no short cut .We need people with Ilm to plan and take charge .We need plain honest people with passion .We need change .
If you ask Maria as to how she prepare Nobby : It is sheer hard work and there is only one word repeated thrice in her vocabulary : conditioning ,conditioning and conditioning .No ISN or government handouts there .
As I look into the dark moonless night towards the swells in the South China Sea on this desolate beach somewhere in Batu Burok and reminiese back to 2002 , I felt like it was only like yesterday that I had that fateful conversation or rather advice [ a very bad habit of dr nik ,always .Does not know his place this insolent chap ,always planting 'ideas' ] the then younger Sultan Mizan riding with an elderly looking chap [ Dato Jaafar ]hacking on the beach while waiting for the 'buka puasa' azan .I was on my way to Kota Bharu and stopped at Primula for 'buka puasa'.
"Tuanku ,if Tuanku really want to open Tuanku and Malaysia to the world ,Tuanku should stop just hacking around and be in Endurance .The best teacher is Dato Awang of Kiara .He is our SEA Games champion ".
Malaysia WEC .We have indeed come a long way .But we have to be honest with ourselves .We need to change our ways .Otherwise 'pi mai pi mai dok tang tu jugak ': We are champion at forms rather than substance !
I am still in a state of shock .I never perceive one could go beyond 16 kph in our conditions ,especially our high humidity .We have difficulty even breaching 12 kph .When ESPN's Lisa Wong asked me ,looking at our tired Ms Laily on Jesse James walking past the finishing line at the end of phase 5 when Maria had long gone home to her hotel room to sleep , what ails the Malaysians ?: I could only offer the best classical excuse .We Malaysians are still at the wrong end of a 'steep learning curve' .
Yes ,the 100 million ringgit [ I assume the WEC cost us that much but given our penchant for the 'plus plus and more plus ,it could well be much more ! ]lesson is that we really was on the wrong side of a steep learning curve .
Could still recall one and a half year ago as I sit for a dinner pow wow with Mr Bond from the Al Raudhah fraternity[ I am sure he would just wish to be known here as Mr Bond only ] ,to discuss plan how to achieve a team of 12 with the limited resources we have .Money is there .Abundant .The Minister of Sport then was just a phone call away .Our horses could so far not breach even 12 kph average .The solution :Go Down Under and South America get good horses on the cheap ,allocate to 16 or 20 named riders ,have local 160's 2 monthly and choose the best 12 .We have then 1 1/2 years to do it .Fullstop .
Then came Equine Influenza Down Under .Followed by nonsensical FEI 'playing to the gallery 'double CoC requirement .Mr Bond's plan went haywire .Some bright spark suggest Europe ,South America to buy horses and bring back and compete .Some much more brighter blokes suggest obtaining CoC overseas .Local rides may be too tough , may not make it in time .They forget that Endurance is all about toughness .They forgot that horse traders are horse traders .In retrospect , TMKN Stable prequalified four of their horses without going anywhere ,DIET ,2 or was it 3 . [But what the heck ,MONEY was there , spend it !Was the credo of the day ]
Money was there .Then the ' National Erection' .Money still not there .Sports Minister too busy .Won 'tanpa bertanding . Still more delay .Money already there but..... but money not yet there .Rumours abound .6 to 8 months gone .No substantive local competition ,no oversea buying forays .Typically Malaysians .
By the time things got moving WEC was already only 7 to 8 months away .Double CoC in 8 months!.Frantic oversea rides on 3rd rate 'buffalos' at 1st rate price .Typically Malaysians .Local rides was worse . Only started 6 months away from WEC !We spent 9 months laying on our back from inactivity and then all the frenzy of double CoC in the next 6 months .
By the time of WEC yesterday we are either riding 'tired' local horses or 3rd rate oversea 'buffaloes' just flown in at the last minutes at 1st rate cut throat prices .Desperate people with desperate poor forward planning get to pay at desperate price
That is the story about horses .The human factor is another story .
The Americans and French ,for any important event such as WEC appoints their CDQ 2 years ahead in advance .The CDQ usually is a person who is an all rounder in endurance ,preferably has indepth knowledge of competition at the highest level .Would be great if at the same time he or she is also an efficient 'water carrier' for the team but this is not the most important of his pre-qualications .
CDQ of any respectable team call the shots in term of team selection ,strategy and discipline ,so by this alone he cannot be a 'water carrier ' .Usually fears no one .Usually the 'cerebral man' of the team .Becky Hart of America ,for example inspires confidence , even though unfortunately America did not do well this time and for many years now .The late Pierre Cazes of France was the best example and I think France Endurance missed him very much .
Malaysia change our CDQ for whatever reasons just weeks before WEC .I am still curious .Perhaps in future if Dato Awang decides to stop competing he could well be our next CDQ ?How about it Dato ?
Exclusivity Vs Inclusivity :
For sometime now I have sadly watched that Malaysian Endurance has moved towards exclusivity :certain individuals with certain State and personal affiliation got 'invited' to oversea rides time and again at the exclusion of more experienced and able riders .This trend really started way before this WEC ,even before the ill fated Asian Games .In a system where point accumulation was important this practice put most very experienced people 'excluded' out of the ball game and edged out into the wilderness .And this was done with public funding ,not private .
Ours is a very small fraternity ,inclusivity is better than exclusivity if we are still interested in the 'quantum' leapt .
From our standard 12 kph to Maria Mercedes 's 18 ,indeed we need a quantum leapt .We need to believe in ourselves .We need to prepare our own horses and not depend on people in far away lands .We need to get 1st rate horses if we pay at 1sr rate prices .We need to have 'ilm' ilm and ilm.They is no short cut .We need people with Ilm to plan and take charge .We need plain honest people with passion .We need change .
If you ask Maria as to how she prepare Nobby : It is sheer hard work and there is only one word repeated thrice in her vocabulary : conditioning ,conditioning and conditioning .No ISN or government handouts there .
As I look into the dark moonless night towards the swells in the South China Sea on this desolate beach somewhere in Batu Burok and reminiese back to 2002 , I felt like it was only like yesterday that I had that fateful conversation or rather advice [ a very bad habit of dr nik ,always .Does not know his place this insolent chap ,always planting 'ideas' ] the then younger Sultan Mizan riding with an elderly looking chap [ Dato Jaafar ]hacking on the beach while waiting for the 'buka puasa' azan .I was on my way to Kota Bharu and stopped at Primula for 'buka puasa'.
"Tuanku ,if Tuanku really want to open Tuanku and Malaysia to the world ,Tuanku should stop just hacking around and be in Endurance .The best teacher is Dato Awang of Kiara .He is our SEA Games champion ".
Malaysia WEC .We have indeed come a long way .But we have to be honest with ourselves .We need to change our ways .Otherwise 'pi mai pi mai dok tang tu jugak ': We are champion at forms rather than substance !
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Not So Pearl & Gem : The Altantuya / Mr Razak Paradox
Friends ,
So Mr Baginda has been acquitted .Alhamdullillah .Good for him and his family .As a simple minded fellow trying to understand the mechanics and dynamics of law in this country I am still baffled beyond comprehension .
Well I am just a simple doctor with simple mind .If a patient landed up dead at my doorstep ,1st thing I would do is confirmed that he is actually dead ,beyond any form of salvageable effort that could pull him back to this side of the domain .Then the whys and how .The circumstances contributing to the death etc etc.
In the Altantaya / Mr Razak's case ,no one ,from persecution ,defense ,and not even the trial judge ,seem to be interested in the whys and how , the motives stupid ,the motives ! .There seem to be a 'devil's pact' between persecution and defense to just play balls only in a specific kind of way .Devoid of embarassing clumsy arkward kind of cross examinations .To the point we raayats mostly have lost our interest in the case
There was a saying years back during the infamous trial by peers of Tun Salleh Abas or the Vincent Tan vs some correspondent ,the raayats got the impression if your counsel knows perfect' Queen's English 'you can escape with murder or get someone not guilty 'hanged' for a crime he did not commit .This one is the reverse ,one get the impression the lawyers involved are a pack of amatuers !
No one seem to be wanting ,in fact everyone seem to be actively avoiding ,to ask the one million dollar question : Who is the clown behind these two chaps who were alleged to have bumped off Altantaya .It is as if they just happened to meet her one day in KL while 'lepaking' in the Mid Valley Mall and happened not to like her Mongolian face ,so decide to collectively bump her off .In the process try some fancy stuff from Central Armoury to see how the firework work .
Or perhaps Ms Altantuya herself did it as a return favour .Anything goes in this Boleh Land !
For many simple people like me across Malaysia we are still baffled .It is as if our court people ,do wear perfect blinkers !Do not look left or right ,just look straight ahead ,and make sure blokes ,always ask the 'right' questions .
"Don't worry about Sirul and his friend ,we can deal with them later .This is Boleh Land .Semua bisa diatur .Cosmetic surgery . Extreme makeovers .A couple of millions compensation .Can perhaps be based in USA or UK to 'spy' on Obama or Gordon Brown .Better still do some extreme makeovers and seduce Anwar ! A third sodomy case will certainly kill his political career ! Semua boleh "
That could well be what is going on in most people's mind now,but friends we are already on "subjudice' territory here .Be careful .
Jokes aside , the raayats are already up to the nose with these stupid antics .Pleaseeeee ,we are not stupid .OK we are quite stupid to tolerate you guys for 50 years but we are not that stupid now !Can we have a better judiciary and better leaders please .
The new Lord President certainly has a lot of work cut out for him .Good luck Yang Arif !
Dr Nik Howk
So Mr Baginda has been acquitted .Alhamdullillah .Good for him and his family .As a simple minded fellow trying to understand the mechanics and dynamics of law in this country I am still baffled beyond comprehension .
Well I am just a simple doctor with simple mind .If a patient landed up dead at my doorstep ,1st thing I would do is confirmed that he is actually dead ,beyond any form of salvageable effort that could pull him back to this side of the domain .Then the whys and how .The circumstances contributing to the death etc etc.
In the Altantaya / Mr Razak's case ,no one ,from persecution ,defense ,and not even the trial judge ,seem to be interested in the whys and how , the motives stupid ,the motives ! .There seem to be a 'devil's pact' between persecution and defense to just play balls only in a specific kind of way .Devoid of embarassing clumsy arkward kind of cross examinations .To the point we raayats mostly have lost our interest in the case
There was a saying years back during the infamous trial by peers of Tun Salleh Abas or the Vincent Tan vs some correspondent ,the raayats got the impression if your counsel knows perfect' Queen's English 'you can escape with murder or get someone not guilty 'hanged' for a crime he did not commit .This one is the reverse ,one get the impression the lawyers involved are a pack of amatuers !
No one seem to be wanting ,in fact everyone seem to be actively avoiding ,to ask the one million dollar question : Who is the clown behind these two chaps who were alleged to have bumped off Altantaya .It is as if they just happened to meet her one day in KL while 'lepaking' in the Mid Valley Mall and happened not to like her Mongolian face ,so decide to collectively bump her off .In the process try some fancy stuff from Central Armoury to see how the firework work .
Or perhaps Ms Altantuya herself did it as a return favour .Anything goes in this Boleh Land !
For many simple people like me across Malaysia we are still baffled .It is as if our court people ,do wear perfect blinkers !Do not look left or right ,just look straight ahead ,and make sure blokes ,always ask the 'right' questions .
"Don't worry about Sirul and his friend ,we can deal with them later .This is Boleh Land .Semua bisa diatur .Cosmetic surgery . Extreme makeovers .A couple of millions compensation .Can perhaps be based in USA or UK to 'spy' on Obama or Gordon Brown .Better still do some extreme makeovers and seduce Anwar ! A third sodomy case will certainly kill his political career ! Semua boleh "
That could well be what is going on in most people's mind now,but friends we are already on "subjudice' territory here .Be careful .
Jokes aside , the raayats are already up to the nose with these stupid antics .Pleaseeeee ,we are not stupid .OK we are quite stupid to tolerate you guys for 50 years but we are not that stupid now !Can we have a better judiciary and better leaders please .
The new Lord President certainly has a lot of work cut out for him .Good luck Yang Arif !
Dr Nik Howk
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Not So Pearl & Gem :Our Education System Has Failed...
Friends ,
Emeritus Prof Khoo Kay Kim had this to say in Fikrah recently on national Solidarity :
"Sistem pendidekan pada 1956 ada Penyata Razak ada menyatakan objektif utama sistem pendidekan negara ini adalah untuk perpaduan negara .Sejak itu ,sila tunjukkan kepada saya sekolah manakah yang berjaya membentuk perpaduan dalam negara .Tiada bukan ?"
The good professor could just sincerely give the answer himself why such situation arise : From an early tender age Malaysians were streamed into vernacular schools of the parents' choice .40 years back most would join the National System which was mainly English medium of instruction ,some Malay medium ,and a few Chinese and Indian schools .Now the Chinese mainly go to Chinese Primary ,rural Indians to Indian schools ,Malays majority ,some Chinese and Indians to Sekolah Menengah dan Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan .[ My Indian colleagues told me Tamil is not even the national language in India and they would not get their offsprings even 2 kilometres near any Tamil school. They are doctors though, not a rubber tappers who are more important vote wise to Samy Velloo ]
Try introduccing Sekolah Wawasan ,and we nearly have a riot !Whose fault is this my dear prof ? Where can there be hope for National Solidarity ??
Let us look at one sixth former's view of the status quo some 40 years back in an essay on National Solidarity to The New Straits Time .Put yourselves 40 years ago in the time frame of Post May 13th Malaysia ,when King Ghaz ,the 'intellectual munition' of Tun Razak's very powerful National Operation Council [ ..and to remind those not yet born at that time ,Pak Lah was the Sec to the Council .He has been around quite a while but things did not 'collect' and percolate in the right away in those deep recesses of his grey mater perhaps ! ] ,came out with the 5 point Rukun Negara which all students ,primary or secondary ,commit to memory .
This young lower sixth former wrote :
"Within a brief period of 14 years of its inception ,Malaysia has had the taste of many a success particularly in various aspects of nation building .
However ,she has also felt the stinging pain of failure ,the failure to integrate her plural population into one harmonious unit .Past events have made us conscious of the fact that integration should no longer be considered a luxury in a multi racial society such as ours ;instead it is an essential element without which the very foundation of the nation is on shaky ground .
Ours is a land divided .Not only do we differ in cultures ,beliefs and traditional concept in economic values but there also exists a polarisation of economic groups along communal lines .
Naturally this vast differences breed mutual fear ,discontentment and antagonism ,the fear that one racial group might submerge the others either politically or economically ;discontentment that arises from alleged bigotry and the antagonism that exists from being so separated and alien to each other .
Now we have a definite path to follow .We have defined our aims and plotted our route .The Rukunegara lays down the guiding principles to our end - a united ,democratic ,just ,liberal and progressive Malaysia .
Our leaders talked of bridging the actual economic gap ,of the great need for goodwill ,and of many other remedial measures as our most probable line of attack to achieve our objective .Granted that we are successful in all these we would still be a land divided .
Our mistake in the past was in assuming that we were well on our way towards a united Malaysia just because we were able to live peacefully in what was purely ' pseudo harmony '.We lived on tolerance then .But there are two kinds of tolerance .
The one that we have subjected ourselves to in the past has been one that stemmed not from the understanding of one another's feelings and background but from fear of hurting the feeling of others ;fear of breaking that icy bondage linking us together .
We went on living side by side ,each and everyone trying earnestly to cause as little umbrage as possible .
Little did we realise that by such an attitude we were slowly drifting apart until a small sparkof friction could set alight mutual fear and distrust into a violent tempest of human passions as illustrated by the May 13th tragedy .
A nation could subsist on this kind of tolerance but must we live with the grim assurance of possible future conflicts more devastating and tempestuous in nature ?
The other kind of tolerance is one that grows from real understanding of one another's feelings and background .This latter kind of tolerance is difficult but by virtue of its inherent wisdom ,it is bound to last .
At the same time we must concede that for a man to be able to accept another man from an alien race for all he is ,he comes face to face with two conditioned forces - racial distrust and prejudices .The older he is,the more deeply entrenched these forces would be in his subconscious .
Therefore what we need is a mental revolution on a grand scale - one that would change the prevailing biased attitudes of the old and young .
Since the youth of today is going to inherit our Malaysia of tomorrow it is imperative that the authority channel all its resources towards a more enlightened re-orientation of notions regarding race ."
I got the biggest pay cheque ever in my life for writing "sweet nothing" ,250 ringgit in all ,and had to hitch hike all the way from sleepy hallow Kuala Kangsar to big time Kuala Lumpur just to shake hand with the great man ,King Ghaz .At that time 250 ringgit was too big for me ,I lend the whole sum to my elder brother as a down payment for a brand new Italian Vespa .
Till now I am not quite sure whether he had actually repaid that 'hutang ' .Must remember to ask him tonight !
Dr Nik Howk
PS :
Well my friends ,40 years on ,we have actually missed the 'boat'.Or rather Pak Jab at that time with 100 % power could have established a "single stream education" system without much problem then while still under NOC ,and perhaps when Pak Jab Junior takes over next year ,things would have been significantly different . Now ,we are still a house divided .
The last time I caught a glimpse of King Ghaz was along the corridor of Sime Darby Medical Centre ,Subang Jaya .Must be in his 90's ,a decrepit old man on a wheel chair ,a pale shadow of the Home Minister who would not even hesitate to send the much junior Mahathir under ISA if that was required at that time .Can always do it under the pretext of ultra radicalism ,communist infiltrate or whatever as what King Ghaz did to my very distant cousin ,Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad and the other 2 Abdul's. King Ghaz ,colourful man with colorful tastes who piloted his own Cessna into oblivion in the jungle of Pahang and survived !The actual pilot and ? a caucasian lady did not .That was how colorful Ghaz was !
That is Qadar which all of us mere mortals cannot run away from .We peak ,we grow old ,we are forgotten , then we die !
Just looking back at the corridor scene in my mind's eye ,make me wonder in this stillness of early morning whether present day Malaysia would be better served by opinioted and strong and interesting characters like King Ghaz as Cabinet Ministers or by colourless ,insipid ,poodles surrounding an equally weak and ineffectual future PM whose only claim to fame was his allege inability to control 'his small man' and the 'Mrs' .Just a National perception now ,the actual thing on the ground may not be true .A National perception only !
All just there to ' cari makan ' as much and as fast and as sleek as the the 'law' allows . Just wondering aloud my anxieties .
King Ghaz and his friends all belong to the dinousaur age .Now anything less than a half billion RM kickback in National projects is not worth mulling over .
Emeritus Prof Khoo Kay Kim had this to say in Fikrah recently on national Solidarity :
"Sistem pendidekan pada 1956 ada Penyata Razak ada menyatakan objektif utama sistem pendidekan negara ini adalah untuk perpaduan negara .Sejak itu ,sila tunjukkan kepada saya sekolah manakah yang berjaya membentuk perpaduan dalam negara .Tiada bukan ?"
The good professor could just sincerely give the answer himself why such situation arise : From an early tender age Malaysians were streamed into vernacular schools of the parents' choice .40 years back most would join the National System which was mainly English medium of instruction ,some Malay medium ,and a few Chinese and Indian schools .Now the Chinese mainly go to Chinese Primary ,rural Indians to Indian schools ,Malays majority ,some Chinese and Indians to Sekolah Menengah dan Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan .[ My Indian colleagues told me Tamil is not even the national language in India and they would not get their offsprings even 2 kilometres near any Tamil school. They are doctors though, not a rubber tappers who are more important vote wise to Samy Velloo ]
Try introduccing Sekolah Wawasan ,and we nearly have a riot !Whose fault is this my dear prof ? Where can there be hope for National Solidarity ??
Let us look at one sixth former's view of the status quo some 40 years back in an essay on National Solidarity to The New Straits Time .Put yourselves 40 years ago in the time frame of Post May 13th Malaysia ,when King Ghaz ,the 'intellectual munition' of Tun Razak's very powerful National Operation Council [ ..and to remind those not yet born at that time ,Pak Lah was the Sec to the Council .He has been around quite a while but things did not 'collect' and percolate in the right away in those deep recesses of his grey mater perhaps ! ] ,came out with the 5 point Rukun Negara which all students ,primary or secondary ,commit to memory .
This young lower sixth former wrote :
"Within a brief period of 14 years of its inception ,Malaysia has had the taste of many a success particularly in various aspects of nation building .
However ,she has also felt the stinging pain of failure ,the failure to integrate her plural population into one harmonious unit .Past events have made us conscious of the fact that integration should no longer be considered a luxury in a multi racial society such as ours ;instead it is an essential element without which the very foundation of the nation is on shaky ground .
Ours is a land divided .Not only do we differ in cultures ,beliefs and traditional concept in economic values but there also exists a polarisation of economic groups along communal lines .
Naturally this vast differences breed mutual fear ,discontentment and antagonism ,the fear that one racial group might submerge the others either politically or economically ;discontentment that arises from alleged bigotry and the antagonism that exists from being so separated and alien to each other .
Now we have a definite path to follow .We have defined our aims and plotted our route .The Rukunegara lays down the guiding principles to our end - a united ,democratic ,just ,liberal and progressive Malaysia .
Our leaders talked of bridging the actual economic gap ,of the great need for goodwill ,and of many other remedial measures as our most probable line of attack to achieve our objective .Granted that we are successful in all these we would still be a land divided .
Our mistake in the past was in assuming that we were well on our way towards a united Malaysia just because we were able to live peacefully in what was purely ' pseudo harmony '.We lived on tolerance then .But there are two kinds of tolerance .
The one that we have subjected ourselves to in the past has been one that stemmed not from the understanding of one another's feelings and background but from fear of hurting the feeling of others ;fear of breaking that icy bondage linking us together .
We went on living side by side ,each and everyone trying earnestly to cause as little umbrage as possible .
Little did we realise that by such an attitude we were slowly drifting apart until a small sparkof friction could set alight mutual fear and distrust into a violent tempest of human passions as illustrated by the May 13th tragedy .
A nation could subsist on this kind of tolerance but must we live with the grim assurance of possible future conflicts more devastating and tempestuous in nature ?
The other kind of tolerance is one that grows from real understanding of one another's feelings and background .This latter kind of tolerance is difficult but by virtue of its inherent wisdom ,it is bound to last .
At the same time we must concede that for a man to be able to accept another man from an alien race for all he is ,he comes face to face with two conditioned forces - racial distrust and prejudices .The older he is,the more deeply entrenched these forces would be in his subconscious .
Therefore what we need is a mental revolution on a grand scale - one that would change the prevailing biased attitudes of the old and young .
Since the youth of today is going to inherit our Malaysia of tomorrow it is imperative that the authority channel all its resources towards a more enlightened re-orientation of notions regarding race ."
I got the biggest pay cheque ever in my life for writing "sweet nothing" ,250 ringgit in all ,and had to hitch hike all the way from sleepy hallow Kuala Kangsar to big time Kuala Lumpur just to shake hand with the great man ,King Ghaz .At that time 250 ringgit was too big for me ,I lend the whole sum to my elder brother as a down payment for a brand new Italian Vespa .
Till now I am not quite sure whether he had actually repaid that 'hutang ' .Must remember to ask him tonight !
Dr Nik Howk
PS :
Well my friends ,40 years on ,we have actually missed the 'boat'.Or rather Pak Jab at that time with 100 % power could have established a "single stream education" system without much problem then while still under NOC ,and perhaps when Pak Jab Junior takes over next year ,things would have been significantly different . Now ,we are still a house divided .
The last time I caught a glimpse of King Ghaz was along the corridor of Sime Darby Medical Centre ,Subang Jaya .Must be in his 90's ,a decrepit old man on a wheel chair ,a pale shadow of the Home Minister who would not even hesitate to send the much junior Mahathir under ISA if that was required at that time .Can always do it under the pretext of ultra radicalism ,communist infiltrate or whatever as what King Ghaz did to my very distant cousin ,Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad and the other 2 Abdul's. King Ghaz ,colourful man with colorful tastes who piloted his own Cessna into oblivion in the jungle of Pahang and survived !The actual pilot and ? a caucasian lady did not .That was how colorful Ghaz was !
That is Qadar which all of us mere mortals cannot run away from .We peak ,we grow old ,we are forgotten , then we die !
Just looking back at the corridor scene in my mind's eye ,make me wonder in this stillness of early morning whether present day Malaysia would be better served by opinioted and strong and interesting characters like King Ghaz as Cabinet Ministers or by colourless ,insipid ,poodles surrounding an equally weak and ineffectual future PM whose only claim to fame was his allege inability to control 'his small man' and the 'Mrs' .Just a National perception now ,the actual thing on the ground may not be true .A National perception only !
All just there to ' cari makan ' as much and as fast and as sleek as the the 'law' allows . Just wondering aloud my anxieties .
King Ghaz and his friends all belong to the dinousaur age .Now anything less than a half billion RM kickback in National projects is not worth mulling over .
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Pearls & Gem : Qadar ,Qada' and Lailatulqadr
Friends ,
If one take an early morning or late evening strool in any park in Malaysia and count the number of Muslim men or women exercising their bodies for good health I can bet my bottom ringgit that the number would be less than 5 % ,on any given day .Muslims do not generally exercise ,a common fact .
In the hospital ,we are on the whole very much less than the perfect patients ,and that is a summary of 30 years of experience and observation .My typical Muslim patients are generally 'more laid back' ,oftentimes lack insight ,and have a higher propensity to look for unknown ,irrational and most often crucially time losing ,at most time idiotic ,occasionally bordering on the khurafah , simple ' miracle ' alternatives .
[...Doc ! Ozone therapy surely must work !And it is expensive ,therefore it must work . How come even the PM uses it ??!! That ,precisely my friend ,is why we currently are having all sort of problems with the country ! .You can go to Shah Alam and have a 'brain' and 'heart' transplant for a couple of thousand ringgit .It may also work judging by the number of Mercs and Jaguars queeing up .I am not sure the joint is still there ,must have shifted to Selayang or somewhere my friend .]
In 2008 this can be very frustrating for the ' care givers '.And to add insult to injury ,these folks are not so called ' simple people '.They have masters degree ,sometime even holders of PHD's .
At the market place ,our contractors generally do not deliver well ,our workers take short cuts ,our business people ,politicians and administrators on the whole do not think out their problems and potential solutions ,pitfalls and ' traps ' from A to Z .As a result we get for examples white ' elephant ' projects' everywhere 'littering' the place from 'mis thought' ,off the cuff Ministry of Education's plan playing havoc with our children's well being and future ,to the latest financial debacle ,the 500 million RM Maybank deal and /or Eurocopter 'miss deal' .[ The latter may be more complex than just a problem of lack of due diligence , more a problem of lack of iman , I would have thought ,just may be ,Allahualam ! ]
Even in prayers we are quick to expect miracles .Half baked ,half educated politicians go to Umrah ,whenever any problem of significance seem to affect them ,pray behind the Kaabah and presto expect everything to happen to them .We as a nation , are very quick to 'Sembahyang hajat' but slow and lazy at the proper planning ,thinking and implementation phase .We are slipshod thinkers at best .Sorry bruder !Statistics so far speaks louder than words !
The common denominator here is the excessive ,misguided and misplaced reliance on Fate and the undercurrent belief that Fate is beyond human Free Will ."Rezeki secupak tak akan jadi segantang" is not just a proverb applicable in only the Malay millieu but extend elsewhere within the Muslim ummah .We ,as an ummah may not officially subscribe to the Aljabariyah 'fatalistic' ideology but in practice we are almost there !
Is our Fate really already fixed by Allah !Is there really no free play for Man . There is as if Man's Free Will is non existent anymore the moment he is born as what some misguided Sufis and most of us misinformed ,ignorant practitioners of the faith hold as sacrosanct.
It is almost heretical to believe otherwise .This was certainly not so during the Prophet's time and the simple but succinct story of the Bedouin and his camel immediately came to light :
On being asked by the Prophet whether he had secured their camels well before they turn in for the night the bedoiun answered that there was nothing for the Prophet and his entourage to worry about because he had already read a few Quranic verses and read the Doa and thus safe to leave them in the hand of Allah .The Prophet retorted that he need to tie the camels securely 1st with proper ropes,then Doa and leave to Allah .
The slide towards this misinterpretation of Qadar and Qada' occured much later after the khalifah Al Rashidin's period to the extent that the great Imam Hanafi [ or was it ,Imam Hambali ? ,either one , I am not sure ]was called to the court of Khalifah Marwan to give his personal explanation of the alledged 'heresy' he had been preaching regarding "Free Will ".By that time , for many years lesser 'ulamaks of the istanas ' had for years already moved with the 'wind' to appease their rulers and interpreted hadith and the Quran according to the ' flavour 'and political expediency of the day .Qadar ,Qada' and Lailatul-qadr became only for the brave philosophers to discuss and tread on .In present day Malaysia ,an ISA-eable subject !
If I am not mistaken and I certainly stand corrected ,Imam Hanafi was one of the earliest big time real ulamak to be sent under 'ISA ' for spreading heresys and heretical thoughts !Almost akin to the present day dismissal of Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas by a bunch of junior clowns and court jesters !
To put it succinctly ,Qadar means Allah 's Decree or Law .There are Allah's Natural Law and Allah's Spiritual Law .If you throw a ball up it will fall down due to gravity and Isaac Newton as early as the 18th century already was able to compute the force of gravity as being inversely proportional to the square of the distance from planet earth and directly proportional to the mass of the ball .The Russians with knowledge in space physics and rocketry were able to send the 1st man ,Colonel Yuri Gagarin into outer space.One example of understanding Allah's physical and chemical elements which all follow Allah's natural law .
Albert Einstein later came out with the now famous formullae E=MCSquared ,meaning energy released from a matter is equal to the weight of matter time by the square of a constant which is actually the speed of light [180,000 miles per second] times by itself .That is considerable amount of energy from a very small mass .A few years later Enrico Fermi and his associates were able to produce the 1st atomic bomb working secretly under a stadium somewhere in USA .Of course there were the 'yellow bastards'in Japan for them to try on and see its effect on humans !
Several generations after the last kalifah Ar rashidin ,we Muslims began to get engrossed into the esoteric and exoteric arguments around Free Wills ,philosophical discourse and hidden meaning of each Ayat and hadith ,twigs and branches of the Faith ,and missed the 'main trunk ' of Islam ie Allah 's Din to guide Man to live life at the fullest ,to be His viceeroy on this planet earth ,to led those 'lost sheep ' to Allah's light and enlightenment .After the fall of Islamic renaissance in Cordoba and it's shift to Florence ,the Judeo-Christian world has not looked back .For some centuries now and more years to come if we do not change our ' hearts and souls ' we will be lead !
[...They have studied Allah's Qadar ,at least the 1st arm of it ,The Natural laws ,and control nature and the world !After the fall of the Ottoman Empire the entire subjugation of the Muslims was complete .Now if you are a too regular prayer at the London Regent's Mosque you may find yourself be' digitised ' in one of their super computers as a potential ' health hazard ' .This is too far fetch you may think , and it has not happened yet but it may .Obama is a health hazard to some Americans and he happened to have only a Muslim middle name ,not even a Muslim ]
At the atomic level ,the cellular level and the macro cellular level [ the human organism ],Qadar or natural law operates and there is limited Will .You throw a ball upward it falls .You fly an aeroplane upward against gravity ,it will go up but once the gasoline finish ,it will fall down to the ground like a rock following Allah's law of Gravity .The 'going up' followed Allah's natural law of propulsive combustion ,the 'going down ' ,His law of gravitation .
You mix hydrogen with oxygen atoms ,you get water and a lot of heat .You smash an atom you get so much of energy .At the super macro level ,ie the organism level ,A crazy human who thinks he is invincible walk in front of a 20 ton tanker would be crushed like a pancake .He tries to walk on water he will sink .His equally stupid son experiment with trying not to study at the U ,he flunk his year end examination .At other time he practice free sex with his classmates ,5 times out 10 he would get those equally stupid girls pregnant .
Likewise this same son of the chap who tested his 'immortality' by crashing into the tanker ,the 1st year college drop out ,has all the freedom in the world to choose a life of emotional and spiritual excellence or mediocrity ,or even outright depravity ,all on his own free will .An average family man with a stable job ,both feet planted to the ground ,doing the average thing that good stable Muslim youth of his age would do .Or he may continue to choose a life of continued self destruct ,stray into wrong company and end up as a drug addict etc etc .There is freedom of Will .But is he 100 % free ?
Not totally ,because the sum total of his decisions so far were skewed towards a downward spiral . .Unless Allah opens his 'heart and soul' to a higher calling in his mid life after the general drift southward .His not so clever father in the 1st place already serve as the wrong primary role model .His wrong lifestlye in the U push him further down the scale .His existing talent ,the friends and company he keeps ,his milieu , determine the direction he go .If he on starting work as a general clerk with say ,Nestle in Shah Alam , meets the right group of friends who could pull him back to the 'straight path ' he certainly could join the thousand others 'halal 'hard working workforce and an average good Muslim family man .
Of course Qadar in his case means even in 4 lifetimes he would not be say the President of The united States or even PM of Malaysia !
But on the other hand with no good role model ,' bad' friends and surrounding there is also the likelihood of him to continue his downward spiral,he can even sink to the bottom in no time !That in fact would be a more probable happening than say meeting a 'Ruuusma' at his work place and ending up as potential ' PM ' one fine day .
Emotional and spiritual balance ,and I am not hinting even at the upper echelon excellence ,is a lot of work .That leeway nonetheless is there .Our future is not iron clad ,as there are Free Will ,as well as Doa , and Prayer !It is easy to spiral downward and a lot of hardward just to remain sane and average let alone soar upward towards the Perfect Man idealism . The one million dollar question is ,do we use these avenues to the max ?
On the spiritual side ,Allah Spiritual Moral Code determines the boundaries and expectation of man in relation to his fellow men ,women and his families .It also determine his relation with his Maker .You live a lustful ,corrupt and careless life ,your souls degenerate further and further from the scale of the Perfect Man as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad .If you live within the constraint of the Spiritual Moral Code ,your souls move upwards to coalesce with the essence of your true Spirits and move nearer towards the embodiment of The Prophet .
[ Allah's Spiritual Moral Code is the ' movable ' aspect of Qadar unlike Allah's Natural Law .One has the Free Will to follow it a 100 % to the brim and in the process enriches one's soul to the point to put in 'sufic' expression able enjoy the spirituality of this life as if one is being given to sip Allah's fine 'wine' from His own cup . For this very elitist few,life's trials and tribulations no longer affect them as their ' naf ' are already emasculated and they are able to ' see ' and ' taste ' life figuratively through God's eye .On the one hand can just be an average practitioner or just above average ,ambling along like millions others .One can also easily be lulled into a continuous downward spiral of hideous self destruct behaviour through and through .Even Allah's Natural Law is relatively ' movable ' to some extent . A ball when thrown up will fall down under gravity ,but a rocket with chemical propulsive action can move up ,until there is no more solid fuel to push it forward ,then it follows the natural law of gravitation ].
For example when you give alms ,or keep your obligatory or superregatory prayers ,or just being a good father to your children ,you are not helping Allah an iota :you are educating your soul and moving your soul north ward towards the scale of the Perfect Man ,and ensuring it has at least a chance of keeping on the ' straight path ' and if veering away ,sometime ,may still have a tangible chance of coming back .
The reverse happen if you continuously veer away from Allah's Spiritual Moral Code .At the National level on the other hand when a corrupted soul can not only cause depravity to himself but also influence other lives around him and cause depravity in others as well ,would be the archtypal 'corrupt politician-statesman' ,a man of considerable influence .A politician may generally starts well but without proper religious education and background [ many consider not politically correct nowadays to even think about giving proper religious education to offsprings ] and nawaitu may initially consider a 5 million 'kick back' from a State's deal as being good enough and his ' birth right ',then 50 ,then even 200 million 'masih belum cukup '.His life will no longer revolve around Allah but around his political and personal expediency .""Power ,sex ,money" are the common denominators of so called ' successful leaders ' who lack religious background and the right aqidah .Goal post s can be change to look good .His soul veer further and further away from the 'straight path ' and unlike the Mat Rempit discussed earlier ,this chap affect or at least retard millions of other souls as well .His policy affect the Nation ,retards proper Islamic growth etc etc .[ see my blog on who wants to be PM !Friday Khutbah : Sept 12th ].His soul not only carries his excess baggage but the baggage of the rest of mankind his 'office' influence .Allahualam !
When there is a Will ,there is a way .Another simpler example than the above is to look at the ordinary folks ,say just a simple average student struggling at school .You can choose between being a straight A student or last in class of course within the partial constraint provided by your genetic and environmental and behavioral template provided by your parents .If you are born with an IQ of 80 ,you would not be a space scientist even in a 100 years !But if you have good supportive parents with good schooling provided by a welfare state you may end up as a reasonably independent individual .Without parental support and special schooling , you may even have difficulty working as a 'jaga kereta' boy .An example of some free play of Wills here and limitations set by the 'Natural Law ' aspect of Qadar ie the genetic ,parental ,and environmental component .
[ Looking this way that is why PARENTING remain an important issue in Islam .Good parenting can obviate some of the limitations set about by the relatively 'immovable ' negative aspect of genetics and environmental factors .And part of good parenting may in some cases mean mothers do stay at home to look after and bring up and educate their children rather than be fighter pilots or firemen etc etc ]....just a digression
To give further a sense of hope to His abdals ,the CEO of The Universe throw in 2 almost similar looking 'spanners' into the proverbial 'engine' : Doa and Prayer [ which are one of the same ], and the possibility that your Taubat [ repentance is also a form of Doa in a sense ] can be accepted or rejected downright .Everyone can Taubat but if one's soul is so low down the scale ,there is the real danger of the possibility of your soul not even thinking of Taubat in the 1st place ,let alone the Taubat being accepted by Allah .
That is half of the ballgame so far !Now the other half :Qada'.
Qada' is Allah's Judgement or System of Judgement .All embodied in the Quran and Sunnah .You lived a careless life ,drunk most time ,free sex ,devoid of spirituality ,not only corrupt in behaviour but corrupting to society [' bukan saja sesat ,tapi menyesatkan '] ,there is only one place for you .On the opposite scale you are a light to your family ,your society ,lived purely by the Syariah , not for show ,but for the celebration of Allah ,there is another place for you .In between this black and white ,the various shades of grey ,will be judged accordingly and fairly ,according to the Al Mizan , the Scale .
Again to throw the spanner in the engine ,some will be judged and judgement will be meted out rightaway ,Cash!
If you are almost 95 % Muslim but choose Pancasila or other system to live your collective lives ,you get more frequent 'Bala' than the fair share that other people get .If you as a people definitely is 100 % secular ,encourage futures trading ,debt trading ,and every thing under the Sun as if the is no Allah to answer to , and insist the rest of the world to follow suit in your way of life ,Allah will throw some hurricanes here and there ,some tornadoes and wild forest fires ,and occasionally a global financial crises here and there .To lull you further of course ,all of them appear man made and difficult to actually perceive that this is Allah's judgement ,right away ,CASH ,on earth !
So to speak within the constraints of Qadar and Qada', the post modern Man does have a lot of leeway to move around .It is just a question of Will ,whether he choose to soar and fly ,or be at the lowest of low .
On the Night Of Decree or The Night of Power ,yearly during the last 10 days of Ramadan the 'People of The Higher Plane' descent on planet earth to help assess ,tabulate , audit and recommend to the Final Arbiter ,The Most High ,on how we are to be judged for the closing statement for that particular year :
"In the name of Allah ,Most gracious ,Most Merciful .
We have indeed revealed This Message In The Night of Power .
And what will explain to thee what the Night Of Power is ?
The Night Of Power is better than a thousand Months .
Therein come down the angels and the Spirit by Allah's permission ,
On every errand :
Peace !.....This
Until the rise of Morn !"
Abdullah Yusuf Ali chose not to interpret ''better than a thousand months' leaving it as a mystical expression .I would rather concur with Sayyid Qutb's interpretation :Allah 's grace and rahmat befalling on his Abdal praying and beholden to Him on the instance of the Night Of Power ,though may be a few insignificant moment will be worth more than a thousand months for that Abdal for that particular year.If he is called to his Lord that year ,he has got it made !If not ,that rahamat and grace hopefully would put him in good stead for years to come with a proviso :Life between the highs and lows is an active flux .Iman and Ihsan has to be earned .There is no miracle in the LailatulQadr . We have to earn it and continue to earn it on a yearly basis . Fullstop !NO MIRACLE .
Man's piety and his highs and lows are a continuous struggle on a daily basis .It does not follow an All or None law .It waxes and wane like the tide .But lo and behold !Yearly on The Night Of Power ,to commemorate the 1st Night Of Power some 1450 years ago ,when The Perfect Man had his Visitor of On High ,we his followers and the rest of mankind are being Judged !
Allah 's ultimate knowledge of when and how we die ,what we do with our life ,which zenith we reach ,does not preclude His allowance to His abdals the choice of Free Will .Within the constraints of circumstances ,our genetic makeup our emotional and spiritual endurance and our environment ,we can still choose whether we want to SOAR UPWARD ,or just fly ,or swim with the current ,or sink to the bottom .
And lest you get depressed by your lack of performance so far ,do not feel despondent .After Qadar ,Qada' and the annual Judgement ,Allah being Ya Rahman And Ya Rahim has His very own KPI . Does not matter whether in 'realtime' life you end up as the Agong ,one of the Sultans ,PM ,CEO ,ordinary chaps on the street or an ordinary road sweeper ,His Key performance indicator is simple :Taqwa or God Conciousness in whatever you do .[ refer to my earlier blog on this :Surah Al Asr ,Allah's Key Performance Indicators ,Sunday 22nd , June ].And He does not judge you by the results but only by your good honest intention !
We come back one whole circle in this ballgame call LIFE :Qadar ,Qada' ,LailatulQadr ,and at the time of Mahsyar ,after the Al Mizan and all when even an 'atom's weight of good deed and bad deed were carefully measured ,Allah take away all the minute details of "warts ,boils and human failings" , and in order to make man pass the acid test easily , look just at man from the helicopter viewpoint :Taqwa .
Does this chap [ Agong ,President ,Sultan ,CEO ,Lawyer ,or just ordinary road sweeper ] do his all with God Conciousness in mind or because of other " gods " real or imagined .Man's failings ,unequal stature ,wealth ,innate talents or lack of it ,trappings of high office or 'no office' ,ALL LEFT behind .Only TAQWA .That is Allah , Ya Rahman , Ya Rahim !Mashaallah !
[......to the avid golfers ,Dr Nik Isahak sounds unbelievably simple like golf ! With all the handicap system and all .But why not ?Man are not born equal in talent shape ,circumstances etc etc ,how else do One judge Man who come in various sizes ,colour ,ideology and shape apart from a very fair Key Performance Indicator .Remember ,that chap with the IQ of 80 . He did not ask to be born with that kind of handicap ,neither did the man who was destined to be King with all the inherrent silver spoons !Man is given a FREE WILL but come with all kinds of handicap .At the end of the day he and only he is accountable to his God for all his deeds on this planet earth .And mind you ,Allah did not ask for much ,except that in all that you do on this planet earth ,you do with Him in view .The Right Intention suffice [ nawaitu ],leave the results to Him . ]
Ya Fattah ,Ya Razak ,Ya Wahab ,Ya Ghoni ,Ya Mugh'ni ,Ya Khadim ,Ya Daim ,Ya Ahad ,Ya Wahid ,Ya Samad ,Ya Rahman Ya Rahim ,Ya Hayyu ,Ya Qayyum ,Ya Rabb ,Ya Zaljala Liwalikram ,give us peace in this world and the next and remove us from the torments of the grave and the Hereafter !
Allahualam !
Dr Nik Howk
If one take an early morning or late evening strool in any park in Malaysia and count the number of Muslim men or women exercising their bodies for good health I can bet my bottom ringgit that the number would be less than 5 % ,on any given day .Muslims do not generally exercise ,a common fact .
In the hospital ,we are on the whole very much less than the perfect patients ,and that is a summary of 30 years of experience and observation .My typical Muslim patients are generally 'more laid back' ,oftentimes lack insight ,and have a higher propensity to look for unknown ,irrational and most often crucially time losing ,at most time idiotic ,occasionally bordering on the khurafah , simple ' miracle ' alternatives .
[...Doc ! Ozone therapy surely must work !And it is expensive ,therefore it must work . How come even the PM uses it ??!! That ,precisely my friend ,is why we currently are having all sort of problems with the country ! .You can go to Shah Alam and have a 'brain' and 'heart' transplant for a couple of thousand ringgit .It may also work judging by the number of Mercs and Jaguars queeing up .I am not sure the joint is still there ,must have shifted to Selayang or somewhere my friend .]
In 2008 this can be very frustrating for the ' care givers '.And to add insult to injury ,these folks are not so called ' simple people '.They have masters degree ,sometime even holders of PHD's .
At the market place ,our contractors generally do not deliver well ,our workers take short cuts ,our business people ,politicians and administrators on the whole do not think out their problems and potential solutions ,pitfalls and ' traps ' from A to Z .As a result we get for examples white ' elephant ' projects' everywhere 'littering' the place from 'mis thought' ,off the cuff Ministry of Education's plan playing havoc with our children's well being and future ,to the latest financial debacle ,the 500 million RM Maybank deal and /or Eurocopter 'miss deal' .[ The latter may be more complex than just a problem of lack of due diligence , more a problem of lack of iman , I would have thought ,just may be ,Allahualam ! ]
Even in prayers we are quick to expect miracles .Half baked ,half educated politicians go to Umrah ,whenever any problem of significance seem to affect them ,pray behind the Kaabah and presto expect everything to happen to them .We as a nation , are very quick to 'Sembahyang hajat' but slow and lazy at the proper planning ,thinking and implementation phase .We are slipshod thinkers at best .Sorry bruder !Statistics so far speaks louder than words !
The common denominator here is the excessive ,misguided and misplaced reliance on Fate and the undercurrent belief that Fate is beyond human Free Will ."Rezeki secupak tak akan jadi segantang" is not just a proverb applicable in only the Malay millieu but extend elsewhere within the Muslim ummah .We ,as an ummah may not officially subscribe to the Aljabariyah 'fatalistic' ideology but in practice we are almost there !
Is our Fate really already fixed by Allah !Is there really no free play for Man . There is as if Man's Free Will is non existent anymore the moment he is born as what some misguided Sufis and most of us misinformed ,ignorant practitioners of the faith hold as sacrosanct.
It is almost heretical to believe otherwise .This was certainly not so during the Prophet's time and the simple but succinct story of the Bedouin and his camel immediately came to light :
On being asked by the Prophet whether he had secured their camels well before they turn in for the night the bedoiun answered that there was nothing for the Prophet and his entourage to worry about because he had already read a few Quranic verses and read the Doa and thus safe to leave them in the hand of Allah .The Prophet retorted that he need to tie the camels securely 1st with proper ropes,then Doa and leave to Allah .
The slide towards this misinterpretation of Qadar and Qada' occured much later after the khalifah Al Rashidin's period to the extent that the great Imam Hanafi [ or was it ,Imam Hambali ? ,either one , I am not sure ]was called to the court of Khalifah Marwan to give his personal explanation of the alledged 'heresy' he had been preaching regarding "Free Will ".By that time , for many years lesser 'ulamaks of the istanas ' had for years already moved with the 'wind' to appease their rulers and interpreted hadith and the Quran according to the ' flavour 'and political expediency of the day .Qadar ,Qada' and Lailatul-qadr became only for the brave philosophers to discuss and tread on .In present day Malaysia ,an ISA-eable subject !
If I am not mistaken and I certainly stand corrected ,Imam Hanafi was one of the earliest big time real ulamak to be sent under 'ISA ' for spreading heresys and heretical thoughts !Almost akin to the present day dismissal of Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas by a bunch of junior clowns and court jesters !
To put it succinctly ,Qadar means Allah 's Decree or Law .There are Allah's Natural Law and Allah's Spiritual Law .If you throw a ball up it will fall down due to gravity and Isaac Newton as early as the 18th century already was able to compute the force of gravity as being inversely proportional to the square of the distance from planet earth and directly proportional to the mass of the ball .The Russians with knowledge in space physics and rocketry were able to send the 1st man ,Colonel Yuri Gagarin into outer space.One example of understanding Allah's physical and chemical elements which all follow Allah's natural law .
Albert Einstein later came out with the now famous formullae E=MCSquared ,meaning energy released from a matter is equal to the weight of matter time by the square of a constant which is actually the speed of light [180,000 miles per second] times by itself .That is considerable amount of energy from a very small mass .A few years later Enrico Fermi and his associates were able to produce the 1st atomic bomb working secretly under a stadium somewhere in USA .Of course there were the 'yellow bastards'in Japan for them to try on and see its effect on humans !
Several generations after the last kalifah Ar rashidin ,we Muslims began to get engrossed into the esoteric and exoteric arguments around Free Wills ,philosophical discourse and hidden meaning of each Ayat and hadith ,twigs and branches of the Faith ,and missed the 'main trunk ' of Islam ie Allah 's Din to guide Man to live life at the fullest ,to be His viceeroy on this planet earth ,to led those 'lost sheep ' to Allah's light and enlightenment .After the fall of Islamic renaissance in Cordoba and it's shift to Florence ,the Judeo-Christian world has not looked back .For some centuries now and more years to come if we do not change our ' hearts and souls ' we will be lead !
[...They have studied Allah's Qadar ,at least the 1st arm of it ,The Natural laws ,and control nature and the world !After the fall of the Ottoman Empire the entire subjugation of the Muslims was complete .Now if you are a too regular prayer at the London Regent's Mosque you may find yourself be' digitised ' in one of their super computers as a potential ' health hazard ' .This is too far fetch you may think , and it has not happened yet but it may .Obama is a health hazard to some Americans and he happened to have only a Muslim middle name ,not even a Muslim ]
At the atomic level ,the cellular level and the macro cellular level [ the human organism ],Qadar or natural law operates and there is limited Will .You throw a ball upward it falls .You fly an aeroplane upward against gravity ,it will go up but once the gasoline finish ,it will fall down to the ground like a rock following Allah's law of Gravity .The 'going up' followed Allah's natural law of propulsive combustion ,the 'going down ' ,His law of gravitation .
You mix hydrogen with oxygen atoms ,you get water and a lot of heat .You smash an atom you get so much of energy .At the super macro level ,ie the organism level ,A crazy human who thinks he is invincible walk in front of a 20 ton tanker would be crushed like a pancake .He tries to walk on water he will sink .His equally stupid son experiment with trying not to study at the U ,he flunk his year end examination .At other time he practice free sex with his classmates ,5 times out 10 he would get those equally stupid girls pregnant .
Likewise this same son of the chap who tested his 'immortality' by crashing into the tanker ,the 1st year college drop out ,has all the freedom in the world to choose a life of emotional and spiritual excellence or mediocrity ,or even outright depravity ,all on his own free will .An average family man with a stable job ,both feet planted to the ground ,doing the average thing that good stable Muslim youth of his age would do .Or he may continue to choose a life of continued self destruct ,stray into wrong company and end up as a drug addict etc etc .There is freedom of Will .But is he 100 % free ?
Not totally ,because the sum total of his decisions so far were skewed towards a downward spiral . .Unless Allah opens his 'heart and soul' to a higher calling in his mid life after the general drift southward .His not so clever father in the 1st place already serve as the wrong primary role model .His wrong lifestlye in the U push him further down the scale .His existing talent ,the friends and company he keeps ,his milieu , determine the direction he go .If he on starting work as a general clerk with say ,Nestle in Shah Alam , meets the right group of friends who could pull him back to the 'straight path ' he certainly could join the thousand others 'halal 'hard working workforce and an average good Muslim family man .
Of course Qadar in his case means even in 4 lifetimes he would not be say the President of The united States or even PM of Malaysia !
But on the other hand with no good role model ,' bad' friends and surrounding there is also the likelihood of him to continue his downward spiral,he can even sink to the bottom in no time !That in fact would be a more probable happening than say meeting a 'Ruuusma' at his work place and ending up as potential ' PM ' one fine day .
Emotional and spiritual balance ,and I am not hinting even at the upper echelon excellence ,is a lot of work .That leeway nonetheless is there .Our future is not iron clad ,as there are Free Will ,as well as Doa , and Prayer !It is easy to spiral downward and a lot of hardward just to remain sane and average let alone soar upward towards the Perfect Man idealism . The one million dollar question is ,do we use these avenues to the max ?
On the spiritual side ,Allah Spiritual Moral Code determines the boundaries and expectation of man in relation to his fellow men ,women and his families .It also determine his relation with his Maker .You live a lustful ,corrupt and careless life ,your souls degenerate further and further from the scale of the Perfect Man as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad .If you live within the constraint of the Spiritual Moral Code ,your souls move upwards to coalesce with the essence of your true Spirits and move nearer towards the embodiment of The Prophet .
[ Allah's Spiritual Moral Code is the ' movable ' aspect of Qadar unlike Allah's Natural Law .One has the Free Will to follow it a 100 % to the brim and in the process enriches one's soul to the point to put in 'sufic' expression able enjoy the spirituality of this life as if one is being given to sip Allah's fine 'wine' from His own cup . For this very elitist few,life's trials and tribulations no longer affect them as their ' naf ' are already emasculated and they are able to ' see ' and ' taste ' life figuratively through God's eye .On the one hand can just be an average practitioner or just above average ,ambling along like millions others .One can also easily be lulled into a continuous downward spiral of hideous self destruct behaviour through and through .Even Allah's Natural Law is relatively ' movable ' to some extent . A ball when thrown up will fall down under gravity ,but a rocket with chemical propulsive action can move up ,until there is no more solid fuel to push it forward ,then it follows the natural law of gravitation ].
For example when you give alms ,or keep your obligatory or superregatory prayers ,or just being a good father to your children ,you are not helping Allah an iota :you are educating your soul and moving your soul north ward towards the scale of the Perfect Man ,and ensuring it has at least a chance of keeping on the ' straight path ' and if veering away ,sometime ,may still have a tangible chance of coming back .
The reverse happen if you continuously veer away from Allah's Spiritual Moral Code .At the National level on the other hand when a corrupted soul can not only cause depravity to himself but also influence other lives around him and cause depravity in others as well ,would be the archtypal 'corrupt politician-statesman' ,a man of considerable influence .A politician may generally starts well but without proper religious education and background [ many consider not politically correct nowadays to even think about giving proper religious education to offsprings ] and nawaitu may initially consider a 5 million 'kick back' from a State's deal as being good enough and his ' birth right ',then 50 ,then even 200 million 'masih belum cukup '.His life will no longer revolve around Allah but around his political and personal expediency .""Power ,sex ,money" are the common denominators of so called ' successful leaders ' who lack religious background and the right aqidah .Goal post s can be change to look good .His soul veer further and further away from the 'straight path ' and unlike the Mat Rempit discussed earlier ,this chap affect or at least retard millions of other souls as well .His policy affect the Nation ,retards proper Islamic growth etc etc .[ see my blog on who wants to be PM !Friday Khutbah : Sept 12th ].His soul not only carries his excess baggage but the baggage of the rest of mankind his 'office' influence .Allahualam !
When there is a Will ,there is a way .Another simpler example than the above is to look at the ordinary folks ,say just a simple average student struggling at school .You can choose between being a straight A student or last in class of course within the partial constraint provided by your genetic and environmental and behavioral template provided by your parents .If you are born with an IQ of 80 ,you would not be a space scientist even in a 100 years !But if you have good supportive parents with good schooling provided by a welfare state you may end up as a reasonably independent individual .Without parental support and special schooling , you may even have difficulty working as a 'jaga kereta' boy .An example of some free play of Wills here and limitations set by the 'Natural Law ' aspect of Qadar ie the genetic ,parental ,and environmental component .
[ Looking this way that is why PARENTING remain an important issue in Islam .Good parenting can obviate some of the limitations set about by the relatively 'immovable ' negative aspect of genetics and environmental factors .And part of good parenting may in some cases mean mothers do stay at home to look after and bring up and educate their children rather than be fighter pilots or firemen etc etc ]....just a digression
To give further a sense of hope to His abdals ,the CEO of The Universe throw in 2 almost similar looking 'spanners' into the proverbial 'engine' : Doa and Prayer [ which are one of the same ], and the possibility that your Taubat [ repentance is also a form of Doa in a sense ] can be accepted or rejected downright .Everyone can Taubat but if one's soul is so low down the scale ,there is the real danger of the possibility of your soul not even thinking of Taubat in the 1st place ,let alone the Taubat being accepted by Allah .
That is half of the ballgame so far !Now the other half :Qada'.
Qada' is Allah's Judgement or System of Judgement .All embodied in the Quran and Sunnah .You lived a careless life ,drunk most time ,free sex ,devoid of spirituality ,not only corrupt in behaviour but corrupting to society [' bukan saja sesat ,tapi menyesatkan '] ,there is only one place for you .On the opposite scale you are a light to your family ,your society ,lived purely by the Syariah , not for show ,but for the celebration of Allah ,there is another place for you .In between this black and white ,the various shades of grey ,will be judged accordingly and fairly ,according to the Al Mizan , the Scale .
Again to throw the spanner in the engine ,some will be judged and judgement will be meted out rightaway ,Cash!
If you are almost 95 % Muslim but choose Pancasila or other system to live your collective lives ,you get more frequent 'Bala' than the fair share that other people get .If you as a people definitely is 100 % secular ,encourage futures trading ,debt trading ,and every thing under the Sun as if the is no Allah to answer to , and insist the rest of the world to follow suit in your way of life ,Allah will throw some hurricanes here and there ,some tornadoes and wild forest fires ,and occasionally a global financial crises here and there .To lull you further of course ,all of them appear man made and difficult to actually perceive that this is Allah's judgement ,right away ,CASH ,on earth !
So to speak within the constraints of Qadar and Qada', the post modern Man does have a lot of leeway to move around .It is just a question of Will ,whether he choose to soar and fly ,or be at the lowest of low .
On the Night Of Decree or The Night of Power ,yearly during the last 10 days of Ramadan the 'People of The Higher Plane' descent on planet earth to help assess ,tabulate , audit and recommend to the Final Arbiter ,The Most High ,on how we are to be judged for the closing statement for that particular year :
"In the name of Allah ,Most gracious ,Most Merciful .
We have indeed revealed This Message In The Night of Power .
And what will explain to thee what the Night Of Power is ?
The Night Of Power is better than a thousand Months .
Therein come down the angels and the Spirit by Allah's permission ,
On every errand :
Peace !.....This
Until the rise of Morn !"
Abdullah Yusuf Ali chose not to interpret ''better than a thousand months' leaving it as a mystical expression .I would rather concur with Sayyid Qutb's interpretation :Allah 's grace and rahmat befalling on his Abdal praying and beholden to Him on the instance of the Night Of Power ,though may be a few insignificant moment will be worth more than a thousand months for that Abdal for that particular year.If he is called to his Lord that year ,he has got it made !If not ,that rahamat and grace hopefully would put him in good stead for years to come with a proviso :Life between the highs and lows is an active flux .Iman and Ihsan has to be earned .There is no miracle in the LailatulQadr . We have to earn it and continue to earn it on a yearly basis . Fullstop !NO MIRACLE .
Man's piety and his highs and lows are a continuous struggle on a daily basis .It does not follow an All or None law .It waxes and wane like the tide .But lo and behold !Yearly on The Night Of Power ,to commemorate the 1st Night Of Power some 1450 years ago ,when The Perfect Man had his Visitor of On High ,we his followers and the rest of mankind are being Judged !
Allah 's ultimate knowledge of when and how we die ,what we do with our life ,which zenith we reach ,does not preclude His allowance to His abdals the choice of Free Will .Within the constraints of circumstances ,our genetic makeup our emotional and spiritual endurance and our environment ,we can still choose whether we want to SOAR UPWARD ,or just fly ,or swim with the current ,or sink to the bottom .
And lest you get depressed by your lack of performance so far ,do not feel despondent .After Qadar ,Qada' and the annual Judgement ,Allah being Ya Rahman And Ya Rahim has His very own KPI . Does not matter whether in 'realtime' life you end up as the Agong ,one of the Sultans ,PM ,CEO ,ordinary chaps on the street or an ordinary road sweeper ,His Key performance indicator is simple :Taqwa or God Conciousness in whatever you do .[ refer to my earlier blog on this :Surah Al Asr ,Allah's Key Performance Indicators ,Sunday 22nd , June ].And He does not judge you by the results but only by your good honest intention !
We come back one whole circle in this ballgame call LIFE :Qadar ,Qada' ,LailatulQadr ,and at the time of Mahsyar ,after the Al Mizan and all when even an 'atom's weight of good deed and bad deed were carefully measured ,Allah take away all the minute details of "warts ,boils and human failings" , and in order to make man pass the acid test easily , look just at man from the helicopter viewpoint :Taqwa .
Does this chap [ Agong ,President ,Sultan ,CEO ,Lawyer ,or just ordinary road sweeper ] do his all with God Conciousness in mind or because of other " gods " real or imagined .Man's failings ,unequal stature ,wealth ,innate talents or lack of it ,trappings of high office or 'no office' ,ALL LEFT behind .Only TAQWA .That is Allah , Ya Rahman , Ya Rahim !Mashaallah !
[......to the avid golfers ,Dr Nik Isahak sounds unbelievably simple like golf ! With all the handicap system and all .But why not ?Man are not born equal in talent shape ,circumstances etc etc ,how else do One judge Man who come in various sizes ,colour ,ideology and shape apart from a very fair Key Performance Indicator .Remember ,that chap with the IQ of 80 . He did not ask to be born with that kind of handicap ,neither did the man who was destined to be King with all the inherrent silver spoons !Man is given a FREE WILL but come with all kinds of handicap .At the end of the day he and only he is accountable to his God for all his deeds on this planet earth .And mind you ,Allah did not ask for much ,except that in all that you do on this planet earth ,you do with Him in view .The Right Intention suffice [ nawaitu ],leave the results to Him . ]
Ya Fattah ,Ya Razak ,Ya Wahab ,Ya Ghoni ,Ya Mugh'ni ,Ya Khadim ,Ya Daim ,Ya Ahad ,Ya Wahid ,Ya Samad ,Ya Rahman Ya Rahim ,Ya Hayyu ,Ya Qayyum ,Ya Rabb ,Ya Zaljala Liwalikram ,give us peace in this world and the next and remove us from the torments of the grave and the Hereafter !
Allahualam !
Dr Nik Howk
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