Passing On : The Queen.......

I was in the Doctors' Common Room just yesterday at Subang Jaya Medical Centre. Queen Elizabeth the 2nd's death was still playing in my mind despite a busy morning clinic. Death somehow always make me ponder. And the Queen is not any ordinary folk. She has been the bedrock of the British monarchy for more than 70 years. Never controversial like some clowns down south here somewhere.

 

Regal, and not overbearing and for 70 years of Britsh history, not Malaysian history. That by any Malaysian standard, is a record. Ours , inslots of every 5 short years, usually fails miserably.

My colleugue and old time medical classmate of mine, senior paediatrics consultant oncologist, thought loudly that Queen E's physicians attending to her at Balmoral Castle must "let her off " easily, gracefully and gently into the next phase of existence. 

 " No lah Lee Lee,....... given the scenario that just 28 hours earlier Queen E was able to see and greet the new incoming PM at Balmoral, I dont think that Queen E, went on that just like that easily.It must be one of two things...Either she had a sudden cardiac event, like a cardiac arrest culminating, in a sudden cardiac standstill or ventricular cardiac arrest or a major cerebral event like a sudden stroke, more likely the former....the "our Queen is now in a state of serious illness" drama on TV, giving a breathing space of say 12 hours is just 'royal wayang kulit' for public  and news consumption......A fine very royal PR job, to keep the populous ready to accept the impending demise of a very much loved monarch!" 

" Or, following the catastrophic event,  she barely lingers on, on full cardiac and ventilatory support....It is pretty unlikely though because if that is the case, she would not be managed in Balmoral. They can but it is hihgly unlikely. She would be very quickly transported to any centre of excellence in Edinburgy or even London.....Definitely very unlikely that she has an unresolving pneumonia..Otherwise she would not be able to attent to the new PM a day earlier." 

 " The decision to keep and manage her in Balmoral Casttle , if she still lingers on rather than transfer her to say a top medical centre or tertiary centre in Edinburgh was a fine line though which speaks volumes of the level of finese and wisdom of the Royal Family of Britain in dealing with this kind of family emergency. 

 "I am very sure if I am the one managing her , as the sudden event took place , she will be rightaway transferred to the Medical Facility within the Castle..It is not unexpected that in the UK , with a 96 year old Head of State around, they dont have ICU facilities within Balmoral ,or Windsor. It is not Britiah to not have these.... " 

"I would have started her on triple or quadruple inotropes [ heart pumping intravenous medications ] intravenously, hoping for her vital signs such blood pressure and respiration to pick up. I am pretty sure at some point when vital signs seemed dire and dicey a decision to intubate her and sustain her temporarily would be on the card. If her son , Prince Charles was around, this would have to be discussed with him. Such procedure in a way would give some time for the other close royals to arrive and percolate fast from any where from England to Balmoral....Given that she had been on intravenous triple ot quadriple inotropes, plus minus artifuicial ventilation, and her vital signs does not pick up measureably, this would give the royals time to gather and ponder over my next action." 

 " Vital signs not coming up, Bp hovering in the low systolic 40's, fundal examination showing feable reaction to light I would then bring on Prince Charles aside and tell him........Your Highness, In my considered opinion, it is futile to go on...I think Madame Queen is not coming back......" With his permission, upon general agreement with all his siblings and close royals, Prince Charles would have agreed to the game plan: slowly slowly start tailing down all the inotropes, and subsequently even off the ventilator , if upon taking off all the inotropes, Queen E was still hanging on. That constitute a gentle, graceful exit for a monarh of 70 years. Death would have followed shortly aftwer that".

If I am a betting man though, I would bet that the Queen had sudden cardiac death, and all the BBC and CCN and al Jazera dramas for a good 12 hours at least were just a good PR exercise, preparing for a Commonwealth of Nations and the world at large to come and accept the inevitable.

Inna Lillah Hiwainna Ilai Hirojion

From HIM we come , to HIM we return

I love King Charles the 3rd very much. I have been following him over much of my adult life over 50 or so years. ..He is just 3 years my senior...I pity him sometime because he bear the brunt of oftentimes, biased and unfriendly press for decades.

His late Mom was spared of this because she did not have to undergo any apprenticeship at all.!

King Charles the 3rd will be a great king!

He will probably surpass Queen E.

In this current troubled planet, King Charles the 3rd would represent a breath of fresh air.....

Mark my words.

OTHER ARTICLES ON DEATH & DYING :

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2017/10/kassim-ahmad-in-memorium.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2017/01/just-visiting-part-2.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/01/pearls-gem-redza.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2015/10/truncated-lives.html

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/07/not-so-pearls-gem-kaffarah.html

dr kassim ahmad in memorium......

the late dr kassim ahmad is a  black blot in my world view of things. his politics does not interest me , much less his position on hadith and islam. i always thought a chap who claimed, and been acclaimed to be a scholar, could have done much  much better than  being  'anti hadith' man. with all the scholarship and the hardship he had gone through his entire political life, i would expect him, of all people, to get not lost of the light at the end of the tunnel.

islam is, in the final analysis, about closeness and mahabatullah.
and one cannot get close to allah without knowing and loving his messenger, muhammad [pbuh].
just because there is a wide spectrum in the practice of islam due to the varying ways people perceive and accept the sunnan of muhammad [pbuh], does not mean one , in order to simplify and unify things, one can do away with sunnah rasullallah.

one do not burn one's grandfather's "reban ayam that is old but still working, just because one cannot get along well with one's dad! "

just look at what the young turks had done to PAS just because tghh had gone bonkers and PAS now seemed to be running around like a headless chicken!!

differences are mercy and rahmah from allah , not a scourge.
just look at the rainbow! how pristinely beautiful it is........

'anti hadith' and a specie belonging to the same genus, liberal islam , to me is just the preserve for prematurely retired arrogant young cardiothoracic surgeon, still wet in between the ears young journalists, retired ambassadors who should know better, daughters of ex ministers, generally angry middle aged ladies etc etc and what not, who wished to bath in  glamour and at the same time revel in their  utter ignorance of their ugama for public viewing . 

i always put dr kassim ahmad  much higher on the pedestal  than these such lowly vocation.

but alas! life is always like that . when you least expect, the best that you thought of a person somehow turns out the other way round. 
it is a disappointment really.

'anda bukan saja sesat ......bahkan anda menyesatkan!', this harsh sentence still ring loudly in my ears, coming from one ex brigedier general  cum dg of ugama, brig general [rtd] datuk zainal abidin, many years back during the very public inquisation of the shaykhul al arqam.

so one fine day some two years back i was surprised when this fine elderly gentleman, very frail looking, was pushed into my consultation room.

i was elated actually. for years i was trying to get to see him personally to give him some advice on the 'hadth' thing. many young professionals with mainly secular education and little else , have been misled  on a wrong path.

and there he was, being wheeled into my consultation suite.
it is as if the 'mountain has come to muhammad!'.

'anda bukan saja sesat..bahkan anda menyesatkan!', i pushed that aside.

after a brief examination and an echocardiogram and xrays, i came to term with his condition:
'this 82 year old veteran politician is a candidate for sudden cardiac death, any time. he has a large failing heart, hardly moving, with severe aortic stenosis probably of rheumatic origin  in childhood [ probably his difficult  'marhein' childhood had contributed to that since repeated streptococcal throat was endemic during his time with his poor childhood back ground ], and most probably compounded by additional ischaemic cardiomyopathy as well..
surgical risk is plus plus...medical treatment is just symptomatic at best. a candidate for sudden cardiac death!' 

that was my 'internal conversation' and 'executive summary' on him.
at my hospital, and in my practice, it did not take long to arrive to such summary.
one visit, at the most two.

'doctor kassim. the outlook is grim. you have a big failing heart with you main valve needing to be replaced as well. additionally before a surgeon can do anything operative  on you, they would need a road map.....an LV angiogram and coronary angiogram.....and even that itself , in your present state, constitute high risk'

'doc i just need  two years to complete my work,  after two years i can close my eyes'

in my mind i wished i could tell him that even that two years is a tall order, but i kept my mouth shut.
too much bad news and awe for the old man already. 40 years in the practice tells me that shock in small doses over time can be taken more easily.

in his very frail condition i will be lucky if i can find a very senior brave surgeon to replace his valve and do bypass grafts as well. the possibility of 'dying on the table' is just too high!
no surgeon worth his salt would want that to happen!

we spend the next ten minutes discussing his new book plan he was writing.

'frankly dr kassim, if you were to ask me, and i am a fan of hamka and tafsir like you as well.....your position on hadith is islamically not defensible. i do not think at this juncture in your life you should concentrate on that......there is not much time left, frankly.'

' but doc, you are wrong! those people  from jakim dont have ilm. they are cocooned in their own ignorance..'

' well, dr kassim you are more well read than me,but the little i know about islam tells me that you are on the wrong path...you should come back to the right path. you are not only lost. many young people got lost as well following you. some of them i know personally'

that was my parting remark.

the week after, dr kassin ahmad did not turn up for his scheduled follow up visit.
i assumed he went for a better second opinion.
see some young cardiologists elsewhere who know how to keep their mouths shut!

may his taubat, insyaallah, be accepted by allah rabbul jalil. 
may his soul be placed amongst the blessed!

inna lillah hiwainna ilai hirojiun.

Just Visiting.........[ part 2 ]

friends, dato and tansri,

in a well known tradition our nabi stated that one way to ensuring a good ending [ husnul khatimah ] is to remember and ponder about death  a lot and to read the qur'an on a daily basis. i am a relative ignoramus with respect to understanding and living the qur'an, let alone reading it on a daily basis or 'qataming' it even on a monthly basis. i read the qur'an like a ' new mualaf' even at this fairly advance age of 3 score plus five and my understanding of arabic is limited to just ' min aina anta? '.

but i can count myself lucky and blessed 'married' to a proffesion that reminds me of death most of the day. every patients that passed my door daily , i have trained myself to analyse 'mentally', ' what is the chance of this chap dying a sudden cardiac death!?' , a bad habit of mine borne out through 32 years of cardiological practice. a bad one no doubt to the unschooled mind, but a good one to me since somehow that state of mind emits 'echoes' that somehow got reflected back on myself, and at the end of the day, this help to keep me firmly grounded on a daily basis.

' allah hummaya mukalibal qulub thabit qalbi ala din nik...'
allah hummaya mukalibal qulub thabit qalbi ala ta'atik ...'

just last month while attending a cardiological seminar in london organized by the british cardiovascular interventional society, i visited , fred, a fellow registrar with me at st mary's hospital, praed street during those wild dizzying  london  days in the early eighties, just post flower power of the 70's and the paul raymond revue bar fame in soho etc and etc.

dr fred had terminal advance colo rectal cancer, that has metastasized to all over his bedridden body. he lay breathless in a palliative ward at royal marsden hospital, at fulham road. 

i noticed an unopened abdullah yusuf ali's translation of the holy qur'an on the side table. 
" omg! great!!..', i thought to myself loudly, " after all these years of of 'relative monologue' from me via 'pearls and gem' and 'the tafseerkoran.blogspot.com..', he has somehow succumbed  ".

'how are you fred?', was my preamble.
'shit nik , shit'.....i am breathless even on O2...'

' no fred...you are very ok... i see you have islam, how long now...what is her name if i may ask?'
'just two years nik.......no i am still single.....the last job at hammersmith, i nearly found someone,  a belgium fellow in hematology, one of my post grad student, then i got seriously infected with islam.....she left me. she said she was allergic to sleeping with terrorist!'

' it is the best infection in the world fred......i hope i am partly instrumental in your reversion..she lost a good man there...'

after a few minutes of niceties, i went straight to the 'jugular', which was the purpose of my visit anyway.

'fred...you are very ok. death is frightening for all our patients. even for us doctors. but we have to look from another perspective....when you have islam, especially for you, new revert, you have made it. for guys like me born into the 'ugama', i have a lot of excess baggage to answer to. for guys like you, it is as if you are travelling on ryan-air, just you and your hand luggage.
death is just a change of address. you are going to a better address, and i say this with all seriousness...it is not a cliche. insyaallah.....i am serious! you , of all people are the lucky selected ones.... you could have gone on being a kuffar and that is not difficult in uk or europe, even in malaysia. but you have chosen islam at the eleventh hour...and that is not an accident of it is a gift....a special invitation!.'

i did not leave fred empty handed that night.
he is a new muslim, a new 'mualaf '.
two years in islam is not a long time.
i needed to make sure he get 'educated'

we talk about tahajjud, about being in continous zikrullah; about zikr using asma al husna and ismu ul azam; about taubat and taubat prayer and about tasbeeh, especially tasbeeh prayer, an excellent 'sin expiation' prayer; and about selawat to the nabi.

' fred, visit me at ' pearls and gem ', when they think you are fit enough for discharge. 
i am sure you remember doc sabri, that elderly gentleman i introduced to you in KL 5 years ago when you visited me at my hospital...well he has gone to meet with his lord.....i missed him dearly..a great friend and mentor.'

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


'you know nik, this haj season, if i can, i want to do haj....i know i may die there.'
i knew, in his current state, his chances of making it beyond july, the haj season this year, is just about 50 : 50 and i knew that he knows that i know, but this was better left unspoken.

'it is a great priveledge to die in makkah during haj season. that is my ambition as well fred...imagine 2 million souls and a couple of million angels praying for you. i pray , insyaallah , you will get to do your haj'.


as i walked to the underground tube station at fulham road, i cannot helped but remember a short conversation i had with a lady professor back home in kuala lumpur, also a cancer patient, a year ago.

[  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2015/10/truncated-lives.html  ]


life is a series of goodbyes.
first you say goodbye to your parents, oftentimes , brothers and sisters rather prematurely.
then to a series of friends and relatives.
then to your acute faculties, slowly, slowly.
then, it is time for you yourself to go.
that is the freudian, schopenhaurs and hegelian perspectives.
your whole universe revolves around you and when you are not there , the universe disappears.
rather depressing.

the true muslim perspective is brighter with the proviso you do your prior 'homework' here in this duniya..... it is a change of address, and if you want a 'damansara height' address in the next world, you have to work harder in this world. 
it is as simple as that.

you have to know who , the ceo of the universe is.
it is not obama, donald trump, najib tun razak or the agong! 
it is HE and HE alone.
it is HE alone you worship and HE alone you ask for help. fullstop.

i was exposed to death early. 
my dad died when i was nine. 
my sister, 4 years younger than me left us when she just turned 22. a brilliant and artistic young lady , an economics graduate.

[   http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2009/01/pearls-gem-redza.html   ]


i took some 20 years to recover from that loss, due to my relative lack of my 'ugama', my state of non redha lingered.


i must admit frankly that most doctors are quite bad at handling 'death' and 'near death' in our patients.
our training, at least during my time is 100 % secular and i dont think there has been any change in the curriculum with respect to this important issue.

we are supposed to 'educate' our patients and their anxious relative when death are impending, but oftentimes than most, the younger consultants and specialists will not discussed the issue to the point even when someone already had their body riddled with cancer, some even went on to do major brain surgery, to remove a spread.....that , i find ridiculous.

but having said that, there are instances when close relative can be a pain in the neck. when we throw in the towel, they accuse us of 'euthanasia'!

i had the unfortunate experience some 15 years ago of managing an elderly woman in her late 60's who had been in coma for over 5 years, and admitted to our hospital for severe fulminating pneumonia.
i broached the sensitive subject of letting her go without aggressive treatment anymore and was summarily sacked on the spot.

in another incidence,  a corporate top gun came in with massive heart attack and haemorrhagic stroke at the same time. he was obviously on his death throes. i called the family to do their 'yasin' bit in the ccu. he died shortly after. everything went well i thought until i got a lawyer's letter on my desk 4 days after, asking me to explain why i use 'inappropriate language' to the datin.

i observe some muslim families behave badly around the death of their love ones, and this bad behavior is directly proportional to the pay check they bring home each month when they are alive.



[  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2008/11/death-eternal-life-after-death.html  ]

[   http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2011/02/unto-him-is-journeying.html  ]


on the other hand, the down and out, when it is time for them to go , there is no excessive fanfare.
i have one bizzare experience with an indonesian immigrant several years back which i like to share with you guys here.

[  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2013/11/just-visiting.html  ]



and lastly if any of you guys have the delusion or rather the illusion of being able to say the shahadah easily during your death throes, you can forget it.... in my statistic which i collect over 40 years of attending to the dead and near dead, statiscally it is less than 0.2 %!!!

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2008/05/some-more-random-thots-on-death.html

except with the proviso you start right now practising in earnest the art of trying to be in continous zikrullah!
la ila haillallah muhammada rasullallah,... and really meaning it in your hearts of heart.
no reverence to HIS other creations, just reverence to HIM.

it is not too late to start , my dear friends, dato and tansri.......



ps :

i received from friends in the uk my good friend fred passed away at royal marsden hospital, london, just about 2 weeks after my visit.

may his soul be accepted amongst the accepted, amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would you "rubbish bin" him as well?

Selamat berpuasa.

https://shar.es/1l

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

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

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

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


 From: dhm@chrishichens.uk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

from dha@chrishichens.uk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

dato,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

29/ 6/ 2016 :

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

The Sanctuary TALES | Close Encounter in Teganung Kite'.....

Hamzah and myself, we were paddling our canoe around Terusan Pulau Besar yesterday at dusk. Pulau Besar gained its notoriety some 30 years back in the 80's when the post Vietnam war Vietnamese refugees first landed in Teganung in huge numbers. The then Minister of Defence, Dr M wanted them shot at sea. The numbers swell to the point finally all of them were transferred to an off shore island, Pulau Bidong.

Terusan Pulau Besar enveloped Pulau Besar between the raging South China Seasea, separated by a thin strip of sand, and the muara of Sungei Merang. It's water is murky and dark, typical of all mangrove swamp within the Setiu basin.

Both of us know that there were incidental sightings of juvenile crocodiles, three to four feet in lenght,, basking in the noon sun ,on the bank of the  abandoned almost completed massive club house and twenty or so abandoned exclusive bungalows near The Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary happened to be a small piece of heaven on earth, on that thin strip of sand,[ opposite Redang Island ],sandwiched between the raging South China Sea  in February, and a small 'alor' called Sungai Telaga Papan, and shortly joining into the dark calm water of the Terusan Pulau Besar, at  Pantai Telaga Papan, Merang, Teganung Darul Runtuh.

[ why Darul runtuh?......Everything in Teganung are in a state of possible 'runtuh', from the stadium, the masjid and even the yet to be opened Lebuhraya Pantai Timur. I do not foresee any possible drastic  change in this state of affair until we send one or two present or past numero uno of Malaysia behind bars! Only then will there be a change of our paradigm of governance and accountability,  hopefully percolating from the top down. But of course this is another matter worth writing a post doctoral thesis on. But who is going to write and act on this. Our professors in the universities are at present 'kangkong' professors!. Our AG and IGP, nothing to shout about! Both extreme example of mediocrity.....this is a digression, of course, an important one for me at least, otherwise I end up shooting some blokes somewhere. ]

Three weeks earlier while passing a group of fisherman manning and repairing their boats on the river bank, I jokingly asked whether 'there is anything big' in the water. One of them shouted back, in local Teganung/Kelantan linggo:

'kalu demo rasa gedeguk, tu jolo lah!'. [ if you feel something bumping your canoe from underneath, that is it! ]

Hamzah and myself, we took that as a joke and carried on, but not for long. After about half a kilometre around the terusan, we turned back. The water looked too murky and still, to our liking.

This time on I told Hamzah we were going full scale around the island and explore further. We planned to go round the island and head back to al Qalwa in a round about fashion. But when we reached the deepest segment of the terusan, furthest away from our pondok, about one kilometre, we  notice a school of fish jumping out just suddenly over the surface.

'Ada benda besar ni Dakto!.......', Hamzah , my Pattani carpenter/builder muttered softly but with some anxiety and panic . Understandable. He was paddling behind while I was  in front in the 2-men canoe. He was in a position of watching my back while his was fully exposed!

Just shortly after that I felt the canoe  being shakened badly and grazed from below. Just to reassure myself, I shouted to Hamzah,

'Guano demo nih Mezah tebolah sangat nih?!' [ why!,, why are you so clumsy, Hamzah? ]

' Tidok ambo Dakto!' [ not me Doctor! ], Hamzah answered, and I could detect  a sense of panic and urgency in his voice. He must have been thinking on the same line as me.

Both of us looked back and saw a bronze hump separating two icy eyes, surfacing to the left of our canoe, some 40 feet away.

The snort to the eyes was about 2 feet something!

'OMG! This is the infamous estuarine crocodile, the ' buaya tembaga',...and they don't get to this colour unless they are fully matured', I thought to myself from my previous reading  about estuarine crocodiles found near Sungei Linggi in Nogori, Endau Rompin in Johor and Sungai Kinabatangan, Sarawak.

Both of us , we did not have the time to say any prayer at that moment . We just paddled hard and fast towards the river bank.

Up till now I still cannot fathom why the croc did not come back to make a second 'pass' at us or at least  'ngap' poor Hamzah from the back, since our canoe is quite flat and we were sitting ducks!
It has the speed and the ability and natural instinct to do just that .
That is just in its gene.
That  would have toppled the canoe easily.
But it did not!

Was it my solat Tahajjud and  solat Tasbih the night before or was it the size or the lack of size of the croc that prevented it from coming at us for a second pass .
Probably both I think.
Anyway it is nice otherwise both of us would had a different 'address' by today....
HE is not yet ready to see both of us or rather we, in our varying degrees of heedlessness, are not yet ready enough to be presented to HIM. It is a mercy and rahmah from HIM for the 'delay'.
Mashaallah, al Hamdullillah.

Over dinner that night Hamzah confided to me ,
' Ambo dae Jani, sokmo senok perok bilo Dakto ajak kito gi main kanu...'
[ Myself and Jani, we get lumps in our tummies when Doc invite us to go canoeing..... ]

That reminded me of a poem we standard six pupils used to commit to memory some 5o or so years back. The Charge of The Light Brigade by Lord Tennyson, a poem on an actual happening and 'bungling' due to a gross miscommunication during the Anglo-Prussian War of 18something :


" Forward, The Light Brigade! "
Was there a man dismay'd
Not tho' the soldier knew 
Someone had blunder'd.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die. 
Into the Valley of Death,
Rode the six hundred.

" OK Mezah dae Jani, lain kali kito gi main di Kenyir atau pong di Sungai Paka  atau  Sungai Teganung. Sana ambo dengar tak dok boyo! kito bolih main sining tapi tok leh lepah dari club house.",

I tried to reassure both of them.
I am not sure that is enough reassurance for Hamzah and Jani.
From their perspective,The Boss is always right, even when he is wrong!

I love Teganung.
Teganung Kite'.

Still water runs deep.......200 metres beyond these boats is croc territory.

Pedro, retired ex-polo, Dr Nik, retired, ex endurance rider....

Old man and the sea.....

A one kilometre horse, a show horse,or an endurance horse, it is all about working on the 'mind'......working on Pedro to not fear the wave!

OMG!...I am getting prosperous!

The raging sea in mid February

The Sanctuary.......far from the maddening crowd in kl; far from the national clowns of ntr,pandi and nazri; just the wind,the sun and yourself. 

Beneath this calmness lies a secret.....

 

Some photos of The Sanctuary : work in progress.
http://translandjourney.blogspot.my/2014/09/toyota-land-cruiser-hj-47.html

Truncated Lives....

Prof,

We met just now in the evening along the hospital corridor.

You told me your cancer has recurred. You must have been in a state of shock at 1st impact, I am sure.

One hour earlier I visited a friend of mine with severe dilated congestive cardiomyopathy,  a serious heart failure condition. He, at best only have  'X' days to live, in my estimation, only on statistical ground.

All of us only have 'X' days   to live technically speaking, only that most of us take for granted that that 'X' days  is automatically translated as being, 15 to 20 years!!

Which bring me to an anecdote which i can recall in my clinic the other day. A mak chik in her late 70's asked me for sleeping pills to cure her insomnia. I retorted, much to the happiness of he accompanying son, that, " Mak Haji, at your age and mine, not being able to sleep is a blessing!.....we have been sleeping much too long all our lives! Do the tahajjud, the hajat and the tasbeeh......and if you dont find pleasure in this , watch cnn or aljazira...".

Life is, just at best, a number of measured, already actuated, already accounted for, and precalculated, number of breaths. If you are apportioned a total of 'Z' breaths in your lifetime and you have reached your sixth decades and three and used already 'Y' number of breath, you have only ' Z - Y ' breaths left!

Simple arithmetic we all choose to forget.

I was woken up at 2 am  just now still thinking what practical advice I could offer both of you guys apart from advising both of you to get the best technological and medical treatment that 2015 has to offer. 

Actually off the cuff, I would have blurted it out right away in the hospital corridor to you but political correctness and politeness prevented me from doing so.

I find myself still stuck to a famous tabi'in, Hasan al Basri's advisory on life, his trilogy of :

1. Solat [ in your situation, 'extreme situation' requires 'extreme measures',throw in  daily Tahajjud, Tasbeeh , Taubat , Israq and Dhuha as well....they are therapeutic. And if you want to add a wee bit of stevia, daily hajat prayer will not harm you. That is DOA, also another form of Zikrullah ]

2. Daily dose of Qu'ran [ with some understanding, would be infinitely better ]. The accent is on daily. Does not matter the size of the dose. Like low dose aspirin, which is in vogue nowadays, daily dose of Qur'an, even in small quantity, is effective. The smaller the dose, the bigger the reflection.

3. And thirdly,Zikr [ lots and lots of it ]

Especially Zikr. 24 hours of Zikr would not make one mad. It is the antidote and panacea of all ills.

And one more thing, and I am not trying to be better than Hasan here.

Lots of taubatan nasuha.

Taubatan nasuha is part of Zikr thus Hasan al Basri sticked to his trilogy.

Just sleep on this thot:

Allah promised the new Muslim revert to erase all his sins if he says ' laila haillallah...' and if that revert dies that day, he is promised automatic Jannah!

And here we are , 50, 60 years being nominal Muslims, with our occasional solat, zikr and all......

You have your Solat, and your Qu'ran and your Zikr and lots  and lots of Taubat.....albeit quite late in life.

So what?

You are OK.

Insyaallah.

Dr Nik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPMhVwM7Ovs

[ Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson on Zikr ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmKBf3kGbbg

[ Shaykh Muhammad al Yacoubi ]

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

[ Shaykh Muhammad al Ninowy.....Levels of Zikr ]


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



Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2015 03:14:32 +0800
Subject: Re: truncated lives.......
From: nj@gmail.com
To: drnikisahak@hotmail.com

Dear Dr Nik

Thank you for the guidance to preparing myself to face the inevitable reality. My meeting with you that Wednesday was part of His Grand plan. I have been going to the hospital for consultations with the oncologist many times but never have i crossed path with you before. But that very day when I received my blood results of the cancer marker God had willed it for me to meet you for a purpose. 

When you  personally emailed your thoughts and advice to me,  it made me reflect further the purpose of that meeting. Every word you said aptly describe  the state of my soul and my health condition. Your  response to my disappointment(which may be more obvious to you than anybody else) is reflected further in your email. Such a response is just what I needed and which I didnt even realise. Most friends who knew abt my recent progress would give me  standard responses such as "take care of yourself" and "have faith in the Almighty." Masha Allah I shouldn't complain for those are encouraging phrases to keep one strong in the face of life's trials. I thank God for such friends. But your response contains the message which I have been thinking about a lot lately.  

The time given to me by God is measured. No one knows when Allah SWT will call us back from this world. My illness is actually an opportunity, not an end. I ask: Have I completed my mission in life? Have I done my best to please God? But you are certainly right--- move on, give yourself a chance by preparing for the inevitable. Dont waste anymore time. The time is measured.

 What is important--act fast before the time comes. Thank you Dr Nik. I have shared your writing with close friends. They said masha Allah it is a reminder for those who forget and need to be reminded of the measured life by God and of the Day that we will all face, that is, to answer for all our deeds. I'm most grateful to Allah SWT for giving me the chance to  meet you on that day. May Allah continue to have mercy on us.

With respect
Nj

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


On 5 Nov 2015 07:53, "Nik Isahak Wan Abdullah" <drnikisahak@hotmail.com> wrote:

Prof,

tq and I hope you don't mind if i publish your response under a pseudonym of course, for general 'kebaikan bersama' .

But if you have any reservation i would not.

There are ways and ways to occupying  oneself in HIS remembrance.

Science based individuals like you and myself will put it as 'unlimited permutations and combinations'.

But here is just one way on how you might want to start your day, if you may allow me to bore you.

Hopefully it would just serve as a guide and you may want to personalize it to your favourite one, adding here and 'minusing' there, as you get better and better in your remembrance , as you go along the path.

[     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvEf5l2cuoo  ]

I assume here you are still having your work and career to content with, but this suggestion is still  very 'dowable ', even if you are working fulltime. You just need to make some adjustment to how you go about in your waking hours day .

Try to keep your night in remembrance and this require some change in your sleeping pattern ie sleep early, say after isyak and wake up at 3 or 4 am, 1 to 2 hours before subuh daily.

This is the best hours. Having a short nap post Zohor would certainly help.

Start your qiam with astagfirullah , say 30, 40, of your favourite ones, short one will do.   
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xSoO0OCRHk  ].  
Then do a cycle or two or three of tahajjud.

Another 30 to 40 astagfirullah, followed by a cycle of tasbeeh prayer of 4 rakaats. This is specially illuminating.

Punctuated again by another cycle of astagfirullah.

Followed by a cycle or two cycles hajat prayers.

My favourite is, when I have the time, to do 2 cycles of two rakaat each, with 99 kulhuawallah total, 9 in the 1st rakaat, 20 in the second. 30 in the 1st rakaat of the second cycle followed by 40 in the second rakaat. 99 kulhuallah in all. Don't ask me where I learn it. It was years back from a 'Tok guru', I have forgotten his name.

Purists may have 'some ' reservations about both hajat and tasbeeh prayers but we do not want to go into debates on this. There are scholars who strongly recommend it and there are cynics who say, NO! Nabi did not do it. [ as if they were there during Nabi's time! ]. If they want to remain at their level  and feel at home with it, well and good. This is a free country.

After the tahajjud, the lenghty tasbih and the 99 kulhuallah hajat, it is now ' ripe  to open your heart's content to HIM and ask. Ask forgiveness....long life..health..and most importantly, husnul khatimah.

Remember you are in the realm of  the Sultan of the sultans! 

Do your two rakaat taubat prayer. More doa yet again while in sajadah position. Cry if you have too!....it would be good for you.

Polish off with your witr.

It  may be possible that you would be just in time for your subuh prayer.

otherwise 'wax and polish' all these prayers and doa with a hundred selawat on the nabi and then followed by subuh.

Post subuh, do your usual tahmid and tasbih.

Followed by fatihah 7x, an nas 7x, al falah 7x, kulhuwallah 7x, kulia 7x, kursi 7x, and the last 3 ayats of al baqarah 7x.

That would bring you to solat israq.

During the rest of the day do your tasbih, tahlil and tasmid as and when you feel your are 'witnessing' events around you unfolding right in front of your mind's eyes.

and lots of ' laila haillah huwah dahu lasyari kallah lahul mulku walahul hamdu wahuwa ala kulli syaiin qadir'

They say  your abode in jannah is a'vast empty  plain for miles and miles as far as the eyes can see' and for the owner to fill it with 'trees, garden  and a palatial home', the above two  forms of zikr will do the job!

Allahualam.

Have a wonderful journey experimenting  and 'enjoying' with your zikr.

Prof, 

Very rarely we find ourselves  sandwiched  in between the lion and the deep blue sea and unable to change the 'parameters' on the ground. You are in that rare position now.

I always believe that , even if one cannot change the paradigm  and the parameters on the ground, insyaallah, with the right attitude and focus, one can change the paradigm in one's qalb.
And in the final analysis, that is all that matters!

Since when we go to meet HIM, it is all at HIS pleasure and grace, not what we do. HE is after all al Rahman and al Rahim.

Yours sincerely,

dr nik

ps : I have omitted the use of HIS 99 beautiful names. These are for the ' specialists from amongst us 'and require a tok guru to guide you. I am just a novice. But from what I heard and read, reciting 'ya Salam, ya Salam...' or ' ya Latiff, ya Latiff...' any number of time would be good for you.

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

from Nj :

Not at all Doc. 

Go ahead (even with my name on it). I'm accountable for what I wrote. You certainly woke me up and many others who I shared your writing with. I am admitted in hospital now but I doing fine alhamdullilah. 

Thank you  so much Dr Nik. May Allah SWT include you among those He is please with and reward you with Jannatul Firdauz Aamiin.

Wassalam
Nj

Similar articles in the blog :

1. http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2014/12/on-death-dyingthe-friend-revisited.html 

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

3.  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2013/11/just-visiting.html