'the sanctuary' tales .....from crocodile dundee to exorcist

that was the week that was!

i was fresh from umrah the evening before but had to take the early morning firefly flight to kuala trengganu, taking advantage of the long weekend following new year. i was looking forward to nursing my makkah flu back in 'the sanctuary', pantai telaga papan....the fresh air and the raging sea could perhaps soften the body ache and general lousiness of a makkan flu.
beside that, my boys back there would be penniless by now and waiting for their 'gaji'.

by mid morning, myself, and hamzah went canoeing to check on his 'bubu' and fish net he laid upstream, the previous night, some 100 yards from our pondok. it was almost 11 months now since our encounter with a full grown estuarine crocodile probably 8 to 10 feet in length by gross estimation, and the 'croc fear' that we had earlier has now abetted somewhat. 

we are back canoeing, but no longer going the full distance. 
[     http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2016/02/a-close-encounter.html    ]
certainly avoiding the deeper part of sungai telaga papan, especially near the now abandoned , unfinished clubhouse. we just limit our forays to our own backyard and the lubuk up stream, even then, with caution, looking at tell-tale signs of the big croc.

but even then we do not have to venture very far.
just a 100 feet beyond our pondok,
lo and behold, we found a three foot baby croc stucked into our net!
very aggressive despite its small size.

only probably six month old according to the perhilitan officer, but already bronze in discolouration.
for every small croc, there must be at least an 8 to 10 foot parent or parents prowling around!
the mother or dad that playfully grazed my canoe 10 months ago near the muara of sungai merang are very much alive and well....... take care when you fish  or canoe in any teganung river!

aggressive plus plus...i would have love to rear this chap in our small pond but the 'noise' it make is respectable. we do not wish her 10 foot mother prowling near our kitchen.

ready to go to hulu terengganu....

hamzah suggested we just sell it to a chinaman  he knows who would have him for dinner perhaps. 400 rm could exchange hands easily i was told, and that is a hefty sum for hamzah!

lan, my younger brother suggested we give him to dato yeh, my good friend in kota bharu who might be interested to rear it in his 'moat' surrounding his kb holiday pondok. he has a huge estate cum private holiday resort near penkalan chepa in kb.

'no hamzah, i have to dissapoint you. we cannot sell to your chinaman friend  because your boss is not that quite low profile. if the kampong people come to know we will be in trouble. lan, dato yeh is not contactable, i think he is still in makkah and i think he will also not agree to the plan. we can of course rear it here in the back yard if you guys love it very much ,but that would be asking it's mother to come for you guys!....let me call perhilitan. my kl friend knows the pengarah, encik hasdi, and has provided his hp number.',..... that was my considered opinion after one day of serious deliberation.



that night i thought to myself i could have some peace and quiet and settle down to some serious zikr and night prayer. remember, this was just two days post umrah in makkah. body and spirit , both were still in the mood! despite the bad flu and generalised body ache. 

don't underestimate shallowness of the alur, this is 'croc territory......setiu basin reforestation has worked!!

suddenly, in the wee hours of the morning around 4 am, a loud shrill shout outside the house from hamzah's wife,

' abe lan! abe lan!, dakto! dakto! mari cepat , mari cepat! fatehah kena rasuk hantu!'.

'omg!...., i said to myself, 'apa pula? i have been here the last two year. even camping alone on the beach during the initial construction phase of 'the sanctuary'....and no hantu!
now with all the prayers...got hantu! i have done my 1000 ayat kursi , going round and round the compound a year back ....all hantus and jembalangs must have kept their distance from  'the sanctuary'...especially with the boss around!'

fatehah and her husband just arrived three days earlier to 'the sanctuary' from rantau panjang. her husband lost his odd job in kb and was jobless for 6 months. hamzah asked them to come over, to give him a helping hand. 

unknown to me then, the two , husband and wife had joined hamzah upstream some 800 yards away from 'the sanctuary' towards lawyer dato hisham's beach house at 10 pm. hamzah still back to his fishing activities. they stayed too long there and fatehah decided on her own to walk back alone to 'the sanctuary'......brave girl!! [ also careless ]. 

that place, midway between al qalwa and lawyer hisham's bungalow, is well known to be a wee bit 'keras' amongst the local, but despite that quite popular with young couples at night. also popular with the local 'pencegah maksiat' as well....and also the occasional drug addicts and the occasional police patrol
so the 'keras' aspect is pretty relative. the more 'keras' the place is, the more the attraction i can guess with courting couples.

by 12 midnight she started to behave 'unnaturally' moving her hands in a semi-purposive manner and complaining of feelingg extremely cold., according to hamzah. i was not told of this until later the next day. hamzah and her husband tried to pacify her in their ways until her 'problem' got worse, then they decided to call the boss at 4 am!

i have always been called at this wee hours of the morning to salvage people in heart failure and more often than not , to open people's blocked coronary arteries.....these are no sweat! it come with the territory of being the substantive senior consultant cardiologist at sjmc, after some thirty two  years of cardiological  practice.

this one.....a girl moving her upper limbs in odd fashion and grimacing away with eyes darting from one corner to another is a different kettle of fish!
this is not heart failure nor blocked arteries.

from the little that i still know of neurology, this is not seizure or epilepsy.
certainly not temporal lobe epilepsy.
could this well be histrionic behavior of a kampong girl under stress?.....highly probable in the list of all possibilities. this is her first time leaving home and having to interact with others as adults.....the 'internal' pressure for a kampong girl like her must be tremendous.

could this be a schizoid reaction to 'stress' from a kampong girl with a schizoid predisposition and tendency?....possible but remain to be seen and would need a full history from husband.
but 20 years of age, this could well be her 1st episode, so history is not effective here to exclude this.

these differential diagnoses raced through my mind.
uppermost in my mind was histrionic personality with acute conversion reaction, remembering my psychiatric training under prof teoh of university hospital in my fourth year medical school some forty something years back!

this being the case, given that fatehah, just turned 20 and coming from the backwater of rantau panjang, with its inherrent socio-cultural belief and back ground steeped in 'bageh' [  a kampong ceremony in the 60's in back water places like bachok and tumpat , kelantan involving neighbours and main actor the magic man , the bomoh with his ensemble, with the intention of driving away evil spirit supposedly truobling a member of the family. this was usually a community affair ], 'rasuk hantu' [ devil possession ]and 'bommo', i am ready to dance to her tune and play the 'game'.

my initial game plan was to play around with her belief and play along to the point towards the end i can offer her some semblance of 'save waterface' outlet.
tomorrow , insyaallah, all will be ok.
the husband and her new friends will be gentle with her and cajole her along for a week or so until she get reorriented to the new 'stressfull' environment, of being fully adult.

that is the 'gameplan' with most histrionics as far as my little understanding of clinical psychiatry goes. 

my gameplan is to 'play the game' with her and offer her a 'soft landing'.

so i jumped in and start working.

'demo sapo. demo margi mano weh!? ', i bravely asked. [ damn it! who are you. where are you from ]

'.....mari sanno..', she answered, cheekily, pointing to the beach, in the direction towards lawyer dato hisham's beach house, some half kilometre away. [ ..i am from there... ]

that 'cheekily' part unsettled me a wee bit.
'am i on the right tract?', i asked myself.

' apo pasa  demo gedebe sangat demo mari kaca rumoh  kawae..mari kachau anok buoh kawae...tepat sining orghe semaye, orge bezikir!...guano ya demo gedebe sangat nih! '
[ why do you come and disturb my place and people. this is a place for prayer and rememberance..]

' sejuk sanno', it says , pointing in the general direction of the beach. it was raining outside.
' ambo nok tupe jah..' it said [  it is cold outside...just want to stay awhile.. ]

'that voice does not sound like fatehah'..., hamzah's wife, her half sister, echoed from behind me. hamzah and zaki [ her husband ] were there some distance away. lan, my brother, obviously did not like this encounter. he 'cabuted' back to our pondok.
lan and i, had in our childhood days seen the film,' the exorcist ', and i can read what went on his mind.

he had a choice. for me the bucks stopped here!

i did not waste time i started with a series of 'kul a'uzubirabbinnnas', followed by ' kul a'uuzubirabbil 'kul falak', finishing off with  a long series of 'ayat kursi'. even forgot to read al fatihah. i would already be on shaky ground, if this really is not hysterical conversion reaction, but a 'real rasuk hantu' case, i thought to myself, if i missed al fatihah.

after 30 long minutes of doing the series, there seemed to be no improvement. in fact i get a wee bit of palpitation when she asked,

'demo baca gapo weh!!?? ', glaring at me. [ what are you mumbling about my friend....]
now it is nik howk the 'bomoh's time to  get cold sweat in between his sarong!
she is now turning into an 'it'.

fatehah, given her age and back ground, i reckoned, would not have that  mental dexterity and nuance to understand that she is dealing with a pure amateur in front of her, and even joking about it!!

i was pretty sure at this juncture, it is no longer a 'mind game' i can play.
is this 'exorcism, fullstop?.

'am i reading it wrong? my reading may be all over the place', self doubt began to creep in.

from there i changed my 'gameplan',for good measure i added the last three ayat of surah albaqarah to my armamentarium and restart in full gear with the six small surah al 'khidr and strengthened further by 7 readings of the last three ayat of surah al baqarah.
i was sweating in my sarong despite the rain outside.
my hairs stood on ends!

after another very long 20 minutes, it began to work, the limb movement lessened and IT's glare become less fierce.

'..ambo nok kecing..', it said.   [ .. .i want to go and pee..]
' sapo dio ambo nih ', i asked.  [  who is this who want to pee..]
'ambo lah '  [ me ]
' ambo, ambo ni sapo dia?, i asked harshly. [ me , me  me, who is me!!?? ]
'ibleh ko jinn nih?', i asked, gaining in confidence. 

' yo lah, ambo fatehah.....', IT smiled cheekily, then added, abruptly, ' ambo iblis!.... '

my hairs stood on ends but i maintained my composure.

we asked the husband to follow her to an outside toilet, some 15 yards away from the workers quarter. the husband reluctantly followed her , in fear, accompanied by hamzah's wife. both in fear.

when they came back, fatehah regained her composure.
she told us ,
' i am  very tired. i want to go to sleep..'
the movement in the fingers had stopped by then.

myself, lan and hamzah left the couple to themselves and went outside the quarter to have coffee while waiting for the azan subuh, while zaki and hamzah's wife attended to fatehah.


shortly after that the husband, zaki, came out to join us for coffee.
'dakto, ambo takut tadi dekat bilek air.....bining ambo lambai tangan kat sapo dio ambo tok tahu, dio kata 'bye...bye..'
[ dr, i was fearful at the outside toilet just now...my wife waved bye bye to some object in the dark.........]

now it was time for dr nik howk to have cold sweat!!
what a weekend!

the morals of the story are:

1. dr nik howk can say good bye to his plan to canoe in all the great rivers of terengganu....especially in the setiu basin. 
crocs are endemic here in terengganu, full stop!

2. girls! if you have to walk in the wee hours of the morning or at night on the beach far away from any beach house or motel, walk in company. please, please, never do it alone. there can be unwarranted 'encounter of the third kind'. or even 'encounters of the first kind' can be dangerous. one do not know what lurks in the minds of men at these places at such time.

3. if ever i have to face this kind of situation again i will put my 'scientific', analytic thoughts and scepticism away on the back burner, and right on from the first word go, proceed full steam ahead with my usual gambit of the 'six khidr' plus my favourite last three ayat of surah al baqarah. no more 'mental game'. assume it is exorcism right from the word go.
even if it is not, it will work for histrionic conversion reaction, most time.

7 x fatihah
7  x an nas
7  x al falak
7  x kul huwallah
7  x kulya
7  x ayatul kursi

and add my favourite, 
7  x last three ayat of al baqarah.

.....and if this does not work, i will get someone to call the local imam.....whatever the time. frankly, i would rather do primary infarct emergency angioplasty than this kind of work!!
it is damn scary because you do not know what kind of 'devil'  and 'demon' you are dealing with!

and if the 'demon' turned out to be a benign  'internal demon of the histrionic ' kind, even in this situation, the serious right on approach will work.

mr gedebe, the stud, a cross between pure arabian and a brazilian breed, mangalarga machador; pedro, ex-polo; mek bunga,  pure arabian but 'tak comel, thus the name; and salsabil, ex-race, now heavily pregnant.

'the sanctuary' is a small piece of heaven on earth but don't stray too far away from it at night on the beach, especially alone!

other articles on haj and umrah in the blog:

1. http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2010/06/tan-sri-ibrahim-promet-in-memory.html

2.  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2016/12/umrahour-time-for-renewal_8.html


3.  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2016/12/umrahto-next-level.html

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

ru, joe, nina , shasha and yazman,


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the 2nd is 'ya rahman'.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


with lots of love and fatherly tenderness,
papa

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

Labbaik Allah humma labbaik

Labbaik la sharika laka labbaik

Innal hamda

Wan-ni'mata

Laka walmulk

Laa sharika lah.

O my Lord, here I am at Your service, here I am.

There is no partner with You,

here I am.

Truly the praise

and the provisions are Yours,

and so is the dominion and sovereignty.

There is no partner with You.

nadzru, johan, nina , shasha and yazman,


children,

we are coming to the penultimate week before our umrah.

i hope you guys are polishing up yourselves spiritually so that you would not just end up as  'tourists'.

we want to be 'travelers' not tourist....'travelers on the path to allah'

the late ustaz dr harun din once told papa in the eighties before haj and umrah that, 'haj and umrah are essentially a rehearsal of death'.

he was echoing the fact that in a haj mabrur a traveler 'dies to the duniya and lives for the akhirat' after that.

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

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

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

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

if you can achieve that detachment, alhamdullillah, if not continue to work on it.

it will come to you, insyaallah.
it is 'dowable' insyaallah.
and  in papa's estimation, 'umrah' is a 'great  open university' for such game plan to change towards the better.
an expensive one no doubt but you guys are fairly lucky lot since papa is very much an addict to this 'open university'!

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


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

1 . prayers ie sunnat prayers around the compulsory prayers.

2.  solatul jenazah

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

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

3. solatul tasbeeh

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

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

this is papa's favourite prayer. some months ago  papa used to do it daily and in ramadan almost twice a day. 

now at least twice a week. children, iman and fervour waxes and wane. your dad is no exception.

' why solatul tasbeeh, i heard the hadith is dhaif? ', you asked.

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

just do it. 

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

in solatul tasbeeh, papa agree with the minority view . 

children!,do it  daily in the haram for size.

and when you are safely back home in KL , go do tasbeeh daily for 6 months. 

then come back tell me whether you think it is dhaif,  soheeh, hasan or maudhu'. !
we can discuss further.

chances are, you will  find solatul tasbeeh bringing in  so much solace and pleasure to you, that you would feel embarassed to discuss dhaif, hasan or soheeh anymore!

those who feel happy going  thru life wearing blinkers, go ahead.

we have no querrel with these 'blinkered'  guys!

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

'experiential islam ' is more important than a load of hadiths and theory.

the hadith is not dhaif, the iman is dhaif.

4.night prayer [ tahajjud ]

in the haram, one don't sleep my sons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDyF_JaiFKw [ mufti menk short take on night prayer ]

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

5.sembahyang israk and dhuha

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

6. zikr

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

any of those 30 or so zikr,  or more.

these are papa's favourites.

they are short and the ma'ana are quite obvious and easy.

we are not 'schooled' in the ugama, so just try do what we know best.

7. and please polish up on the rudiments  and doa involved in an 'umrah'.

if you guys find the doa during tawaf and saei too tedious, do a thousand 'kul huwalah' instead.

some 15 years back, papa did the big tawaf, around the kaabah, early morning after sahur and the crowd was too big! the big circle on haram's 1st floor is around 1.2 km or so and that equates to 750 kul huwallah each round!

in the haram, children, do your things.

on that day papa thought papa did very well well until papa met a young somalian teacher, and mashaallah the conversation went on like this:

'assala mualaikum young brother , where are you from'

'somalia...', said he, he carried one sling bag, and later i found out that was his only luggage.

'where are you staying in makkah?'

' i eat, sleep in the haram....i wash and have bath in the public rest room outside sir'

...and papa had a five star hotel room to go back to after the ordeal of the sunat tawaf!!!!

7. solawat to the nabi.

the little time we spend in madinah, try to be in continous solawat to the nabi [ pbuh ].

visit his grave every prayer if you can, otherwise everyday.

read his seerah before our journey to know him better.

martin ling's seerah of the nabi [ pbuh ] in papa's estimation is one of the best.

it is collecting dust on papa's bookshelf for over 40 years!

none of you read it, so occupied you guys with whathapp, misshaps etc etc and etc!

t o love THE BELOVED you must 1st love HIS prophet numero uno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw7u6_DZyAI

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

it is all about getting closer to HIM.

when HE is your friend, the rest of the world can go and fly kites.

that young somalian teacher had very little.

but papa thought his haj and umrah was 'more mabrur' than papa's.

on the day when nothing else matter, that is the difference between the night and the day.

i am not asking you to be an average worker or citizen.

for from that.

if you are just a bandaraya worker, be the best , honest bandaraya worker.
if you are a shopkeeper in downtown pj, be the best and honest one.
does not matter you earn million rm or just a mussel here, and a mussel there.

if you are a govt doctor in shah alam, be the best medical officer.

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

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

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

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

papa.

Tan Sri Ibrahim 'Promet' in memory.....

Tan Sri Ibrahim bin Mohammad died yesterday, age 68, of massive cerebral thrombosis [ stroke ]. A colourful figure , flamboyant to his last, lawyer-economist, philanthropist par excellence, entreprenuer and above all, a great friend.

Our path coindentally crossed sometime in the mid eighties. An unlikely combination: Still very much 'high flying', 'corporate surgeon', beyond his peak, and on his way down, and a young 'plumber', definitely on his way up.That meeting was not coincidental. It was iron casted in Loth Mahfuz many milenium years back, before time, beyond our very limited comprehension. The chemistry however clicked and last

We happened to share the same love. The 'Haram'. We spent many happy years of'umrah' together, whispering sweet nothings unto "The Beloved". Hope for atonement, sharing of deep inner secrets, only The One and Only is privy, and asking for mercy and Barakah in the next world.

It was not all 'holy' and straight forward. In between the sobs and tears at the Maqam Ibrahim and the late night tahajud and istikharah in the 'Haram', we, being 'boys at heart' also pry the high street of Jeddah together just enjoying the Lord's gift to mankind, looking at beautiful rich women of leisure from Iran, Lebanon and Syria in their sensuous 'abaya', passing. Sometime you can see , sometime you don't...[ My God! Sensuality is in the mystery. This, the rather 'agressive and free' ladies of the West, and increasingly, now even the East, cannot totally comprehend! ].

Life is indeed full of incongruities and contraditions.These I shared with Tan Sri Ibrahim.Both of us, are able to look at life as a very private 'love affair' with The Beloved, so to speak....The pain, the gain, the fear and trepidition, the anguish and the happiness are just sides of the same coin... "We try you with evil and with good, for ordeal. And unto Us ye will be returned."[ I will venture to write about the nature of happiness in my next blog...insyaallah ]

He was a good teacher to me on how to live life to the 'fullest'. One can dream of sufi thoughts and convictions and grand religious plan and vision, but caviar and fine arabians , and turbo charged 'horses' and the excellent things in life are not haram!...I keep telling my elder brother, Hasan, who thought and vocalise that extravagance, as exhibited by the likes of people like Tan Sri, is sinful.... that we cannot judge man superficially. If one has 200 million in the bank, do not expect him to behave and think like 'you ' and 'me'. We do not know what goes on in a millionaire's mind. We are not privy to the generous donation he makes annually. We are not privy to his anguish and fear....At the end of the day,Islam is about excellence. Excellence in the Here and the Hereafter..and we are not the judge.

Ibrahim probably made his 1st million in Pahang. Went on to make more millions with his association with Genting. When you are young and very vital perhaps 'the end justifies all means'. But life, like golf, is not about how one start the game. It it about how one ends the game. I suspected, but never pry, that those many years of whispering 'sweet nothings' with me at Maqam Ibrahim, rain or shine, in front of the Kaaba, probably has to do with the atonement for his early days at 'Genting'. Friends just need to understand, we dont need to ask the inner sanctum of one's secret fear and love. That way, mystery further mystifies.

Hicom [ Heavy Industry Incorporated of Malaysia ], Proton and Langkawi seem to be Dr M's legacy to Malaysia.Ibrahim in his heydays was Dr M 1st private tutor, giving him free advice on corporate matters.Every Friday afternoon in the late seventies, is tutorial time. No one was allowed to clutter the lobby at PM's office to ask for favour or to send up any brown envelope for numero uno's perusal.Friday after prayer was reserved for Ibrahim! This went on for several years to the chagrin an envy of the likes of Musa Hitam and other senior cabinet members who seemed to be sidelined for lack of ideas. Much later, ADZ and all his 'wet in between' the ears assistants and cronies matured, and in due time took over the role. With politicians,friends and foes are transient. Interest is permanent.

Yes, Dr M must have been one of our greatest PM so far with respect to ideas and vision. I am not surprised. He got an excellent tutor in Ibrahim...... until the 'rot sets in'.

Promet Building, a definitive KL landmark and 'one of its kind' in the early 80's was the nerve centre from which this debonair maverick planned and execute his many 'corporate surgeries'.However, his star began to wean and slowed down when two of his best pals, Dr M and Razaleight Hamzah were at loggerhead with each other. Such is the reality of big business in Malaysia, then and now. Political patronage is the sine qua non of business ,big and small. When we are going to be able to grow out of this , I do not know?

It was also Langkawi that perhaps signaled Ibrahim's Promet Bhd fast decline. Millions invested sinking in the white sand, Development and crowd was slow to come.Free port status was even slower to come by. Promet share plummeted.Great friends parted further, caught by the inevitable quigmire of Malaysian political scene.

" I once advice 'Number One', the virtue of not having his children actually involved in big business, but that advice fell on deaf ears"......
The rest was history.The MISC bailout was a testimony of good advice ,not taken.
History can be very harsh for ex prime ministers and former leaders, but for my good friend Ibrahim, at least I know he had done well,

Good bye my friend.
May your soul be amongst those whom 'He' blessed.

" Every soul must taste of death, and We try you with evil and with good, for ordeal. And unto Us ye will be returned. "
Surah Al Anbiya [ The Prophets ], 21 : 35

"Lo! verily unto Allah belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth. He knoweth your condition. And (He knoweth) the Day when they are returned unto Him so that He may inform them of what they did. Allah is Knower of all things."
Surah Al Nur , 24 : 64


Dr Nik Howk