Our Choice

It's time for my healthy reminder of standing up for what is right. I’m in no mood for euphemisms or lacy words so here’s the deal- let us all take a huge leap of faith in our struggle against the Zionist murderers of Israel. The atrocities of their recent actions were so blatant that if they failed to open the eyes of skeptics, I don’t know what will. Accounts of different individuals from different nations, all testifying with consistency as to what truly happened surely beat the laughable, garden variety of the Israelis. These brave souls are living testimonials of the struggle we should all sign up to, and whilst it is quite obvious that most of us are not setting sail on a freedom flotilla anytime soon, there are so many other things we can do that we have not actually done for the cause.

Have you checked yourselves- how important is Palestine to you? If it is so important, you won’t be moaning about how stressful your life is every couple of hours on Facebook, or counting your dough for how much you can spare to dole out after you’re done with new clothes and accessories. You won’t be condemning the Zionists today, and worrying about matching your outfits for the next wedding of your friend the day after. You won’t be reading the main breaking news today and then stop getting involved, until the next shocking massacre comes along.

You’ll feel pain and anger inside of you, unabated by food or sleep. You’ll twist your head inside out thinking of what you can possibly do to be part of the cause. You’ll voice out your opinions and let others know where you stand. You’ll strive to improve yourselves and succeed in your current endeavours, in hope that soon you’ll be able to actively help your brothers and sisters to fight for what is right.

By improving ourselves, I really do mean by making significant improvements in our daily routine- notably our ibadah. Let’s begin with the five prayers- do we pray as soon as the azan are sounded, or do we choose to do our cooking and washing and chatting first? Do we seek to perform jamaah prayers whenever we can (and for men- going to the mosque)? Do we even try to get up at night for tahajjud? Do we unfailingly include our Palestinian brothers and sisters in our every dua’? Do we call people to do good and denounce evil? Do we observe patience with people who often get on our nerves? These are some of the important things which need to be addressed within ourselves to make us become stronger muslims, muslims who can unite as a jamaah and fight against these bigheaded bullies.

And then of course, there’s the boycott. I personally do not understand why many people (muslims included) deride this. If you think it just won’t carve a dent on Israel’s economy, think again. If the whole Malaysia boycott coca-cola for example, there won’t be a market for it there and millions of dollars of profit will be lost. Isn’t that huge? If you think this is something new, not done in the time of the prophet and the companions- look, this is modern-day war. And Israel’s greatest weapon for war, is their control of world economy. Period. (edit: here's an example of an economic boycott done by Thumamah ibn Uthal r.a., a ruler in Yamamah, during the time of Rasulullah s.a.w. He wasn't stopped by the prophet s.a.w. until the rulers of Quraish sent a letter to him pleading him to ask Tsumamah to lift the boycott as they were under the Hudaibiyah treaty, which he did. Bottom line: Economic boycott existed and was relevant during the time of Rasulullah s.a.w.)

How deep is the deception of these people to mold the minds of today’s generation in defining good and bad. Those cheap Mcdonald’s burgers made from leftover beef- what do you get from eating 'em? You lose your money (which are spent on building weapons to kill the Palestinians, by the way) and get atherosclerosis. Doesn’t sound like a hot deal to me. I know some of the products are kind of difficult to avoid because we essentially use them every day, but come on, you don’t have the determination of steel to avoid Starbucks? What a joke. Don’t even dare to talk about sacrifice when worldly pleasures are more important in your heart than Al-Akhirah.

The most compelling lesson that I learned from reading the novel Ayat-ayat cinta a couple of years back was the part where Fahri was detained in prison for a crime he did not commit, and his wealthy wife wanted to use her ‘connections’ (and money too, if I’m not mistaken) to get him out. The beautiful reply from Fahri just struck me right in the chest. He said that for the average people, that might be a permissible option in a dire crisis, but not for ‘people like us’. People like us. And the most beautiful thing is, these people, the chosen ones, are not exclusively selected at birth- not by their bloodlines, wealth, good looks nor intelligence. Anyone can strive to be that kind of person in the eyes of Allah. It’s our choice, really, to be the average joe, or the great warrior.

And finally, the Palestinian cause is not only for the Muslims to uphold. People of the world, if you’ve got eyes and you can see, give me a good argument on why we shouldn’t oppose what Israel is doing today. I see lots and lots of people from the western countries actively protesting against this humanitarian crime, but I fail to see the same spark from fellow Malaysians. My friends, the outcome of this struggle will shape the future of the entire world, not the Muslim world alone.

I apologise if I sound harsh and too direct, it’s just that I’ve encountered so many funny remarks and ideas lately which just hit me at how ignorant and ridiculous people can actually be. Also, as a strong reminder to myself because, hard as I try, I know I can try harder. May Allah guide us all.

which heart is yours?

A profound video that an usrah mate shared a fortnight ago:




Let us slow down and question ourselves tonight,

"Which heart is yours?"

Waterless thoughts

Which is weirder, the fact that I’m having Bruce Springsteen on at the moment, or that last night I discovered a mysterious packet containing a cardigan on my chair and later had a dream that it was a birthday gift from Zach Braff (and that we were friends and so on and so on)?

Haha… a conundrum to rouse your otherwise mundane Saturday morning. The cardigan turned out to be for my roomie by the way (U_U), because, well, today is her birthday (To whom this may concern- don’t leave other people’s gifts on my chair! Haha). Happy birthday dear roomie- another year filled with blessings, inshaallah.

Shall I say that the birthday wish is another coincidence? ;) I’ve been sidelined today by a reminder of how powerful an effect the elements of nature hold over your life- they’ve cut the water supply from last night until tomorrow evening for some work on maintenance. And our teacher has been kind enough to give us a holiday today so my plan was to simply lay dormant in order to circumvent excessive need for use of precious water. So here I am, with the most dormant yet productive activity I can think of. Haha.

I have been living with inconsistencies lately, one after another. I thought I was at peace with myself, and then I wasn’t. I thought I had a firm grip on something, and then I didn’t. Some old, long-held notions were questioned, and when I thought I was confident enough to straighten things out, I faltered. And I really want to write about a whole world of things, but my mind has been, for the lack of a prettier word, blocked. Ok, I made this sound rather alarming, but it really isn’t. I hope. See…? Inconsistencies.

I may not have the goods to write today, but I do have a good picture to share- the cake I made with Farah’s help for Fatin’s birthday. It was fun! Hehe.

Eyjafjallajökull cake... hehe. Nah... it's actually a poke at Fatin's 'volcano' cake a couple of years back... long story. Anyway, it's carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. And chocolate rice lava. :)

Good day, everyone.

"Are you ready to cut off your head and place your foot on it? If so, come; Love awaits you! Love is not grown in a garden, nor sold in the marketplace; whether you are a king or a servant, the price is your head, and nothing less. Yes, the cost of the elixir of love is your head! Do you hesitate? 0 miser, It is cheap at that price!" –Al-Ghazali

Happy birthday, Abah!

The following entry was written from 10th April until 12th April 2010.

First of all, happy 49th birthday to my father- the person whom I always looked up to for answers when I was small, and at some point when he couldn’t give one, I would be struck by surprise. May Allah bestow upon you the best of this life and the hereafter.

It would appear as if I had really been following the birthday-wish pattern, but this really is a simple matter of coincidence. Kind of. There’s no need to elaborate, but I just wanna say that my laptop’s gone (almost) bust, and I’ve been scraping off what’s left of it besides parasiting on my roomie’s (who’s gone back to Malaysia for two weeks, but we’ll get to that later). Hence the non-existent blog.

Between surviving surgery and having a wisdom tooth eruption, nothing major has happened in this side of the world. Oh, but the bombings. It was a tragedy, and I knew paranoia was bound to seep in thereafter. Some people were concerned about me wearing black headscarf, so I’ve been wearing every colour other than black (actually only brown and purple) for the past fortnight. Fortunately, I haven’t had any unpleasant encounter with relations to the incident, although some had (a friend even got slightly harassed by a drunk in the marshrut- luckily a gentleman came to rescue). I was surprised to learn that muslim girls wearing hijab had to be scanned before taking the metro here the other day. It’s been quite a while since I took the metro so I was spared the disgrace. Caution mixed with prejudice will only sow unmerited distrust in everyone. Come on, most muslim girls wearing hijab in this city are Malaysians, and ask any average, unprejudiced Russian out there, and they will tell you that Muslim girls in hijab here are the most polite, mischief-free group of people.

Life has been bouncing up and down for me these days- to say that it’s been good is sugarcoating it, to say it’s been bad is an exaggeration. Procrastinations, emotional turmoils, bad falls and headbumps (I still keep hitting my head on the bedpost), impatience… basically old issues with my own self. But there also have been improvements in some other parts, of which I’m very happy. I’m turning a year older myself tomorrow, so I sure dang hope I’ve improved! Hehe.

My roomie’s coming back tonight from homeland. Her father’s been recently diagnosed with astrocytoma and is undergoing radiotherapy at the moment, and she flew back to be with him, albeit for a short while. Having gone through a similar experience three years back (my father had pituitary tumour), I kind of hoped I understood her feelings. But each of us is different, and the way we handle road blocks in life are also perceptibly different. One thing, though- however tall the mountains before us, however deep the sea beneath our feet, however bumpy the road we tread on, we know, perhaps deep inside, of the tools necessary to get through unscathed. We’ve known this all along, but more often than not, we choose to fall prey to our own diseased hearts, drowning in perpetual depression. And that is to turn to Allah, our Protector, who alone is sufficient for us.

“But if they turn away, say: ‘Allah is sufficient for me. None has the right to be worshipped but He, in Him I put my trust and He is the Lord of the Mighty Throne.’”
~At-Taubah:129

When my father was about to undergo surgery to remove his tumour, I spoke to him on the phone, and I asked whether he was the tiniest bit scared about the whole thing. He answered “no” after a nanosecond pause, and the conviction in his voice made me feel ashamed of myself- for not being able to be as strong as him, for not fully putting my faith in Him, that He knew what was best for my father. I mean, I did have faith, or I thought I did. But I was also breaking into pieces inside my heart, which I knew I shouldn’t.

We always chant the word “tawakkal”, but do we fully understand its meaning? We say we do, but when a calamity befalls us, we grumble, question God, become hysterical, overly depressed, and even despair, or any milder versions of these.

To my roomie, behind that soft exterior of yours, I know there’s a hard shell of determination, and faith. I pray you and your family will get through this test, and pass with flying colours, inshaallah.

Happy birthday, Mak!

Happy birthday to my mother, the one who introduced me to the wonders of reading, Ryan O'Neal (hehe) and the importance of being earnest (and organised). May Allah bless and guide your path always.

a lone autumn leaf on an otherwise bald winter tree. gambar hiasan.

ps: will my blog entries be only birthday wishes from now onwards?! ;p

Old Friend

An old friend turned 24 today, someone I have never mentioned in this blog yet is very dear to my heart. We first became friends in standard five- both of us were new students at school. The next year, she became class monitor, I her assistant. And 6 Aktif totally rocked under our leadership. Haha kidding. But I remember that year as one of the best years in my life so we must have been doing things right, haven't we? ;) We went separate ways in secondary school, but managed to keep in touch over the years via numerous letters and cards.

Anis, I still keep your letters, cards, pictures and trinkets, and I'm so happy you still have mine too, even though we haven't quite written to each other anymore. Happy birthday; may Allah keep our friendship strong for always and guide us both to His path.

The monitor and her assistant.

The cards that I sent her.

ps: I hope you don't mind me using your photos from Facebook. ;)

My brother the fighter

Yesterday, a couple of friends sent me messages which roughly went, "was it your brother who was arrested by the Egyptian police last night?". At that time, I had just received a phone call from my father telling me that yes, my brother, who was part of the Viva Palestina convoy awaiting clearance to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing when a riot instigated by agent provocateurs of the police broke out, had been one of the seven members detained, apparently because he was snapping pictures of the situation. He was released almost 15 hours later, and, contrary to what he had intended when he joined the mission a few weeks ago, he made quite the news (although they got his name slightly wrong, haha), especially in Malaysia. Later, he rejoined the convoy to enter Gaza and distribute the $1 million-worth of food, clothings, and medical supplies before returning to the UK tomorrow.

I know there probably have been mixed reactions toward the riot, the detainment, even the participation of my brother in the convoy. I have only one reaction- I am proud of what he is doing to make a difference in this convoluted world of false freedom. We chatted at length before he went- he was asking me about gift ideas for the children of Gaza. I knew that his conscience was clear, his heart sincere. He was a student, but he was also a Muslim fighter, and Palestine is the great jihad of our time. He knew he had the means to be of active help there, so he did. Why wouldn't he wait until he graduated as a doctor before getting involved in this kind of 'thing'? Because the mystery of time is not within our grasp. We don't know how long we will still be able to breathe the fresh crisp air, or play with the virgin snow. Aren't the children of Palestine too young to witness all the horrors served daily on their playgrounds? But it also teaches them to understand the utter value of faith and life, and not to hesitate to fight for it. In many ways they are much wiser than numerous so-called Muslim adults in our country, whose main goals in life these days are those pertaining to money and comfort.

We need more proactive Muslims, something that is much lacking in our society today. Perhaps not all of us have the means to go there and fight, but we have to constantly vouch support for the cause. My brother did what he thought he could do best with the opportunity that he had at the time that was given to him. Besides, it was an organised international humanitarian aid convoy, not a suicide mission. My only worry for him was that people of higher authority might not see eye to eye with his call and cause him trouble, particularly with regards to his studies.

Alhamdulillah, everything appeared to be going fine... Muhammad, I pray you'll get back safely and have gained better faith and become a stronger person.

ps: Concerning Egypt's preposterous actions in impeding the convoy, you can further read here and here, here.

Shame on Egypt.

Pre-exam doodle

Final day of class was also the final day of the year. And thus began the clumsy waltz through winter exams which would eventually end on the 23rd of January, some several light years away. They say Dermatology is a walk in the park, but it actually is my least favourite subject this year, so I'd add the word 'punishing' before it. Psychiatry is psychiatry, and Paediatrics will be conducted in Russian, being a 'national examination' paper. I've exhausted the topic on my Russian, so I shall say no more. In a nutshell, the prosaic med-student life is about to go Armageddon.

I've neglected to write on a daily or weekly or even monthly basis, so clearly a world of things have happened in the time that I kept pushing the snooze button on this blog. Ergo, I've selected highlights, or rather, created awards for time-saving and better reading purposes. And as usual, most are spontaneous and quite random in nature.

Lesson of the year
To never give up no matter what. Sounds unoriginal and outdated, but I'm talking about the moments when all seem to be lost and we can almost taste the bitterness of failure; when many of us would customarily begin to prepare our minds for defeat. Don't. There have been numerous super-comeback and fighting-tooth-for-tooth moments I've witnessed especially in sports this year that reaffirmed the mantra "it ain't over till it's over", and that goes the same with life.

Breakthrough hobby of the year
I had this post-rainbow withdrawal syndrome after my 'rainbow' left me, and, quite similar to Dr. House after his brief asylum spell, I turned to cooking. I surprised even myself with the stuff that I did, topped by taking orders of nasi minyak for 20 people- making a dish I had never before made on my own in its entirety. My friends encouraged and helped me all the way and I want to personally thank Farah, Fatin, Sakinah and Firdaus for their part. Hehe. Another friend, Fahida, inspired me to bake cakes, and in the span of a few weeks I was on a sort of a rampage, baking chocolate cake, carrot cake, tiramisu, and pandan cake (twice!). Unlike House who grew out of it, however, I got hooked. So Mak, I promise to bake cake(s) at home next year. :)

Teacher of the year
In a year filled with great teachers, our infectious diseases teacher, Olga Alexandrovna Chernyavskaya managed to steal the award at the last moment from various strong contenders. We are even cooking for her this Monday in a li'l thank-you party, which, coming from our semi-dysfunctional group, is a uber strong statement.

Season of the year
I would have settled for autumn like always, it being my favourite season in terms of practically everything, but the last few weeks gave us a sight to behold for a long, long time to come. A dramatic turn of the weather saw our city covered by snow up to our knees within one day, accompanied by cruel, wheezing wind that literally made you cry. Only a few days later however, the temperature escalated to above zero and we had had a substantial rainfall. Just when we thought to brace for muddy and flooded streets the day after, down went the scale and the earth froze over. And, almost out of nowhere, came to light the most stunning picture- trees in ice glimmering like 24-carat diamonds! Of course, we have seen ice-covered trees before, but nothing massive like this- the whole city was positively twinkling, and at night, everything appeared more glamourous and dream-like. And although I waited for more than an hour to flag a marshrut/taxi that evening, and eventually had to walk up the hill to our place, I was grinning like an idiot the whole time, ooh-ing and aah-ing following every few slippery steps.

I can design several more awards of freakish nature, but it's new year and I don't wish to start by getting into anyone's bad books for being super lame. I do wish, though, for Volgograd to bring about a professional hockey team to enter the Continental Hockey League for the 10/11 season so that i can watch great live hockey here every other week or so. Yeah.

Happy hibernating, Volgans.

ps: just got back from an usrah/slumber party/qiyamullail combo which surprised me in many ways- all for the better, inshaallah...

Token of Love part 1

My dearest Farah,

С ДНЁМ РОЖДЕНИЯ!

Thank you for being one of the best listeners ever, and for always understanding and putting up with my crazy ideas. May you find happiness always, wherever you are.

Me and Farah at the leaning tower of Volgograd