Exam's Around The Corner...

Assalamualaikum to all...

How time flies... Exams are nearing again.  my mid-semester exams are coming up in two weeks.  So, I have to say sorry in advance, if the blog is inactive for a while.

Make du'a for me please.. For this semester is definately a challenging one, despite taking only 19 credit hours.  

My first paper is on 10th february, then 16th and 17th.  

Rabbi yassir wa la tu'assir ya kareem...

and while i'm preparing for my exams, (and maybe some of you are too..) let us not forget to pray for our brothers and sisters who are facing the Zionist out in Palestine.  Pray from them, and read Qunut Nazilah as often as possible.  May Allah enlighten their burden, and may they remain  fighting till the Zionists falter.  Ameen...

that's all for now... 

signing off... 

<< Happy >>

I’m happy. Alhamdulillah. Sometimes happiness comes from unexpected places. And this time, it is seriously unexpected.

I would like to thank my lovely sisters for this. You girls sure are fabulous. You surprised me with that belated birthday bash alright. I was, at that time, extremely, tremendously, not expecting it. This made me happy beyond words.

Thanks for all the presents, and that delicious cake. The night was indeed a night to remember. Although I did wish that all of you are able to come. For the night will be completely perfect if you two were there.

I feel that the night was well spent. They come around maghrib, we prayed together, went out for dinner, prayed isya’ at Masjid Kampung Baru, went back to my house. That was when they surprised me with the cake and presents. Which is, to me, the highlight of the night. Afterwards, with full stomach and a very sweet memory to remember, we watched a movie, Sang Murabbi (an Indonesian movie). A movie which the girls liked (and I am very happy that they enjoyed it).

I meant to write this earlier, but unfortunately, because of time constraints, I was unable to do so.

So, this post is dedicated specially to them. My lovely sisters in Islam. May Allah reward all of you, and grant you happiness here, and in the hereafter. And I truly hope that we will all remain together in this path, striving towards mardhatillah. Trying to uphold this deen, no matter where we may end up in the future…

Heart Check Up

Just sharing this reminder for us all... perhaps not a very long one, nor a new thing.  Nevertheless, the matter is a very important one indeed.

What is the condition of our qalb, or heart currently?  Is it healthy and thriving? Or... is it sick, whithering away?  Or.. is it already dead? 

How is the qalb, or heart considered alive?  A heart will only be considered alive when it feels whatever it does, is for Allah.  When it lives according to what Allah wants.  When it views things according to the way Allah wants it to.  Thus, in order for the heart to live, its owner must be actively involved in seeking to find a way to perfect each of is actions accordingly.  He must also consistantly monitor the heart, to ensure that it is not suffering from any diseases.

Dr. Abdul Kadir ‘Audah once said, 

Our journey is the journey of the heart.

This thus indicates that, this whole life is not simply a physical journey.  A journey from a young age to become old.  Nor a path from primary school to university and in the end, to work.  Rather, it is a journey of purifiying the heart, and making sure that it is in its best condition to meet its creator.  This is the journey we need to strive for.

The heart is originally clean.  The inputs we receive from our surroundings, from our senses will fill it up.  The good, or bad, it is up to us, their owner.  Hence, we must play a very important role in ensuring that the heart is not falling into pitfals of fitnah. 

Regarding the importance of taking care of our heart, Rasulullah PBUH had said:

Truly in the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it be whole, all the body is whole and which, if it be diseased, all of it is diseased. Truly it is the heart.

We must strive hard so that our hearts are aware of Allah at all times.  This awareness should lead us closer to Allah, until we love Him more than anything and everything in this world.    If a heart is not filled with ma’rifatullah (knowledge of Allah’s characters, etc), tarbiyyah (personal development) and mahabbatullah (Allah’s love), then beware… for this type of heart may never bring its owner to paradise.

There is a story of a companion of the Prophet, Ibnu Umar, who sold a very fine camel that he had been using for a while.  His friend asked, “Why did you sold something which is very fine and may be very useful to you?”  The reply?  Ibnu Umar said that his heart had become attached to the camel, and so he must sell it.  You see, the companions view the heart as very valuable indeed, and wants to ensure that the heart is attached solely to Allah.

So… how is our heart today?

Let’s look deep inside ourselves and find out.

…Empty…

 

Null. Void. That's how I'm currently feeling…

Basically, I've been battling this feeling for a while now.

Why? Because something had been missing lately. Been missing it for nearly 2 months now. Something that normally quench this thirst. Re-charge my own battery called iman.

Yup… been missing my weekly meeting with someone lately. Someone special, could be perhaps defined as a teacher, foster mother, one of my best mentor and role model, all rolled into one. Who's that? Well… let that be my little secret. (^_~)

Hope I can refresh my iman soon… Alhamdulillah, we had managed to arrange a 'date' next week, despite her many commitments and my own very-packed-weekend. Now I can only pray that when the time comes, both of us can make it.

Really need the push to climb back up. To re-fill my heart. To push me to strive more in this road. To overcome some recent frustrations… (let it be something between me and HIM alone…)

 

Rabbi yassir wa la tu'assir…

O Lord… grant us a calm and peaceful heart, to perform our responsibilities and face all the challenges that lay ahead. Let us remain firm in this path towards You, no matter what trials that You set forth in front of us.

Ameen…

New Blog..

Assalamualaikum to all...

This is just an announcement on a new blog that I co-author.  Actually, I am only the translator (^_^).  I am currently translating previous islamic articles/ reminders (tazkirah) from another blogger, Hilal.

Basically I am quite new at translating.  So I welcome positive critisizme in order to improve my writing.  InsyaAllah, I will try and translate at least 1 article every day.  Please make a du'a that I will be able to mantain the pace.

As for the blog, welcome to visit at:

http://aim4dalight.blogspot.com/

Jewish Editor Secked For Publishing Article

An eye-opener indeed!  Not all Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jewish! (what 'bout Eigiptian President who had successfully imprisoned 100++ people who demonstraited against Israel?? Hmm..) anyways... here's the article.  Read, evaluate, and get your neurons working!  Then make your own conclusion...

This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, a American-Jewish journalist with the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the next day.

Quest for justice

By Judith Stone

I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine. It was the right thing to do.

I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child. I've visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking. Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler's holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity.

"Never again" as a motto, rings hollow when it means "never again to us alone." My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the sand. The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers. Golda Meir even assured us that there "is no Palestinian problem".

We know now this picture wasn't as it was painted. Palestine was a land filled with people who called it home. There were thriving towns and villages, schools and hospitals. There were Jews, Christians and Muslims.

In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere seven per cent of the population and owned three per cent of the land.

Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others. These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot. The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart at a moment's notice. Bulldozers levelled hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, the old and the young. This was nothing new to the world.

Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe. Israel is the final resting place of the massacred Palestinian people. A short distance from the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a levelled parking lot. Under this parking lot is what's left of a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women and children whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously. This particular burial marker reads: "Public Parking".

I've talked with Palestinians. I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison. Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no avail. On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have waited 52 years in these 'temporary' camps to go home. Every Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and where the olive trees were planted. Their grandchildren may never have been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where the village well stood. The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian terrorist. But the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes. Those who lost their lives are called martyrs. The Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist.

Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry. University professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (30 April, 1995), "The [Jewish] children of Hebron are just like Hitler's youth."

We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land, slave labour and back wages in Europe. Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?

The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian massacred be resurrected. David Ben Gurion said, "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves...politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country...".

Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people. Its cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy Hebrew signs. The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the occupiers. The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as though they never existed. And all this has been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of God. We must recognise that Israel's existence is not even a question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait accompli realised through the use of force while supported by the Western powers. The UN missions directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations of have thus far been futile.

In Hertzl's 'The Jewish State' the father of Zionism said: "We must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient." I guess I agree with Ehud Barak (3 June 1998) when he said, "If I were a Palestinian, I'd also join a terror group." I'd go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I'd hurtle a boulder.

Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not G-d's restitution of the holy land to it's rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn't come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people.

We cannot continue to say, "But what were we to do?" Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the Palestinian people. here.

10 Steps To Support Gaza

 

1) Follow up the news about what is happening in Gaza. The number of shuhada', injured people, the volume of destructions etc.

 

2) Download pictures of the massacre and distribute to your friends via print outs, e-mails, on the mobile.

 

3) Follow up on the achievements of the Palestinian resistance heroes in Gaza. What victories they achieve every day, how many soldiers they kill, how many tanks they destroy.

 

4) Call the people of Gaza tell them where you from and share with them your feelings of sympathy and support and your confidence that they will win in this war. You can call this number 009708285xxxx. Replace the x's with any number.

 

5) Paste pictures of Gaza on your notebooks, in your romm, PC desktops.

 

6) Participate in as much activities about Gaza as you can. Talks, gathering, seminars.

 

7) Organize activities on what is happening in Gaza in your neighborhood, in your collage, surau's (e.g: Organize Qiyamullai in grops especially for the people of Gaza) etc.

 

8) MAKE THIS THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPIC OF YOUR DISCUSSIONS AMONGST YOUR FRIENDS. MAKE IT THE FIRST THING AFTER GREETING THE PEOPLE YOU MEET THAT YOU TELL OR ASK ABOUT.

 

9) BOYCOTT!!! BOYCOTT!!! BOYCOTT ISRAELI & AMERICAN PRODUCTS.

 

10) REMEMBER THEM IN YOUR DO'A AND PRAYER.

 

Source: Al-Aqsa Friends Society UIAM

I am trying to do as much as I can.. but I don't think I can be able to do number (4) though... As for (8).. I'm still trying.  Trying to get my friends to care more... To the readers.. please pray for me.. to instill awareness among my friends..