Living life and striving to improve our lot against all odds.

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

Ramadhan Mubarak to all Muslims.

Dear brothers and sisters.

I pray that you are in the best of health and if you aren’t, to be in hope for either the Mercy of Almighty Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala to be upon you and that whatever ailment it is that is besieging you to be the Kifarah for your sins and mistakes that you might have committed knowingly or otherwise?

Now, you might want to argue that you have not sinned even once in your life and that it is unjust for God Almighty to punish you for no fault of yours in making you suffer like that?

Well, life can be very challenging at times for some but would we know what God has in store for us?

Would we even bother to ask for a second as to why we are even here on Earth in the first place?

Surely, the Almighty Creator knows best as to why He chooses to test us with this and that ailment, condition or problem?

To me as a Muslim Caller to Islam, I have reached a stage where whatever comes to me, I am able to react after giving some thought to the consequences but even then at times, the baser side of my being comes up and I react with brutish behaviour fuelled by my ever erupting ego?

I would have been worse in my reactions has it not been for my being able to pull up the brakes internally due to my getting to perform my solats and worshipping Allah Azza Wa Jalla?

Alhamdulillah!

I recall some past moments in my life when I was not that inclined towards my faith of Islam.

I used to live as I pleased and when my elder brother who was a follower of the Tabligh movement called me to pray, I rebuked him and told him to mind his own bloody business!!!

There was always a sort of a cold war brewing between myself and my elder brother Abdul Aziz from my early childhood. Hehehehe…

You know, sibling rivalry and all that?

We used to fight every now and then over the simplest of things. All that is in the past and there is nothing either of us can do about it?

I went through my phases of growing up on my own. I studied Islam from this and that Ustaz and whenever possible attended the many ‘majlis ilmu‘ that was held by them in the various masjids and suraus in Penang and Seberang Perai.

Over the years, I have come to accumulate some sense of knowledge about Islam and also after I studied about my faith on my own.

My findings at times can be said to be revolutionary but when I put my views forth to the ulamaks and alims, I would usually find them to be in agreement with what I have come to conclude but at times would also be taught to see those issues in a different perspective altogether.

Frankly speaking, being a Muslim entails one to be continuously striving against one’s ego by submitting one’s body and soul to Allah the Almighty throughout the day and night!

It’s not easy to force one’s ego to submit to the Creator.

When Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala commands us to Ruqu‘ @ bow with those who bow, it takes effort for those amongst us who are not used to do that to comply with lowering of one’s ever egoistic head to bring it parallel to one’s posterior, effectively normalizing the ego to a stage of submission to the Almighty Lord.

The order for us to prostrate before Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala sees mankind place his or her egoistic head down to the lowest level upon the Earth before our God!

At this stage of our worship, to those who really understand the reasons for our solat @ prayer, there would no longer be any sense of ego inside of him or her still after the prayer!

The ego would have been annihilated totally for that period of our life …… only to resurface again when we are away from the remembrance of Him, Ar Rahman Ar Raheem, our Lord and Supreme Master.

Such is the Muslim’s way of life. Living between the 5 daily prayers and the supplementary prayers to make up for any deficiencies in our main solats.

It’s an ever continuous exercise in taming of our Nafs @ the Ego.

The ever growing ego that has been imbued in us Mankind by the Lord Who when creating us had tempered such ego in Hellfire for eons of years before fusing it into our Ruuh.

The story of the Nafs has been told by the Alims and the Ulamaks who delve into the mysteries of Tasawwuf and told to their mureeds over the centuries.

I for one learned about it from my syaikhs and my own studies from the religious books authored by the learned scholars of Islam.

I am still and forever will be a student of Islam despite the ‘authoritative moniker’ as a commenter to my blog recently puts it that I chose as my blogging ID when I first started my journey through Blogosphere?

I didn’t even think of the ‘scandal’ that such an ID would cause?

I just wanted to be a teacher to those who have yet to come to learn about Islam and learn from this perpetual student all that he himself has come to get to know about the faith and I myself fear that I have just sort of barely scratched the surface of the Oceans of Knowledge that Islam has to offer to its seekers?

So if there are those out there who think that its mighty pompous of this speck of dust to even consider myself to be anything as grand as such a moniker comes to present, please understand that this servant of Allah the Almighty does not and never has ever thought of myself to be nothing more than an Abdillah?

Na’uzubillah! May Allah forbid!

The numerals at the back of the id is the year of my birth. 1958.

Insya Allah, I will turn 50 in this early part of October, if I still am to live by the Will of Allah?

Life my dear brothers and sisters is a series of adjustments that we make in our life.

If goodness comes to us, praise the Lord and offer Him your gratitude.

If it is otherwise and we are stricken with this and that calamity, what else can we do except to accept our situation and learn to go with the flow?

It’s not like we can reverse anything that takes place, can we?

I screwed up many times in my youth and did some really stupid acts like smashing a glass mug with my bare hand in accepting a challenge from a now dead kampong mate back in the late 70s!

As a result I severed my right wrist and nearly died as a result if not for the quick actions of an alim who stopped the spouting stream of blood from my severed wrist with just the dab of saliva from the top of his mouth after reciting a prayer?

That was the last thing I remembered before passing out.

When I came to, I was in the Penang General Hospital’s surgical ward recuperating after an emergency operation where the doctors had reattached most of my severed tendons and blood veins and nerves.

I lost the grip of my right hand and have to accept the consequences of having succumbed to my damn ego! I had to learn to write using my left hand and am now quite adept at it.

My days of eating using my right hand came to pass and ever since 1978, I have been forced to use the fork and spoon. Such is the consequence of succumbing to my ego for one split second way back then?

I had actually passed the first interview for police inspector intake back then after my SPM but then my stupid mistake cost me dearly and my life changed.

I always had this dream of being a police officer but then my dreams to be one has just to remain so?

That might be why I still have the highest respect for good police officers and choose to not dwell on the mistakes and slip ups of a few black sheep amongst the force?

30 long years have now passed and I can just say that I have no regrets for all that has happened in my life?

The good, the bad and the uglies. Life is what we make it to be goes the saying but then again it could have been different if I had someone to coach and guide me back then?

Someone whom I could trust and follow?

Anyway, that’s all in the past and no amount of sighing over it or worrying is going to change what life has given me now, can it?

I can’t do anything to change my situation except to just go with the flow and live my life as it unfolds?

Some of my readers email me their problems and ask me for my advice?

I sympathize with them and when possible do share with them what I have come to learn about handling such issues and to try and solve their problems.

I mean, it’s encouraged for us to help one another and be a source of support and help them out in any way that we can?

Insya Allah. Where there’s a will; there will surely be a way, right?

This is myself with my 2 year old ‘cucu saudara‘ Aina Batrisya. She is the daughter of my wife’s niece.

She lives in Kemaman, Terengganu and often comes to my in law’s place @ her grandmother’s home to attend thanksgiving feasts and majlis tahlil’s which are often held regularly at Kuantan.

Aina usually has an attitude where she will be like in a ‘frosted state’ and will take some time to ‘defrost’ and warm up to me. Hehehehe…

I have become used to her situation and usually allow her some time to get chummy with ‘Atok Uncle’ @ a term coined by another granddaughter in law of mine. Sarah.

Sarah’s father is Nazreen Cheong Abdullah. At first glance, no one will ever figure out that Sarah has a Malay mother? My niece in law.

Its always fun to be back in Kuantan, my in laws kampong that is just on the verge of Kuantan.

There are lots of my wife’s nephews and nieces there and its pure joy to be with them and watch their antics.

Here are a few of them celebrating Merdeka last week.

I managed to shoot this video of them singing their hearts out on Merdeka night!

Amir Rafik, Aina Batrisya’s elder brother and our genius whiz kid who is the ‘King of the Questioners’. Hehehehe…

He is always asking me questions after questions and even though at first it was quite a bore for me to keep up with his barrage of ‘Why’s?’, it eventually dawns on me that I must answer him for who knows that I might drop dead soon and no longer be around for him and all our other ‘cucu’s’?

Members of our family relaxing after the Majlis Tahlil @ ‘Remembrance Prayers’ for our departed loved ones.

I miss them all, may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala have mercy on their souls. I miss Arwah Babah so much that I couldn’t contain my tears when we visited our family cemetery at Kuantan recently.

We couldn’t make it to his funeral for the rising flood waters had cut us off at the East Coast Highway then.

May Almighty Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala forgive us of our sins and accept our Saum @ fasting and our Solats @ Prayers and accord to us what He deems as our just rewards or punishments?

Verily, we are all susceptible to committing errors yet we are given our chances to redeem ourselves 5 times a day and keep striving to improve our lot to the last moment of our lives?

Insya Allah.

Wabillahi Taufik Wal Hidayah.

Wassalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Ta’ala Wabarakatuh.

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