The Deen is Sincerity

On the authority of Tameem ad-Daaree radhiyallahu ‘anhu, the Prophet sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The religion is sincerity, the religion is sincerity, the religion is sincerity.”  They said, “To who, O Messenger of Allah?”  He said, “To Allah, and His Book, and His Messenger, and the Imaams (leaders) of the muslims, and their common folk.” (Sahih Muslim, The Book of Faith, No. 98)

O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful (al-Hujura̅t, 49:12).

Last week, for three days in my life, I had a taste of ‘being interrogated’.  Questions on my activities with my juniors here with regards to their da’wah and tarbiyyah, on how I treated my children, on my ibadah and even my intention to having started the halaqah in my home in the first place, were posted to me in an inappropriate manner.  This was not the first time.  I had had this before, years back, in 2003.  So 10 years later, I came face to face again with the same matter.  Did I mention how it made me feel?  Imagine a person who does not know you, come to your house without a notice, by pass the head of the family, starts to reorganize your things and when you served them food, though knowing you are a Muslim, this person asked if the food is halal. That was how I felt.

I tried really hard not to think about the story of one of the Prophet’s companion who went to Madinah.  This companion, radhiyallahu ‘anhu, wanted to pray.  He went to a Christian woman’s house and asked if her house was pure.  This woman answered, “Purify your heart and pray anywhere you like.”

Was it a bad person that came to meet me?  No!  They are good people who want to do good things- for Islam.  They did not come from any governments but they did come from a system that wants to govern.  A system that forms student circles and teaches them about Islam and inspiring them of what they can and need to do to exalt Islam.  All is good as far as that goes. 

But things become nasty when we lost sight of the bigger picture.  When our focus is to get people to follow our way, our method, our modul, our style, our group instead of focusing on people following Islam! With this subtle change of focus hence begin the rhetorical da’wah.  We start to focus on number of members that we have under our wings because now that becomes the measuring stick.  The more members we have, the better our group is, the superior we are compared to others, our methods must be the right one to be used. 

The rhetorical da’wah creates an invisible net that each of us cast upon our targeted mad’u, the people that we are calling to Islam.  Everyone wants the big fish, the ready-to-go person.  We start to pick and choose.  We want the easy target.  We do not want those who questions too much either because i) they do not know enough; or ii) because they know a little bit and are critical.  Hence begin another disgusting game of member snatching.

The word snatch in itself is powerful and happens in split second may be.  But these ‘people of da’wah’, their minds are trained, their behaviours are trained, their responses are trained and they are trained to be patient.  They did not come and grab in one go.  They come, they assess the situation, they get closer and try to know you but then, instead of fortifying the locally existing da’wah works, they want their share of the people. 

While many did not realize this, they are taking the route of ‘the end justifies the means’.  They unconsciously throw out the windows all the adab in pursuing their passion to bring people to Islam the way they think is the only correct way.  Where did our respect go to the leader of that local community?  When was it permissible to lobby one person after another to get our goal fulfilled when shura, a unanimous consensus, is the way of Prophet sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam? 

Sneaking has become our character in doing rhetorical da’wah so much so that we are not troubled by it.  In fact it is being nurtured in us that we are sneaking around even in our personal life.  Just because the technology allows us to go on anyone Facebook and look into their ‘life’ as to who are their friends and family, what right did we have to go behind their back and contact these people for our own benefit?  This is not a character of the Prophet sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.  He will not make gestures with his eyes although a person who was standing in front of him was supposed to be beheaded.  Instead he ended up forgiving and showing mercy though he did not like it.  That is the character of the man who preached Islam day and night till his last breath.  He was clear, concise and true.  He was an open book.  That is the character of the man who we all claim we are following his footsteps in doing our da’wah.

Islam is inclusive instead of exclusive.  We want people to accept Islam at their own paces and build them up to reach the peak of iman.  By casting our nets only on the big fish: those who are ready to do da’wah, those who want to attend halaqahs, those who has Islamic education background, those who has the potential of being our next cadet, that will propagate our way, we are losing a hundred people for each person that we ‘catch’.  We need to acknowledge the disparity of understanding that exist amongst us and try to find a middle ground as a community.  Likewise, we must respect another community when they have established their middle ground.

I plead and beg of us to PLEASE stop this rhetorical da’wah and focus on the sincere da’wah.  There is no glory in winning more people at the expense of losing the barakah, the blessings from Allah in our efforts to bring people back to Islam.

I do not see the need for us to go and try to meddle into a local community as long as they are not going against Islam.  Rasulullah built a masjid in Quba when there were only six muslims there.  Why?  In my opinion, it was for them to have a sense of community hence a sense of belonging.  On the other hand, Allah asked Rasulullah to destroy Masjid ad-Dirar that was built by the hypocrites because this masjid was built more for a show than to build the people’s faith in Allah.  I believe that once the masjid (read: Islamic community) has been established, we have no right to come and overrule their leader and start to boss people around, as subtly as we may be in so doing, it is wrong- simply wrong.  If they already have their halaqah, what is the need for us to create more halaqahs for them?  We can advise, again advise them on what they can do but do not dictate what they should do.  We think we are doing a good thing but we are carving notches in their community and sooner or later, we will break them apart.  And from my previous experiences, we will not be there to catch them because then we will be busy casting our nets to catch the next da’ee wannabe.

First: Get the Concept Right

The majority of men, 54%, think about sex everyday or several times a day according to Kinsey Institute’s study in 2007 while 43% of men think about sex a few times per month or a few times per week and 4% of men think about sex less than once a week. Mind you there are numerous factors that can make a man sexually attracted to a woman. It can go way beyond a perfectly sculpted-like body shape. It can be a woman’s sense, the way she pronounces a certain word, her voice, the tone of her voice, the way she moves and the list goes on an on even to how a women bites an apple does!
In the time when Islam was new to the Arabs, they still held on to the practice of going to relieved themselves either in the late night or early in the morning before the breaking of a dawn. During that time, if a woman was a slave, she was nothing more than a chair or other households in her master’s home. Thus she was never respected and any man who was sexually aroused would simply attack her and satisfied his needs. Unfortunately sometimes the women that were attacked were not slaves, they were independent. Moreover after the arrival of Islam, Muslims were forbidden from any out-of-wedlock relationships. Thus Allah sent down the verse first from surah al-Ahzab verse 59:
O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
This came after the first restriction from speaking too complacently in the same surah verse 32 and 33. Hence the regulation of hijaab was sent down by Allah so that women were not looked at as a sex symbol. Hijaab was never meant to cover a woman’s feminity but her sexuality. It was not a symbol her being owned like in the Judeo-Christianity; a woman was asked to put on her head scarf after she was married as a symbol of her uphelding her husband while the husband upheld the Church!
Currently we can see many women making a decision to put on their hijaab. From a nobody on the street to public figures such as popular celebrities wide ranging from actresses, singers, news anchors, program hostess up to our lady ministers. There are many announcements being made on how and why they put on the hijaab. This is indeed a positive turn we have long waited. Unfortunately there are slight misconception between covering one’s hair and covering one’s awrah (forbidden parts of body from being seen by others).
The awrah of a woman is her whole body save her face and her hands up to her wrists. From this stems the compulsion of hijaab by Allah in Surah an-Nur verse 31:
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O you Believers! You turn altogether toward Allah, that you may attain Bliss.
We must first understand the reason of this compulsion and why did Allah send this verses to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Woman as herself is very attractive to men. Thus the idea of hijaab was not to confine women but to protect them so as to enable them to walk freely without being looked at lewdly by men who have bad intentions towards women as well as to gain respect for themselves. The concept of hijaab does not stop at covering one’s hair; it goes deeper and further than that.
Covering one’s awrah should protect oneself from being insulted. As for clothing is concern, the clothes must cover the whole body except the face and hands up to the wrists, the head cover must be extended to cover the breasts, the attire must be loose and doesn’t show a woman’s shape or curves, the fabric used must be thick enough not to expose the skin colour and the colour must be decent and not too attractive to others like bright orange or red, there should not be any ornaments that can draw attention like bangles with bells or glittering embroidery on the clothes and the women should not put on too much perfume that will draw men’s attention towards them.
Then it extended to the way of conduct. A woman should not speak with melancholia or soften her voice in allurement. She should speak politely and at the tone that is sufficient to her audience. She should not move around in such a way that men find her sexy.
In short, the dress code for women in Islam is that she should be different from men so that when you see her you need not think twice as to whether or not she is a woman or a Muslim and secondly the dress and her way of conduct included, should not make her sexy.
The scenario today however is very off-polar from what Islam has long out-lined. Women really do not put on a hijaab. They only cover their hair. Thus we have many women putting on a sheer scarf on their hair where the front hair is protruding from the scarf, some put on a bonnet-like hair covers with floral knitting, some put on gypsy-like scarf where their earrings are purposely let out to be seen, many do not cover their bosoms, they put on almost transparent kaftan and wear a tight body-wrapping singlet inside. Those who were shy before putting on ‘hijaab’ now dare to move and sway their body in front of their thousands audience saying that they feel more confident now than ever, wrongly using the statement that a hijaab actually frees a woman instead of confining her. Yes a hijaab frees a woman but not that kind of cheap freedom! Some even go too far as giggling and caressing their body in front of audience until it is nothing different from a woman on the street that is subjected to prostitution.
The lack of knowledge, understanding and responsibilities toward hijaab have made women nowadays being insulted even when they have put on their head coverings because these women are only covering their hair and nor their awrah as a hijaab is really meant to be. Thus it is timely for us to take a step back and look deeply into the fundamental concept of a hijaab with a crystal clear mind. Henceforth we should practice what has been ordained by Allah with our sincerest heart that He will accept our submission to His law not to any fashion call or trend setting.

Fight, Fight Right, Fight Right Now

If you know yourself and you know your enemy, in any battle you can tell if you are going to win or lose.
-Sun Tzu-
I am aware that cancer is near and around but when an aunt’s mother is diagnosed as having colon cancer it strikes me how cancer really is closer to home than I think it is. Having the chance to visit her I asked how she is doing and dealing with the chemotherapy sessions. She has completed four out of six scheduled sessions and fighting it with a lion heart.
Taking a step back and evaluating the whole chronology of her getting to this point I make a conclusion the real enemy is not the cancer itself but us as a person. It is a bliss that she finally listens to her daughter to get a check up after complaining consistently of a stomach ache, indigestion and irregular bowling. Before that she keeps holding on to the fact it is a normal thing to happen to her and that it will go sooner or later. She even has this idea that the pain is of a witch crime and demands to be taken to a shaman for treatments.
After diagnosis and put into chemotherapy program she did complain a lot in the beginning but her daughter has persuaded her that it is necessary for her to go through the process to get better and that she must change her psychology if she wants to get better faster.
It has always been us who jeopardize ourselves and well being. It is understood that the carcinogens in the environment including the food we are taking is developing very fast and increasing in numbers year after year. Thus we should be aware of the potential of us being strike by cancer at any time. Should we be stricken by cancer it better happens when we are ready an on guard to combat it. We do not want to be hit in the dark.
Let us start from an individual to begin with. We cannot deny the fact that nowadays everyone has a general idea about cancer and obtaining any more details is not at all impossible. Yet the information stays as information and only occasionally transfers into knowledge and used in life for good.
Each of us know we should have at least three sessions of twenty minutes exercise per week but how many put this into action. Make it a point to exercise. Mentioning exercise alone would make a person frown and pout.
“I am healthy as I am,” will be the reasoning.
Some said they are happy with their size although obviously they are obese and others are just shy for no apparent reasons. Exercise is seen as a strenuous activity and meant only for those who wanted to be athletes, fat people and people with certain disease that requires them to exercise as treatments or just for those who wanted to show off they are healthy. With a mentality like this it is going to take a long time before that paradigm shift of a healthier living and lifestyle can take place.
Another interesting outburst of rejection is when we want to start healthy eating. The idea of healthy eating has always been eating tasteless, bland food when actually there is more to it.
We should eat to keep us living, not to kill ourselves by putting in more ‘poison’ that will enrich and bring to life the ‘monster’ that is already in us, waiting for the right time to get up and hit us hard. There is nothing wrong with all the food should it be boiled, steamed or even deep fried. You can have everything that you want yet eat for pleasure. Do not eat excessively that is where the devils lie. Eat moderately and we can eat for many years to come.
These two points explain a lot of why people easily choose slimming pills to lose weight only to realize the pills cause them cancer later on.
The government and many responsible bodies are trying their best to lower the risk of people having cancer by promoting various campaigns and never stop to create public awareness. Many pamphlets are distributed on how we can avoid ourselves from cancer. Other than exercise and eating well there is self examination.
We should not be shy to examine ourselves or have it checked by trained medical staffs. It is of a magnanimous importance to detect cancer as early as possible before it is too late. Some are reluctant to have themselves examined because they believe if they do not search for it, they will not have to find it. Why ones should wastes his money for a check up when he is seemingly perfectly healthy? This way of thinking must be discarded at once if we really are moving towards a healthy nation as a developing country towards 2020.
It will be unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with cancer but giving up is not an option. Many researches have been carried out to cure cancer and the medical field has soared with the findings through science and technology. In fighting cancer it is not just the science but psychology as well. While the science fight the cancer only a strong will heart can make it effective and curing. It is after all, mind over body.
Looking it from multiple angles of perspectives the solution seems to stem from one source: education and can only be sustained if we are willing to change our attitude towards it and a little discipline to walk hand in hand. Starting something that is right in any case is not easy. However we do not have to do it alone. And since everything comes down to what we see and how we see it, a little twist of mind to tune it into a more positive one is timely.
We must first understand that we are all potential cancer victims. The hazard is already there but we are in full capacity of keeping the risks at the lowest level possible.
Exercise does not have to be strenuous, it can be a joyful moment of us spending some time alone with ourselves and it is reported that those who has enough time for themselves becomes more productive at work, a better spouse/ partner and a more confident person.
If we are the type that enjoys company, we can always kill two birds with one stone. Take our family or friends out for exercise. Besides getting healthier we can spend more quality time together.
For a beginning choose a simple exercise like brisk walking or jogging or something fun like aerobic does the trick.
As for eating, vary the colours. Take more vegetables and fruit. Reduce the fat and carbohydrates. The presentation of the dish is as essential as its preparation. Train our children to choose a healthier food over junk food. For instance a slice of honey dew as a substitute of a bar of chocolate and a glass of carrot juice instead of a can of bicarbonate drinks.
Until today my parents never cease to encourage us in taking healthy food. My father always cut some fruits and has them arranged in a plate so beautiful I cannot help myself from wanting to reach for a slice and taste it. So it goes for vegetables. When cooking my mother used to ask us to help her in the kitchen with the vegetables and during the session she will intrigue our mind with how delicious the vegetables are that our mouths are watering before the dish is served.
I have continued Self Breast Examination after an introduction to breast cancer in school and understand its importance. There is no harm to taking a precautious step. If something is going to happen is it not better that we catch it red handed and get rid of it instantaneously? If that is not a very pleasing idea, change the way you see it. Look at it as a confirmation that we are perfectly healthy and have more reasons to count our blessings. If money is the issue I can assure you that falling sick requires more than you can imagine once it occurs.
In taking medication, I would suggest that we restrict ourselves to well researched, qualified and certified products trusted by medical staffs or stick to prescribed medicine only. It is not worth gambling your health. What is the use of having a slim body and suffer for intestinal cancer or even a kidney failure?
Nothing is impossible if we put our mind into it. It is about making a choice. We should take our time to nurture our body and pay attention to its demand on us. When we have found and understood the real culprit, fighting it is no longer a battle. We must fight the I-do- not- care attitude, fight it right and fight it right now. Together we will win this battle against attitude cancer.

Pen It Down

Not many of us enjoy writing as much as we enjoy reading. Some said they just do not have the ideas while others confess they just do not know how to write! Well of course if we want to compare our writings to those who are experts we can straightforwardly say we do not know how to write (like them) or we cannot write (like them). But this has nothing to do with comparing our writing to anyone’s but just to write.
No matter how good or bad we are as a writer, looking at the increasing crave for justified reading materials nowadays amongst the society, the call to write is outreaching to each and everyone especially us who has devoted our life (hopefully) in the cause of da’wah.
One of the training that we received in our movement is to read and we read a lot! We read many books. Some of them are discussed in our weekly usrah or reviewed by our friends. What happens to those books that are not discussed or reviewed? What about different books that we read from others? Much of the contents of the many good books are sooner or later forgotten because we do not keep a good record of it. This is a good point to start writing, to record. You can save a lot of your time and others’ as well if you keep a good record of the books you have read. It can be a simple record consisting of the title, author, publisher and essential content of the book or quotes from the book if you like that inspires you or change you in anyway. It doesn’t need to be written in a form of an article, you can simply make it in a point form. And please have a special file or hard cover book for this purpose or you will lose your momentum to record when you keep losing them.
If you want to elongate your record and may be just to warm up your writing skill, you can start commenting on the book. Write in article form on how a book affects you and to what extent does it do so? Perhaps you will relate this to the current reality of your life if possible and through that you can record your thoughts and feelings about certain issues.
Keep all your writings in an organized file. Get back to it time after time and you will learn about yourself. When you might ‘sound’ aggressive, emotional and rhetorical at the age of 17 to 20 you may be more rational and support your arguments with better and reliable facts in your 21-25 years old writings. May be you will have more courage to offer solution to bigger issues when you are in your late twenties or early thirties. Silently these writings will serve as your self-retrospection tool. From these writings alone you can understand how you have changed over years and have your changes taken a positive turns, negative turns or have you been on a roller coaster?
Do not worry about getting your writings published. First get some friends to read them and may be you can just share them with your usrah-mates. Have them comment on your writings and don’t feel unmotivated should their comment be a little too hard. Take it positively that they are helping you to improve and they actually expect you to write better. If the comments are overwhelming perhaps you should think of sending them to magazines, newspapers or publishers. If you are fortunate and get published your writings will serve as one of your source of income.
Looking beyond monetary benefits, once you are published and known to the society, it will help a lot in conveying to others about Islam as a way of life thus writing now serve as a tool of da’wah. We are now fighting with those who are well-trained and skillful in writing and using their advantages to spread misleading arguments and judgments about Islam in papers and magazines and even published materials. It is not just about us writing anymore but about us trying to fight for the truth to prevail. An eye for an eye, we are taught, thus a wrong article demands for one right article to straighten it and who should write it up if not us who has been trained for years to sought the truth and spread it, who has been taught to read various books multi-crossing fields. We are running out of time now and out there the plea for defense again Islam through writings is agonizing loud and clear. Stop wondering whether or not you can write excellently. Put on your thinking cap as soon as possible and if you are writing for the cause of Allah surely He will help you to pen it down!