Daily sketches of an akhi.

[manggahijau]

Why do I have to do it?

"There is absolutely no harm and no restriction in Islam regarding who initiates the marriage proposal." While there is nothing wrong with the idea of a man who normally initiates the proposal, it is equally acceptable for the woman to take that step instead. Simply put, it is unfair for the woman if she only have a voice to answer to a proposal and not be able to initiate one. Sadly, a number of people tend to go against this idea and opt to complain about the other gender instead. This on the other hand promotes tension, not solutions. -MHSH

[manggahijau]

Who are you?

"Sometimes people with the worst past create the best future." - Ibn Umar al Khattab

Mungkin kerana kita sering baca kisah-kisah sahabat di sekolah utk menjawab peperiksaan, ia seolah menjadi skema jawapan dan tidak lebih dari itu. Seharusnya kita lebih memahami bahawa masa silam seseorang itu tidak menentukan masa depannya. Seperti Umar berubah dari budaya Arab jahiliah yg membunuh anak perempuannya sendiri hingga menjadi insan yg merendah hati dan terkenal sebagai pemimpin yg adil dan tegas. 

Banyak lagi contoh lain yg boleh kita ambil ibrah seperti kisah Ikramah bin Abu Jahal, Amru bin Ash dan banyak lagi. Sedih sekali kalau markah di kertas sahaja apa yg kita dapat dari 11 tahun di bangku sekolah rendah dan menengah.

[manggahijau]

I almost cried.

“I hope you don’t mind but your dad and I got this for her yang. It was meant to be a surprise when you get back home. Hope you like it dear” - Mother

[manggahijau]

時間管理 (Jikan kanri)

"Akhi, why don’t you go on a holiday for a while? Visit some places and get some fresh new spirits going?” - “InsyaAllah I do plan to do so but I’ll have to wait for a break from my clinical.”

"When is that?" - "As usual, for a week around raya but turns out our passports might be held back at the immigration to process the student visa.” "Then go somewhere in Indonesia. Don’t be such a geek." - "During that period, my group have to be on 24hour on call for forensics.” "I’m tired of you and your excuses. Always busy, do you think we’re not busy? We have to make time if we really want something. Don’t just wait for it to come to you.” - “I’ll try my best.” Frankly speaking, I am not a student under any government scholarship. Contrary to popular beliefs, some of us do not get overflowing allowances from our parents. I have friends who choose to keep quiet when their parents forgot to deposit their pocket money for a month or two until they’re really broke simply because they don’t want to make parents feel bad. They’d even prefer to use their personal savings because in the end, that too is a percentage from what their parents gave. When the money does gets wired in, they’d just manage it extra strict to pay up all the savings they had to dip in before. This happens rather often. This is nothing to do with scholarships or not really. Generalizing is usually not healthy and rather bad. Its just that each and every one of us is being tested differently and we must try our best to understand each other. Lets try and walk in one’s shoes before we say something about them. I remember when one of my seniors from school told me - “Later on in life, you’ll work. Only during then you’ll learn that time is scarce. Coming home late from the office. Maybe even sleep there. Already tired, all you can think of is bed. At this point, your day starts at 7am and ends at 9pm. Each month, the office becomes your home for around 2-3 nights. When that time comes, you’ll miss the time you used to have with friends and family during college years.” Me and my friends were all - “Wait a minute. We spend our nights at the hospital twice a week. Our day starts at 6am and ends depending on the assignments given. And we’re still college students.” When the senior gave suggestions to us on how to spend our free time, he was quite surprised to know of our schedule.

At the end of the day, I realized that Allah’s plan for us are very unique and that is also why we should not expect for any of us to have the same trials as the others. Those who stand by us, we never really know what they had to go through just to be standing there. Their stories might just be harder that ours’ by a magnitude that we could not even comprehend.

Salams,

Jatinangor - 4/4/2015

[manggahijau]

Knowing what to do is not everything.

Alhamdulillah after quite a long stop, I finally have the time to start writing again. I guess its pretty much due to the fact that my skills are getting rustier by the second and I felt the need, and not only the interest to write.

There's nothing much to write for tonight, other than my newest experience tonight, which is walking from the campus to my house here in Jatinangor. Its nothing much, but because it was at midnight with temperatures enough to start shivering, with people wearing hoodies staring from afar, it really made its way seared deep into my memory. After I got home, I realized that it was around 3km, so I actually had a rather good late night workout, I guess.

[manggahijau]

Virus.

I'm a medical student so I learn a few things about these so called virus. Most of them have the same way of life, which is to enter a particular cell, duplicate so many times until they damage the host cell. Then they'll find a new host cell and repeat. At first I thought to myself, masyaAllah, these virus are destroying life as it is.

Then something came to light, we humans are like that. We are even worse if we don't give something to this world because at least the virus are just following the orders from Allah the Almighty.

Lets be useful!

[manggahijau]

Qudwah.

Baru-baru ni ada sorg junior sharing kata terima kasih pada senior dulu tunjuk ajar. Katanya dia selalu pandang senior dia sebagai contoh (dia bg nama spesifik tapi taknak tag mereka, dan saya bukan dlm list) utk jadi lebih baik pd masa depan. Saya tak kenal sangat dia ni namun amat berterima kasih kerana kini lebih tergerak utk menjaga qudwah. Kadang kita tak sedar apa impak kita pada sekitar kita, makanya kita perlu jaga perilaku. Maybe, just maybe ada je org yg ambil kita sebagai inspirasi.

Kita mungkin perlekehkan perkara ni, namun orang yg kita ambil sebagai inspirasi dlm hidup kita kini, dia tau ke? The same might be happening to us.

[manggahijau]

Something happened.

Lets just say something really unexpected happened. Well then, thats the end of this entry. For now.

[manggahijau]

Kejar Dia ke siapa ni?

Dalam banyak hal manusia ini sanggup melaburkan duit dan masa. Kepercayaan ini ada yang memberikan pulangan di dunia, ada pula yang memerlukan kepercayaan yang lebih sedikit dari sekadar itu. Yakni perlu mempercayai bahawa ada kuasa yang tidak boleh dilihat dengan mata kasar tapi dengan mata hati. Ianya lebih besar dan segala pelaburan tersebut akan terbalas saat kita benar-benar memerlukan.

Pada ketika itu, sekiranya kita membuka mata, kita akan sedar bahawa kita berada pada arah yang berbeza dari yang lain. Jalan yang kita lalui bakal penuh dengan onak dan duri. Namun kita juga akan sedar bahawa dunia sedang mengejar kita. Beban yang tertanggung pada pundak perlu dilepaskan agar mampu mengorak langkah dengan lebih kukuh dan pantas.

Berlari ke sana, yang sini akan pula berlari mengejar kita.

Aku di sini ingin menjadi insan di atas. Dunia ini tak mampu memenuhi segala apa yang aku mahukan kerana apa yang aku mahukan ialah selesa selamanya! Salahkah aku inginkan ketenangan? Kerana pada hakikatnya aku perlu akui bahawa aku pasti akan mati dan aku akan masuk ke dalam neraka atau syurga. Aku bakal selesa atau siksa. Hanyalah fitrah manusia mahukan yang baik dan tenang.

Allah dah bagi aku jalan dan cara, cuma aku perlu turuti. Subhanallah sayanglah Allah pada makhlukNya!

[manggahijau]

Taxi! Taxi! (Malay Language)

Pernah perlu ambil taksi tapi rasa keberatan bukan hanya kerana risaukan kos tetapi khuatir ditipu pemandu dan dibawa melewati jalan yang lebih jauh, lama dan akhirnya perlu bayar berlipat kali ganda berbanding apa yang seharusnya? Ataupun lebih parah lagi apabila berjaya mendapat satu taksi untuk berhenti di bahu jalan tetapi setelah ditanyakan apakah boleh ke destinasi yang dituju, terus diberi harga dan enggan menggunakan meter? Terfikir sebentar sebelum menutup pintu - 'Kalau aku menolak, entah dapat ke tidak taksi lain. Kalau dapat yang guna meter, entah dibohong hingga bayar lebih tinggi dari yang ditawarkan.' Akhir sekali kita menolak dengan harapan pemandu itu hentikan kegiatannya yang tidak sihat itu, atau kita duduk dan tutup pintu dengan keengganan kerana merasa bukan sahaja ditipu tapi seperti kita telah menggalakkan lagi fenomena isi. Sekiranya anda tidak pernah, saya pernah. Pulang ke rumah, saya berbincang hal ini dengan kedua orang tua dan tanyakan pendapat mereka. Mereka membuka dengan sebuah pengalaman bagaimana keadaan taksi di Kyoto, Jepun saat mereka ke sana. MashaAllah, benar sungguh kata orang bahawa kini lebih mudah ketemu nilai seorang muslim dalam mereka yang bukan muslim, dan sebaliknya. Sebelum bertolak, si pemandu akan minta alamat sekiranya ada, kemudian dimasukkan dan cari jalan paling cepat dan mudah untuk ke sana, destinasi ini dikonfirmasi lagi sebelum menyatakan harga. Semua ini dilakukan dihadapan kita. Setelah semua dah jelas, akan dinyatakan estimasi untuk waktu perjalanan dan jumlah bayaran. Hanya setelah setuju akan dia memulakan perjalanan. Indahnya saat adab dan teknologi serasi dan sehaluan. Ijab kabul dalam perniagaan itu perlu jelas, ini telah ditekankan dalam ajaran Islam namun ramai yang memandang enteng hal ini dan akibatnya adalah semakin banyak kes penipuan, dari tipu jual rumah, kereta hinggalah transaksi online. P/S: Maaf sekiranya ada salah info, ini adalah info sekunder. Namun, terdapat banyak pengajaran yang terselit dan pada saya kita perlu menuju ke sebuah umat yang mengambil serious akan semua ini. Sekian, semoga bermanfaat.

[manggahijau]

Indirectly.

When I first heard that India is sending a probe to The Red Planet, I googled it and turns out the news was right on that matter. This then made me rethink and from what I remember, India was a country in which the people there are suffering so much until cases of gangrape became quite often in certain areas. Poverty was a common sight, and yet they still want to go on with the program that will cost them $73 billion?

To me, the leaders are indirectly saying - "We believe that the space program is much more crucial than your current condition of poverty, healthcare and even hunger. This program will benefit us all and it is the right thing to do."

Once, I also came across a meme saying that after he knew India had a space program, he stopped sending aid to the countries' poor and will focus on another that really needs help and not just acting as if they need any.

This reminded me on a case back in my own country where a woman who apparently received zakat every now and then. (For your information, zakat is a tax-charity-like system that runs in all Islamic rule. There is a few types, such as zakat for the gold that one has, income zakat, and even a compulsory yearly one. This will then be divided among asnafs, which is those who are eligible to receive help from the zakat). This woman was an asnaf on paper but word traveled that she was actually rich. Officers from that zakat department then paid her a visit and checked her savings. To their awe, it was even bigger than those of the officers'.

A simple answer was given from the woman - "I want to perform my hajj."

That woman was not wrong in wanting to perform her hajj, maybe nobody told her that it was not compulsory for everyone, it is only for those who are capable of going - both physically and economically.

Sorry India, but your space program clearly shows that you are capable of taking care of your people, you only choose not to.

P/S: I also saw on Facebook than Indonesia is planning to send a man into space too, don't know how far this is true though, will look back into it soon.

Picture taken from lowyat.net

[manggahijau]

The Journey.

There is always that special something that just would not let you down regardless of what happened. Some of sees this clearly while others might need more time to notice that. Regardless to say, most of this is closely related to that one mysterious element of love. Let it be love from a mother, a brother/sister or most importantly, Allah the Almighty.

Yes, I am a muslim but no I am no terrorist. Those is Palestine and Syria that is being butchered day after day, they are my brothers and sisters. Call it whatever you may want to but I want freedom for them in their own land.

The main reason I made this tumblr is because I simply adore to write. Sometimes I'd find myself writing down my memories, my opinions or even just a silly made up story. I find this to be quite relaxing and so it would be very unwise to let this all go and bottle it up. The internet can be an awesome place for me to channel this so that I may always have a relaxed mind.

Lastly, before I end this first post, I would like to say Alhamdulillah, which means all praises to Allah.

This is just me around a year ago at a local cafe-bistro.

Picture taken by Isaac Ishak of Nottingham Semenyih.