The Holy Quran, Mr. Ikhlas and Katmir the Dog - Man's Best Friend

There he goes... Mr. Ikhlas and His Doggy Tales.

Mr. Ikhlas and His Dogs

My neighbourhood of Damansara Heights is full of government pensioners. Most have found a sedate happy post-work life, and many like to frequent the mosque here, the Umar al-Khattab mosque, named after a boon Companion of the Prophet and 2nd Caliph ul Islam. Respectable and a quiet lot, I was surprised to be 'adopted' by one of the retirees named Mr. Ikhlas. One morning, he saw me having tea alone at my favourite Indian-Muslim restaurant, so he asked whether he could join me. It all began from there.

Since then he has shared with me some of his history and I found him to be an interesting subject, full of nuggets of experiences and hard-earned wisdom. It would be a long post if I was to write about everything he told me, but today I would like to share with you his life-long love for dogs.

Mr. Ikhlas would like to have a Husky breed one day.
I am not surprised, the Huskies look gorgeous. 

"I had nine dogs when I was young!" He happily recounted, "My father's land in the kampung (village) was quite large and we needed them. But they were not just watchdogs, they were also my pets. This did not go down entirely well with my late mother. She used to tell me to stop petting and playing with them so often. Malays have a particular cultural aversion to canine that goes  beyond the religious edicts of Islam. But one day a cleric from the northern state of Perlis paid us a visit, and he found me with my favourite dog. Immediately he came by and stroked my dog's head, musing 'What a beautiful dog!'. After that clerical approval, my mother stopped nagging me about my dogs." Thus he told me, with his eyes smiling at his distant but happy childhood memories.

"Even nowadays I am fond of dogs although I don't keep one presently. Why, I love to talk to them. After all, you know that our neighbourhood is full of dogs (Yes, it's true.). I would stop by and talk to any that I come across." Then he chuckled as he concluded, "My neighbours must find me a strange character when they see me talking to their dogs. But dogs understand us, you see. Let me tell you an interesting story..."

He took a sip from his glass of water and continued, "One evening, while I was sitting in my porch I heard one of my sons shout out - 'Hey dad, here he comes agaaain...!' Then without any warning, my neighbour's dog, an enormous German Shepherd plonked his huge hairy head on my lap - Much to the surprise and consternation of my Chinese contractor who was doing some work at our house! Then I saw that the poor dog was crying, he had tears running down from his eyes. I immediately asked, "What's wrong then, old boy? Are you hungry?" To which the dog sadly nodded his reply. So I got off my backside and straight away went to the kitchen to find him some food to eat. The next morning I saw my neighbour in his compound, he was returning from somewhere. So I told him - 'Please, next time if you go outstation, make sure that there is someone to feed your dog. Yesterday the poor fellow came to me hungry and crying!' The neighbour was surprised but he did promise to do so from then on."

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The Dogs that Came One Night

The preceding story sets just nicely for my own doggy tale. After a spat of burglaries around my office, we decided to install an alarm system. About 2 months later I was awoken by the ringing of my cellphone at 4am. It was the office alarm! Something triggered it! So I got dressed quickly and half awake I drove to my office. A block away I could already hear the ear-piercing siren of my office alarm. When I arrived, the streets were empty save for a gang of dogs hanging about the entrance to my office. "What the...?!" I remember thinking. The dogs let me pass and I cautiously made my way to the stairwell (my office is on the 1st floor). I was startled when suddenly, as I was about to ascend the stairs, a black-white spotted mongrel came traipsing down. "What the...?!" I thought again.

I unlocked my office and disarmed the alarm. There was no one there and nothing was disturbed. Something must have fallen from the desk or shelves, or perhaps maybe a small mice may have triggered the internal motion sensors. But I am ever grateful to the gang of dogs and especially to that black-white boss dog who heard the alarm and stood guard outside my office door before I arrived.

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Katmir the Dog and the Seven Sleepers

In the Holy Quran (and also partly covered in the Bible) there is a tale of the seven sleepers and the dog that took refuge in a cave from the dictate of a tyrant and a city of disbelievers. For hundreds of years they slept, accompanied and guarded by the dog. The dog, for his loyalty, along with the seven faithful sleepers were promised heaven. Some Muslims figured that the name of the dog is al-Rakim, for in the Quran verse 18:9, this was written:-

"Or deemest thou that the People of the Cave and (ar-Raqim) the Inscription 

are a wonder among Our portents?" (translation by Marmaduke Pickthall)

But many scholars now say that ar-Raqim is actually the leaden plate on which was inscribed the names of the seven sleepers. Ergo, Pickthall using the word "The Inscription" in his translation of the verse. Mr. Ikhlas however called the dog Katmir. In my brief research I found similar names given to the dog... Kitmir, Ketmir, Kratim etc. But I like Katmir, so I will stick to Katmir.

This is one reputed location for the Cave of the Sleepers, near Amman, Jordan.
Another location is in Ephesus, Turkey.

I like dogs. Below my office is a pair of strays that haunts the Chinese Kopi Tiam (bistro). They are harmless and friendly. If I pass them, I would greet them inquiring, "How are you today then? Good?" They are avid tail-waggers, so you know that they are friendly. I hope to one day purchase a small piece of land and build a house. Hopefuly the land will be large enough to accommodate a dog (or several dogs even). When I shared this dream with Mr. Ikhlas he said, "Please tell me when you do, because I will certainly come visit you and your dogs!"

Do you love dogs too, sunshine? Perhaps one day you and I may be blessed to be in heaven and meet old Katmir himself!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Earlier Doggy Postings - Seven Reasons why Dogs are like Saints Click Here

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

All pets welcomed!

Saving the Earth - Have we turned from the House of Trust into a Band of Thieves?

End of the World. I have labels in this almanac (see the label cloud on the right column) called 'end of time', 'Antichrist', 'Dajjal' and 'Armageddon'. Under this vague tags I dumped all postings related to the end of the world (obviously), Armageddon and that sort of flurry of furious activities anticipated by believers to occur when the world ends. There are not many postings, about 5 I think. This is very few considering that I have written 644 postings for 2011.

Something got me thinking... I do not write a lot about the end of the world, because I am kinda busy living. Writing and reading. And in the course of one reading, I have come across this little gem of information. It is of course up to you whether to believe it or not. But being the sort of person that I am, I believe it (and have in fact posted about it earlier in 'God is a Good Book Without End - Adam brought Heaven to Earth' - Click Here)- basically what this nugget of spiritual lore says is that the Earth was a barren world, devoid of life. And it was Adam, who was exiled from Heaven, who brought with him the divine elements of Heaven to Earth, and thus creating on our world, an earthly copy of Heaven. And that got me thinking...

Earth, a barren world. When God says that mankind is suppose to be His representative, His viceregent on Earth, it is not simply a Divine Whim (even though He can do that, of course, being your know... God). It is more importantly because of our common ancestors, Adam and Eve who brought a little bit of Heaven to Earth. It is by their exile and establishment of a new home on Earth, that Earth as we know it now exists. If our grandma Eve did not eat that forbidden fruit, if our grandpa Adam did not chock on it, the Earth would have remained changed. It would still be a barren old brown planet, floating purposeless in the empty void of space. And we would not have been born at all. Not our parents, not our friends... no one.

Divine plan and mortal agency. But as God fated it, the Devil did trick the First Couple, and so triggered the sequence of events leading eons in future to the present. To the right here and now, to me writing this post, and (hopefully) you reading it. It was through the divine plan of God and mortal agency of Adam and Eve that the Earth was recreated, reborn in a beautiful and utterly diverse mirror image of Heaven. The Earth which we have now inherited, the God-given gift for each and every child of humanity.

Ownership is Trusteeship. So I look at the world differently now. I look to the sky and say, it is my inheritance. I look to the earth and the birds and the animals, and proclaim, you are my inheritance. As far as my eye and vision can behold, all of it is my inheritance. But the tiny quirk of inheritance in Islam is that the property is not for your sole use or abuse. In Islam, as how I perceive it, ownership is tantamount to trusteeship, for ownership without the obligation of responsibility and trust for the future generation is not ownership at all - It is theft. Claiming something permanently, when we ourselves are not permanent, for soon we will die. But how many amongst us who still remember this?

O' Believers. Wake up. The Earth needs you to remember your obligations. To be a believer is to be a conservationist. To be a believer is to be sensible about things. Not to take this world for granted, and certainly not to pollute and create great waste and devastation upon this Earth, this Heaven, this Paradise...

The end of the World is coming. But is it coming by Divine Plan alone or through mankind's manifestation of our carelessness, negligence, hubris, greed and selfishness? Have we turned from the House of Trust into a Band of Thieves? And when that day comes, and we stand before the Throne and are asked by the Lord of the Throne -

The Owner questions the Trustees

"O' Mankind. You ask for My Heaven. 

But a Fascimile of Heaven was already given to you on your World. 

How have you treated the Earth while I left it awhile in your custody and trust? 

Did you remember your responsibilities? 

Did you remember that you hold the Earth only for the briefest moments that you are alive? 

Did you remember to be fair, equitable and just? Or did your rape your own world? 

What answers do you have to these questions? 

So, now I ask again. 

Do you deserve My Heaven at all?

Have a thoughtful day, sunshine.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

God is a Good Book Without End - Adam brought Heaven to Earth

I think I know a little bit about God, the Prophet Muhammad, about the prophets before him, about Angels and about Saints. What I don't know is just how little I know. And you know what it feels like? It feels like reading a book without an ending. And that is fine for me. For you know that feelin' when you are reading a great story, and you notice that you are almost coming to the end of the book? Then you start to purposely slow down, reading a page or two a day, trying to extract as much pleasure from the book as possible. Well this maximum-pleasure ceiling does not exist when we are learning God and really, about ourselves. 

I am informed that there is a little piece of heaven in you. For when Adam and Eve was exiled to Earth, he did not only return to the origin of the clay from which he was created. He also brought back the elements of water, fire and air in their secret heavenly forms. You cannnot but be changed if you have lived in heaven for as long as he did. And you cannot but be changed when God breathed His spirit into you, a Compelling Incomparable Love of God, as is recorded in the holy Quran -

When I fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit (Verse Sad 38:72)

And when Adam finally died, his soul ascended to the Divine Presence, but the endless heavenly blessings that he brought to Earth remained here. On the ground that we walk on, in the air that we breath, in the water and food that we consume. And perhaps most fundamentally, in ourselves.

Mankind began as clay, a thing of no worth. But God fashioned our ancestor as a potter may fashion clay, but with His immeasurable Love, Delicacy, Beauty and Power. Pretty impressive curriculum vitae for you, sunshine. So do not worry (too much).

Have a lovely day.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

The Owner of Heaven and Earth - Prose of Ramadhan Part 9

Last Night, the Owner of Heaven and Earth asked me (Ramadhan Verses #8)
God does not rise with the sun,
Nor set in the evening tide,
God did not come and go
Like the wind at night,
Nor was He ever still
Like a mountainside.
God is not like the sky
Nor is He the Rain
At my door.
God is not a kiss
Generous or short,
Nor is He the embrace
In my mother’s dream.
God is not the marriage contract,
Nor the bargain between two merchants,
God is not the music, nor the song,
He is not the Ocean,
To these transient things
His nature does not belong.
But in His Keeping
Do all things belong -
Loveliness in prose.
Moses in repose.
The sun at its peak,
The moon at its fullness,
Thus, are you not happy with the earth,
That you need heaven to spur
You to goodness?

HEAVENLY HOUSE. Heaven must be a lovely place. In its brochures and other assorted marketing materials of the Almighty (also known as the holy scriptures), He goes no holds barred about just how fine your heavenly abode could be. “I am not selling you a house” God is saying. “I am selling you a home. Behave yourself and this celestial crib is yours freehold for all eternity.”

GOD’S MARKETING MEN. And such is God’s ambition for you, that He has created and anointed a line of Prophets to make sure that not only does the marketing reaches you, but it is done by the very best of salesmen, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Aaron, etc… You know, the sort of guys that could sell iceboxes to Eskimos. After sales services is later provided by the Saints.

NOAH. Actually, I think if I was to ask saay… Noah himself, he would reply that “Selling iceboxes to Eskimos? I could do that in my sleep! Try guiding mankind to goodness!”

GET ME OUTTA HERE! I AM A CELEBRITY! Hehehe. I do not know if I will get to heaven. It is my cunning plan to write the stuff that I write and reach as many readers as possible – that way the chance that some (or perhaps even all of you) of my readers will get to heaven will be better. Just remember that if you don’t find me there, make sure to ask God nicely, “Oh God… where is Taufiq? Can you bring him here, wherever his vices has landed him at…”

You know, I would be so grateful… and thank you in advance for your future heavenly intervention, sunshine. I am counting on you!

Pax Taufiqa.