TEN THOUSAND - the endless journey to cross the endless ocean of Muhammad Habibullah

Ten Thousand

I dream of you

And ten thousand moons,

Reflecting upon you skin

Of infinite sea,

I dream of you

And ten thousand skies,

With ten thousand meanings

Like stars clustering

In your eyes.

I dream of you

And read your ten thousand books,

And every beginning has another beginning

And every ending has another ending,

As if God never tires of writing about you,

I dream of you

Dreaming of me,

And were it not for your lessons, o' Prophet

I would not allow myself anywhere near you

Even if my journey is illuminated

By the light of the ten thousand moons,

By the stars of the ten thousand skies,

By the wisdom of the ten thousand books

Bearing your name, your stories and your life.

.................................

While in Singapore I chance upon a polite company of Sufis discoursing about saints, books and divine knowledge. And stupidly I felt a pang of jealousy, for I cannot speak of Allah(s.w.t.) and His Muhammad (s.a.w.s.) in that scholarly manner. I love books, and am a bookish man, but what I learn I often learn from the pain in my feet, the illness in my hands, the joy in my child, and the deep fathom waters of an eastern sea. I learn through hard painful lessons and the happiness of smiles and laughter that our spirit shares with us, in those rare quiet moments when the physical world blurs into the background and divine love manifests as the true guiding power of not only the spiritual world, but also the material world. 

And our ego becoming nothing but a beast of burden of our soul.

My friends, I would not suffer the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.s.) my own company, in my worn and shabby piety, my sickly and diseased spirit, my bitterness and my jealousies. Were it not for his calling, "Come, come, come..." I would not even speak his name. I am like a stray dog outside the Prophet's home. 

So listen not to a stray dog, sunshine. Listen to the Prophet. Indeed, only in him is the surety for your safety, happiness and success in dunya (this world) and akhirat (the world hereafter).

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

True Love and the Definition of a Village House

This is not a 'kampung' (village) house. To be a kampung house,
it needs to actually be in a kampung. Oh, I see...

When I wrote about Kak Mutiah's home in Tanjung Karang recently, I made a mistake. I called it a kampung (village) house. Because to her, a village house has to be in a village, consisting of small houses (mostly on stilts) not too far apart and generally surrounded with trees, orchards and gardens. I know this because when I drove her back last Tuesday morning, she said, "I don't like living in the kampung houses. I love the open spaces of the paddy fields. To be able to see the Sun rising in the far horizon and later setting in the westerly direction. I like to feel the breeze and the open air." Before affirmatively declaring, "I really love my home!"

As I spent time talking with her mum and dad, I got to know that the present house is not where Kak Mutiah was born. Her father recalled that they were in fact staying in another house, but not far from their present abode. Later, as I was lazing on the front steps, I watched Kak Mutiah's father get on his small motorcycle to ride to the mosque nearby. I was quite clearly visible, but he appears not to notice until just in front of me, he suddenly glanced in my direction and waved. I was a little apprehensive because he was in fact riding rather fast and heading straight for the ditch. Happily he got control of the motorcycle alright and safely rode away.

It was only sometime later did I find out that he has problems seeing because of his cataract. "That is why whenever he wants to ride to town, my mother will ride along in the back to make sure nothing goes wrong." Explained Kak Mutiah, chuckling, "She's like his navigator!"

True Love.

I think that is the sweetest thing ever...

Have a safe ride today, sunshine, wherever you may be going!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Quantum Mechanics & The Dice - predictability, probability, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and other odds and ends......

Einstein, Heisenberg and Bohr

When you think you know enough you look for Predictability.

When you think you don’t know enough you look for Probability.

When you think you know nothing you look for Divinity.

Quantum Mechanics.

According to Heisenberg’s theory of Quantum Mechanics, the nature of things alters by the very act of observation by someone. At the level of sub-atomic particles, Heisenberg suggests that it is impossible to determine a particle’s position and speed, because the mere observation of the particles radically affects their behavior. But I knew this for the longest time…

The Women Sub-particle – The nature of a young woman changes if she is observed by a man. All sorts of questions and thoughts pass through her – She blushes and fidgets, thinking “I must be hot!”, or wondering “Is he going to talk to me or not? What is taking him so long?” The nature of woman changes even more if she is observed by another woman – “Why is she staring at me? Is she looking at my shoes now? “Oh my God! Do I have a tear somewhere?” “Do I know her?” “Is she judging me???”

The Men in prayers Sub-particle – The nature of man changes if he is observed in prayers. It is a subtler change compared to women, less obvious and almost unconscious. The posture straightens, the head lowers more in modesty and the eyelids tremble in ostentatious piety. Hehehe. It happens to the best of us sometimes. We want to be humble of course, but end up appearing to be humble. Not the same thing.

The Dice Quarrel

Okay, enough jokes, back to the serious stuffs. Einstein was terribly unhappy with the messy-probability idea of Heisenberg because for him, accuracy and predictability was the natural and elegant form of the processes of nature. So if we cannot predict the weather or the fall of a dice, it is simply because we do not know enough about the factors that affect such events. As Einstein famously commented on the improbability of the improbability theory of the Universe – “God does not play dice!” One day, Niels Bohr (another proponent of Quantum Mechanics) was heard to have retorted, “Stop telling God what to do with His dice!”

An Interesting Postscript - I talked to Heche and Fifi over lunch about Quantum Mechanics, and they laughed over the Dice Quarrel. Later Fifi dropped us off at the office, and as we were about to alight the steps what did I notice but a dice on an empty parking space. The improbability of it! But it DID happen. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Towards God and towards us. God is not asking all of us to be superhuman geniuses. He has given us the intellect that we might use it, and He has given us a heart and conscience, that we might direct our intellect in the best direction. And what is the best direction? I think that direction points towards Him. And in a contradictory and quantum mechanical way, I think it also points towards us.

Something to ponder over, sunshine.

Wa min Allah at-taufiq

Footnote: I got all these interesting information from a wonderful BBC documentary on Einstein. Click Here if you are interested.

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Charity and Piety, Love and Kindness- saying goodbyes...

The Truth Is…

If you are not prepared to risk everything,

The truth is you have gained nothing for yourself,

If you are not willing to lay down your life for a friend,

The truth is you have not found a friend for life,

If you have not burst into flame,

The truth is you have not come close enough to the Sun,

And if you have time to spare,

The truth is you must lose no time

To end that sparseness,

And fill your hours and days

With charity and piety

Love and kindness.

My late sainted mother would have undoubtedly disapproved me writing about her. She would consider my superlatives and adjectives of her as undeserved and exaggerated. But sincerity has a beauty unto itself, whether you are pious or irreligious, whether you are wealthy or stricken in poverty. I only write what I know of her.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of my mum’s passing, and I would like to suggest something extra nice for my family to do. The plan is still gestating in my head, but family and orphans will be part of it, I am sure.

On the day of my mother’s passing, there was a burst of flame. And it shined brightly like a beacon. It called unto her many, many close friends and family to come to my house, “If you had known Arbayah in your life, know that she has passed on. So come that you might say your last goodbye.”

Whenever I visit her grave, which I don’t do often enough, I always say “Hello.” But I never say goodbye, for that was said almost 10 years ago. What I always say is, “See you soon, Mama.”

My mother was a strong and capable woman who lived life to the fullest. Though she might not agree with my constant harping of her life and love, no doubt she would agree with the last phrase of the prose. 

Thus fill your day, sunshine, with charity and piety, love and kindness.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Branding at the Marketplace - Cow, Satan, Ego and Pride

116. Marketplace of the Pious

My ego is coming to corral me,

With a whip and a fearsome

Cattle prod,

But I am no cattle

To be auctioned off

In the Marketplace

Of the Pious.

Pride is the fall of Satan. And He was punished for being proud of his spiritual station as the greatest among the servants of the Lord, ennobled even above the Arch-angels. For he took one look at our grandfather Adam and said, "What? Me bow down to that?", thus earning the lasting divine penalty from God.

And that is why I am ever fearful of my ego branding me pious like some poor dumb steer being led to the market. Oh no, I am not pious. I am a sinner.

A back rub before market? How wonderful...
Hey? What are you doing?! Hey! Hey! Ayieeeeee....!

May God bless you, sunshine, for spending some time with this sinner.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

A Cup of Heresy from a Cellar of Wine - Prose of Ramadhan Part 74

The Cup of Heresy (Ramadhan Verses #39)

We sip heavy from the cup of heresy

That men call theology.

We pray on a premise of faith,

And men think high of the words

Which we recite like holy spells -

When they desire candy,

We give them candy.

When they desire wizardry,

We give them wizardry.

And when they desire an idea of the divine,

Verily, we give them our cellar of wine.

Lo, if only they had asked for servanthood!

Lo, if only they had sought patience,

We would not offer them such meager rations.

I Have no Purpose for Love Unless it is to Love You

I Have No Purpose Unless…

Oh Lord, Oh Love…,

I have no purpose for life,
Unless it is to live for You,

I have no purpose for love,
Unless it is to love You,

I have no purpose for knowledge,
Unless it is to know You,

I have no purpose for words,
Unless it is to extol Your beauty,

I have no purpose for piety,
I leave that for those
Learned in Your theology,

I have no purpose for death,
Unless it is to meet You,
And to finally,
Meet me.

I wrote a long post about the financial market and the Subprime scandal. But before I could post it, the day turned into night. And at night, it is best to leave matters of rights and obligations aside and to focus on what God created the night for – LOVE.

I hope you like the above prose, pet. It’s brand new. It drifted into my heart while I was driving home.

Have a lovely evening, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa

A Piggy Tail - The Spiritual Station of Pigs

In the course of conversation with Gurindam (see earlier posting about Gurindam's saintly dogs - Click Here), Ariffin asked, "So what is the true maqam (spiritual station) of the Pig?" And this was Gurindam's considered opinion. He had a few of them, including the origin of the Pig, but we will carry on from when the Pig played such a pivotal role in Noah's Ark.

"The Pig..." Began Gurindam, "...is an honoured creature. When the Ark, filled with all of the animal kingdom was for sometime afloat, an odorous and hygienic problem arose. Where to get rid of all the animal and human (there were some of them, if you recall) droppings?" My unspoken reply to Gurindam was to just dump the crap out into the waters. Gurindam responded to my silent query, "For you see, you cannot just dump it into the sea, not when God's own storm was raging outside. All hatches were shut tight. So the Pig came into the picture, and he and his spouse happily consumed (literally) the problem." One issue resolved for the long-suffering Noah.

In recognition for the invaluable service by the Pig to Noah, the Lord thereafter made Pig's flesh sacrosanct and forbidden for almost half of humanity. Yes, yes, I know... there are also hygiene and health issues which is said to be the reasons for the Jewish and Muslim prohibition of the consumption of Pigs, but that is just the technical aspect. How many times have you gazed in awe at some one's seemingly endless patience and fortitude in taking crap from people, and wished that you could reward him/her. So it is with the Lord and the Pig.

It is to my daily amusement that believers are so disgusted, even physically nauseated by the mere sight, sound, smell or even saying the word 'Pig'. I could imagine a holy consumer dropping a shoe he was browsing when he suddenly noticed the words "Pig Skin" inside the shoe, Ayieee! - worried that the ham leather would somehow stain his otherwise flawless piety and purity. Purity? Hehehehe. At least the Pig is merely doing what nature has intended it to perform. It is doing nothing more nor less. Man, with his endless cheating, lying, stealing, envying, murdering, corrupting and hypocrisy can learn a lot from the natural resilience of the Pig to take all the crap that this world yields every day.

I don't have any new illustration, but I hope you can tolerate my re-posting of the sketch below. Hehehe.

Have a nice piggy day, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa.

Footnote - If you have absolutely nothing else to do, I have written an earlier posting about pigs entitled 'Don't eat Bacon, but love the Pig'. Click here.

What is in a name or word? THE MEANING...

i do not worship idols

.

made of stone or wood

.

Nor do i pray to gods

.

cast in a name or word.
..................................................

A couple of months back, Malaysia was beset with the ‘Allah’ controversy. A public debate arising from a court application by the Herald in East Malaysia for the right to use ‘Allah’ in reference to God in that Catholic publication.

The above prose and sketch were recorded in those troubling days when politicians and pundits were talking about ‘the god that the Christians worship’ and ‘the god that the Muslims worships’- strange and worrying phrases coming from believers reputed to be super-duper monotheists.

I am not comfortable with such notions. I am one of those old fashion monotheists who believe that, in truth, everyone prays to the One God, whether you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian or whatever.

But who cares what I think…,

I am after all, just a sinner.

You are just being polite. Don't worry.

..................................................

This is in reply to Shal's (aka Sheikh Feisal) comment on yesterday's posting entitled 'RUN from this world'. I actually drew this way back in 2007. I knew that if I waited long enough, there would be a use for this cartoon. Hehehe. I am indebted to you, Shal.

Salam Ramadan, my friends. Just 3 days to go.

Without Choice There Is No Love

26. Certainty in Sin & Piety

I see the certainty of sin and piety in my brothers,
And wish that I too had such sureness of footing
Astride both mountains.

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(From 'The Nineteen Verses', circa Sept 2004)

If man is given the transcendental opportunity to love, it is a necessary condition that he is also given the choice to sin. Otherwise, God really would have just stuck with the Angels.