adhering to the faith

Yesterday, I found out my examination result. There are still lots of room for improvement. At least, I could proceed to the next semester. Alhamdulillah, I am still alive until today to know my own examination result.

How do we react when we received something that we eagerly waited for? Between happiness and sadness, how do we respond in an appropriate way?

Let us look into the past history and the verses in the Holy Quran.

Failure. When the Prophet SAW went to Taif in early June 619 AD to deliver the message of Islam, he had received such unpleasant and hostile atmosphere. All of the people turned deaf ear to the noble message. For ten days he stayed there delivering his message to several people, one after another, but all to no purpose. Stirred up to hasten the departure of the unwelcome visitor, the people hooted him through the alley-ways, pelted him with stones and obliged him to flee from the city pursued by a relentless rabble.

The Prophet SAW was chased out of Taif for two or three miles until the surrounding hills. Could you imagine how depressed you will be if the noblest message you tried to deliver received such outcome?

At a time when the whole world seems to fight against him, the Prophet SAW turned to the Almighty Allah and gave out this beautiful yet touching prayers.

"O Allâh! To You alone I make complaint of my helplessness, the paucity of my resources and my insignificance before mankind. You are the most Merciful of the mercifuls. You are the Lord of the helpless and the weak, O Lord of mine! Into whose hands would You abandon me: into the hands of an unsympathetic distant relative who would sullenly frown at me, or to the enemy who has been given control over my affairs? But if Your wrath does not fall on me, there is nothing for me to worry about."

"I seek protection in the light of Your Countenance, which illuminates the heavens and dispels darkness, and which controls all affairs in this world as well as in the Hereafter. May it never be that I should incur Your wrath, or that You should be wrathful to me. And there is no power nor resource, but Yours alone."

When all of his efforts seems futile, the Prophet SAW does not depressed because of the hostile response from the people. He does not worry if his effort failed to convince the people on the existence of Allah. The only matter that worried him the most is whether Allah's wrath has befallen on him.

So beautiful is this prayer that we ought to learn by heart this touching words. If we have worked very hard to achieve something yet the outcome is a failure, don't be that depressed. Failure to achieve something worldly is not that significant. The biggest failure of all if you have incur Allah's wrath. Without the mercy of Allah, to whom will you ask for forgiveness?

Success. Let us try to comprehend the meaning of an-Nasr.

When the victory granted by Allah and the Conquest come and you see people embracing the religion of Allah in large numbers then celebrate the praises of your Lord, and seek His forgiveness. He is ever disposed to Mercy. [an-Nasr]

The beginning of the first verse implicitly presents a concept of what goes on in this universe: the events that take place in this life, and the actual role of the Messenger of Allah and his followers in the progress of Islam, and to what extent it depends on their efforts. "When the victory granted by Allah", denotes that it is Allah's victory and Allah is the One who brings it about in His own good time, in the form He decides and for the purpose He determines. The Prophet and his companions have nothing to do with it at all, and they obtain no personal gain from it. It suffices them that He does it through them, appoints them as its guards and entrusts it to them. This is all they acquire from the victory of Allah, the Conquest and the people's acceptance en masse of His religion.

According to this concept, the duty of the Messenger and his companions whom Allah chose and gave the privilege of being the instruments of His victory, was to turn to Him at the climax of victory in praise, expressing gratitude and seeking forgiveness. Gratitude and praise are for His being so generous as to have chosen them to be the standard bearers of His religion; for the mercy and favour He did to all humanity by making His religion victorious; and for the Conquest of Makka and the people's collective acceptance of Islam.

His forgiveness is sought for the various unrevealed, defective feelings, such as vanity, which sometimes creep into one's heart at the overwhelming moment of victory attained after a long struggle. Human beings can hardly prevent this happening and therefore Allah's forgiveness is to be sought for it. Forgiveness also has to be sought for what might have been insinuated into one's heart during the long and cruel struggle and for petulance resulting from the belatedness of victory or the effects of convulsive despair, as the Qur'an brings out elsewhere: Or think you that you will enter Paradise while yet there has not come to you the like of that which came to those who passed away before you? Affliction and adversity befell them; they were shaken as with earth quake, till the Messenger (of Allah) and those who believed along with him said: 'When will Allah's help come?' Now surely Allah's help is near. (Al-Qur'an 2:214)

It is also necessary to seek Allah's forgiveness for one's shortcomings in praising Allah and thanking Him for His favours which are perpetual and infinite. And if you were to count the favours of Allah, never will you be able to number them. (Al-Qur'an 16:18)

However much one's efforts in this respect, they are never adequate. Another touching thought is that seeking forgiveness at the moment of triumph arouses in one's mind the feeling of impotence and imperfection at a time when an attitude of self-esteem and conceit seems natural. All these factors guarantee that no tyranny will afflict the conquered. The victorious is made to realize that it is Allah who has appointed him, a man who has no power of his own and is devoid of any strength, for a pre determined purpose; consequently the triumph and the conquest as well as the religion are all His, to Whom all things ultimately return.

This is the lofty, dignified ideal the Qur'an exhorts people to toil towards and attain, an ideal in which man's exaltation is in neglecting his own pride and where his soul's freedom is in his subservience to Allah. The goal set is the total release of human souls from their egoistic shackles, their only ambition being to attain Allah's pleasure. Along with this release there must be exerted a striving which helps man to flourish in the world, promote human civilisation and provide a rightly-guided, unblemished, constructive, just leadership devoted to Allah.

In contrast, man's efforts to liberate himself while in the grip of egoism, shackled by his zest for worldly things, or overpowered by his cravings, turn out to be absolutely in vain unless he sets himself free from self and lets his loyalty to Allah override everything else, particularly at the moment of triumph and the collecting of booty.

Such a standard of behaviour, which Allah wants humanity to aspire towards and to attain, was the characteristic feature of the Prophets at all times.

[Under the shade of Quran: Syed Qutb]

When we conquer the word of victory, we ought to seek Allah's forgiveness. It is the norm that when the human have achieved success, he tend to think that the victory is caused by his own persistent effort. In truth, it is Allah who determine whether the word of failure or success that will encompassed our mind in the end.

Astaghfirullah. We always forget to seek the forgiveness. Repentance must be sought.

All in all, whatever the examination result was, to Allah alone we ask for forgiveness and mercy. Yet the outcome of the exam is only temporary and may not be that significant to those who have strived for their entire life on the cause of Islam. Muhasabah.

reference;
-Under The Shade of Quran: Syed Qutb
-The Sealed Nectar (al-Raheeq al-Makhtum)
-Tafsir Ibn Kathir

sunset at Sorento. Click for larger picture.

golden sphere

Created using Adobe Photoshop. Click for larger picture.

lesson from hadith

Narrated Mujahid:
'Abdullah bin 'Umar said, "Allah's Apostle took hold of my shoulder and said, 'Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveler." The sub-narrator added: Ibn 'Umar used to say, "If you survive till the evening, do not expect to be alive in the morning, and if you survive till the morning, do not expect to be alive in the evening, and take from your health for your sickness, and (take) from your life for your death."

Narrated 'Abdullah:
The Prophet drew a square and then drew a line in the middle of it and let it extend outside the square and then drew several small lines attached to that central line, and said, "This is the human being, and this, (the square) in his lease of life, encircles him from all sides (or has encircled him), and this (line), which is outside (the square), is his hope, and these small lines are the calamities and troubles (which may befall him), and if one misses him, an-other will snap (i.e. overtake) him, and if the other misses him, a third will snap (i.e. overtake) him."

Narrated Anas:
Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever possesses the (following) three qualities will have the sweetness of faith (1): The one to whom Allah and His Apostle becomes dearer than anything else; (2) Who loves a person and he loves him only for Allah's Sake; (3) who hates to revert to atheism (disbelief) as he hates to be thrown into the Fire."

Narrated Abu Musa:
The Prophet said, "My example and the example of what I have been sent with is that of a man who came to some people and said, 'O people! I have seen the enemy's army with my own eyes, and I am the naked warner; so protect yourselves!' Then a group of his people obeyed him and fled at night proceeding stealthily till they were safe, while another group of them disbelieved him and stayed at their places till morning when the army came upon them, and killed and ruined them completely So this is the example of that person who obeys me and follows what I have brought (the Quran and the Sunna), and the example of the one who disobeys me and disbelieves the truth I have brought."

-from Sahih Bukhari-

suci sekeping hati

Sekeping hati dibawa berlari
Jauh melalui jalanan sepi
Jalan kebenaran indah terbentang
Di depan matamu para pejuang

Tapi jalan kebenaran
Tak akan selamanya sunyi
Ada ujian yang datang melanda
Ada perangkap menunggu mangsa

Akan kuatkah kaki yang melangkah
Bila disapa duri yang menanti
Akan kaburkah mata yang meratap
Pada debu yang pastikan hinggap

Mengharap senang dalam berjuang
Bagai merindu rembulan di tengah siang
Jalannya tak seindah sentuhan mata
Pangkalnya jauh hujungnya belum tiba

-saujana-

One of my favourite song for many years. Reminding me of the arduous tasks lies ahead of me. Strengthening my spirit and will in persevering uncharted life in the future.

Bismi anyone....

HARDCOPY: Mamak restaurants add to pop culture
Syed Nadzri

June 23

A NEW wave of Malaysian restaurants in the form of chic unconventional mamak cafes are mushrooming all over the place — in most cases occupying strategic corner shoplots in housing estates, heritage bungalows near popular nightspots or even disused cinemas.

And instead of the usual names that were so characteristic of the eateries, like Bismillah Restaurant or Restoran Rahman, we now have Canai n Such, Mamak Bistro, Pelita, Ayza, Original Nasi Kandar and many more fancy names, each offering the same kind of Malaysian favourites, but in a "cool" and trendy ambience that attracts the young like ants to sugar.

These are mainly Indian Muslim or mamak joints — nothing derogatory about the term because "mamak" means uncle and it is, in fact, a term of endearment particularly among Indian Muslims and Malays in Penang. Even Mamak Bistro shouts its name on the billboards and it is hugely popular.

The explosion is most evident in the Klang Valley and Penang. Evidently, mamak restaurants are perhaps the single most noticeable change in these areas over the last two years, according to an engineer who has just returned to Kuala Lumpur after an 18-month stint in the Middle East.

"It is a phenomenon probably as big as the advent of the cineplexes which pushed the traditional cinemas out of the picture," he said. "This is going to be part of Malaysian pop culture."

And we all thought that those various foodcourts which were becoming a big trend themselves would drive the traditional restaurants out of business.

What’s interesting about these restaurants is that they know how to attract the customers, particularly the young crowd and the yuppies — big screen TVs with amplified sound systems ideal for live football, comfortable chairs and tables not unlike the ones at Starbucks, brightly-lit interiors with clear colourful menu boards on the wall and ample outdoor tables.

The old days of the typical mamak restaurant in hot and humid shoplots with wet mosaic floors, tiled walls and cheap plastic chairs are over.

Most of these restaurants also operate 24 hours a day, providing a wide variety of Malaysian staples ranging from rice and curry to naan roti and sup kambing. I’m not sure about the quality of the food though despite some of the restaurants claiming to offer genuine Penang nasi kandar or the best briyani in town.

So it must be the ambience rather than the quality of food that draws most customers to chat for hours on end over their daily fix of teh tarik.

Service is normally very satisfactory due to the good number of waiters and helpers, mostly immigrant workers. The fierce competition among these restaurants is reflected on how they try to outdo each other on workers’ uniforms that give them a sense of identity. Some of the uniforms are designed with the colours of the Malaysian flag, some with hip black t-shirts, and so on.

I asked Muslim Restaurant Owners Association of Malaysia president Jamarulkhan Abdul Kadir the other day about what is causing the mamak restaurant boom and his answer was simple: A supply and demand situation.

He said the concept of the restaurants works on young people — food and entertainment blending just nicely with the environment.

"Many of the restaurants offer a sidewalk café kind of environment at just a fraction of the prices in the designer coffee shops," he added. "Where in the world can you get a piece of roti canai for 80 sen and thosai for RM1? Only in Malaysia. In India you pay 35 rupees for thosai and that’s about RM3.

"By being a 24-hour operation, we provide a cheap alternative to pubs, discos and clubs. Many young people flock to our restaurants to watch live soccer matches, just as some do in pubs and bars.

"Ours therefore provide clean fun because we don’t serve alcohol and we are too open for undesirable activities like drug-taking by our customers."

The restaurants also appeal to working professionals — not only those looking for quick meals but business lunches as well. According to Jamarulkhan, he has seen many business deals being concluded across the tables of mamak restaurants after fish-head curry treats.

Jamarulkhan, who runs the Restoran Syed chain, however said opening a new wave restaurant requires a lot of investment.

"Those days, you only need to spend about RM30,000 to start a decent restaurant. With this new concept, you need something between RM300,000 and RM1 million.

"But the returns can be good."

Jamarulkhan said many of the owners of mamak restaurants are carrying on a family business into the third or fourth generation.

Although some of the restaurants have many branches, they are not a franchised trade. "It’s not easy to start a franchise because this requires another level of business expertise. For instance, you have to have a central production unit to ensure consistency in quality. But we are getting there."

New Strait Times

When I read this article on New Strait Times, I chuckled. Seems it is the norm here too at Melbourne ;)

The most famous restaurant among Malaysian students here without doubt is Bismi restaurant. It was renowned for its many tasty and mouth savouring food. It even has many branches here at Melbourne scattering all over the city.

If you would like to feel the atmosphere of Malaysia, just go to Bismi Restaurant. With the taste of Malaysian foods and with the full crowd of Malaysian and Singaporean over there, that is the best you can afford to release your homesickness ;) That by the way is only for those who are homesicks.

In my opinion, Bismi is best for its food and since it was just a far cry from my house, what do you expect. Surely will I be visitng this place quite often.

My housemates even made a joke about Bismi restaurant. Bismi ie with the name of restaurant. How's that for a name :D

Love

When we were born into this world, we learned to utter the word mom and dad. Then as we walked to the new world surrounding us, we got to know our siblings and cousins. We learned to love them. First, our parent then our close relatives.

As we approached the era of school and the formal education, we met new people and we called them friends. Some we considered them as our best friends to which we can told all our doom and glooms. Best friend is the place where we share our thought and opinions in facing the everchanging world. We learned to love our best friends.

In the place called the school, we met our teachers. The teachers taught us to respect and love the one who taught us. Thus, we learned to love our teachers.

The teachers also mentioned as a good citizen, we ought to love our government and to have pride in our nation. The land we lived on, has provided us with many blessings. Thus, we learned to love the nation and the government who lead the country.

Some of our teachers told us about faith. We were taught that if we do good things, we will get reward and we do bad things, we will be punished by God. So, we followed.

As we grow up and enter the era of adulthood, many things and event occured. We learned to love many new things. We learned to love to be in a famous group. We learned to love the actor and actress that appeared in the TV, magazines and newspapers. We learned to love technology. Some of us asked and pleaded to our beloved parent to equip us with mobile phone, computers and many new inventions. In the age of adulthood, many new forms of love we encounter to which most of us become a loyal follower.

As we left the age of adulthood, some of us gained a strange insight. An idea that told us to love human of different gender. Weird indeed that when we were small kids, we does not even care what 'the different gender' do or does. As long we can received the love from our parent and siblings, 'the different gender' does not matter.

By the early 20s or 30s, most of us find our future spouse and get married. We learned to love our spouse. Whatever our spouse demand of, we will try as much as we can do to attend to. We become devoted to the love of our spouse. Some people by this time, the love towards their spouse will be greater than the love towards their parent. Strange. The first love we encountered in our life is the love towards our parent and now, we seems would like to leave them alone, loveless.

A couple of years later, our kids will be born. Looking over their new and cute face, we learned to love them all. By this time, our love seem to be divided into many. Love towards our parent, if it still exists, love towards our spouse and then, the love towards our kids. We devoted much of our time to attend to the needs of each part of our love.

As we grow older, our kids now become teenagers. Then, they get married and have their own kids. If they still remember to love us as their own parent, we will get the chance to see our grandchildrens. Seeing the cute little ones, our loves again shattered and generated a new division of love. We learned to love our own grandchildrens. Whenever the grandchildrens came to visit us, we will be overjoyed. If they want ice-creams, we gave them the best we can offer.

As we getting more older, our body diminished in their strength and vitality. Our spouse probably will die of old age, if we were lucky. When our beloved parent died, we cried. When our beloved spouse died and leaved us alone, we cried even more.

Living all alone with only the love for our own kids and grandchildrens, we tend to contemplate all the past events. Is there anything in the past that I can do better? We learned to appreciate every form of love that we possessed in this time. Live life to the fullest.

Starting from beginning till now, which form of love we have forgotten? Most of us, when we were old and has nothing to do, will regret on one form of love. A love that most of us neglected the most although it is the most important form of love. When we were kids, we were taught but never appreciate it. When we were teenagers, we were to busy to pursue the love of 'the different gender'. When we were married and have our own kids, we tend to devote most of all times to our love towards our spouse and our own kids. When we have our own grandchildrens, we put most of our love into them. The most important and the highest form of love, we seems to forgot and never paid any attention before. When the signs of death approaches, we will regret that we have never try to pursue the highest form of love. Without the highest form of love, we will be perished and thrown into hellfire.

The highest form of love is to love our Almighty Creator. He is the One who taught us to love all His creatures. He is the One who gave us a life to be fulfilled with. Yet, we filled our own life with many form of love but never with the love of Allah Subhanahu Wa Taala.

Yet, to attain the highest form of love is nevertheless that easy. Some people will try but later succumb to receive failure. Some people tried even harder but then, they cannot endure the torments and affliction that come with it.

The love of Allah is only for those who managed to persevere the most. If you want to pursue the highest form of love, be prepared. It ain't easy along the way.

Wallahullam

the shade of Allah.

Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet (p.b.u.h) said, "Seven people will be shaded by Allah under His shade on the day when there will be no shade except His. They are:

(1) a just ruler;

(2) a young man who has been brought up in the worship of Allah, (i.e. worship Allah (Alone) sincerely from his childhood),

(3) a man whose heart is attached to the mosque (who offers the five compulsory congregational prayers in the mosque);

(4) two persons who love each other only for Allah's sake and they meet and part in Allah's cause only;

(5) a man who refuses the call of a charming woman of noble birth for an illegal sexual intercourse with her and says: I am afraid
of Allah;

(6) a person who practices charity so secretly that his left hand does not know what his right hand has given (i.e. nobody knows how much he has given in charity).

(7) a person who remembers Allah in seclusion and his eyes get flooded with tears."

-Bukhari, Muslim and Ahmad-

On the Day of Judgement where all human beings will be suffering from distress and hardship, Allah bestows upon these seven group of people as a great blessing for the true believers.

‘Uqbah ibn ‘Aamir said: I heard the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say:

“The sun will be brought near to the earth and the people will sweat. For some people, the sweat will come up to their heels; for some it will come halfway up their shins; for some it will come up to their knees; for some it will come up to their backsides; for some it will come up to their hips; for some it will come up to their shoulders; for some it will come up to their necks; for some it will come up to the middle of their mouths; and some of them will be comepletely covered with their sweat.”

-Ahmad-

Truly, without the shade of Allah, we will be afflicted with great distress and difficulty. Out of these seven group of people, which one are we?

Reflecting upon my deeds in the past.

jumping to the outside world

This couple of days, I have been busy. First with the reformatting of my laptop. Now, I'm currently head my nose deep into books again. Not medical books though ;)

I know the exam is over but I'm not revising for the next semester yet. In fact, I never study the next semester beforehand as some of my friends do. So, what book I read now eh?

:D currently have finished book written by Michael Crichton. For your information, he is a famous writer to which many of his books made into movies. Yet he is a Harvard-trained doctor. Envy him a lot.

He is the author of Jurassic Park and also the screen writer of the famour ER. Many of his novels were based on science facts and that what made his novels interesting. The way he blends science with the art of writing. That is one strong achievement to be produced by a physician who learned and educated from science backgground.

The novel that I read called 'sphere'. Basically, it talks about the deep sea adventure of few scientist confronting with alien spacecraft. After reaching the last page, truly I am satisfied with the message that the author tried to bring on.

Human are gifted with the power of imagination. He can imagine good or bad things but never take the responsibility due to his imagination. Think of scientist who had imagined of creating an atomic bomb in the first place. They want to end the war as soon as possible but never they knew that the repercussion of the bomb lasts many generations. Till today, the generations of atomic bomb survivors still suffering from the effect of the atomic bomb explosion.

Who ever you are now today, you are what you are imagined of. If you imagined yourself as a confident and amicable person, you will achieve your imagination. If you think yourself as a person who are hostile and immersed with the feeling of doom and gloom, so be it. You will be that kind of person.

The power of imagination are truly remarkable. It can changed one person from one extreme to another extreme. What would happen to the world if Bill Gate does not envisaged the usefullness of making personal computers back at 1980s? What would happen if nobody dares to imagine that human can reach the aerospace?

Without imagination, human will fail to fully utilise his/her capability. There is always inside us, a certain innate ablity that remain to be discovered. We will never know we have it till we try to discover it. Some people never know they are good at writing till they started to write. Some people never know that they good at painting till they start to paint.

In essence, the life is full of discovery. What it needs is for the person to take the first step. Have we done that yet?

rejuvenation

Feeling a bit refreshed after sitting for the semester exam.

Post-exam celebration?...Hmm, some people celebrated it by making cakes [you know who you are ;)], some goes to watch movies and me... would rather spend it with my laptop :D

Not saying that I spend many hours surfing the net, but reformatting is the word here. Reformatting my whole laptop as a sign of me leaving the horrible past experience and getting ready to face the bright future. Look bright into the future and become optimistic that in the future, good things will happen.

Couple of hours spending for updating various softwares...refreshing my memory and sharpening my skills in learning this computer skills.

Here are some pictures of my whole semester works. I even came up with my own PBL mechanisms on fear of failing PBL paper. But in the end, after all of our efforts...we need to put all our trust in Allah. Because Allah alone determines all things under His sovereign.

my thick lecture notes for this semester - oblique view

full folder thickness ;)

superior view

my extensive PBL mechanisms

contemplating over the exam period

Alhamdulillah, the semester exam is finally over. After more than a month of leaving this blog to become enshrouded with emptiness and passiveness, here come my post. My revenge on blogging ;)

Prior to the exam, great cooperations suddenly established among our batch with everyone competing in contributing some revision notes for everyone else. From extensive pharmacology notes, MCQ answers and discussion, HP summary up to prac notes. Hopefully, this kind of cooperation will remain existed till all of us graduated from University of Melbourne.

Anyway, back to the exam. The exam lasted about more than a week which included 5 papers. On average, on scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the hardest exam ever, I would rate this semester exam to be 7. It ranged from extremely hard to moderately hard and none were easy.

Finishing from one paper to another paper, there always be the same story that encapsulated my friends. Depression, sadness and hopelessness. Without spoken anything about it, all the emotions were clearly reflected on every face of my friends. Frustation were clearly have materialised and embodied most of our mind and behaviour. Not surprisingly, most of my friends were exalted with joy and happiness after four days of continuous examination amid there was still one more paper to go.

I, myself faced the same situation. There were periods during answering those papers that I stared blankly on those answer sheet not knowing what to write or even what to shoot with. There were times when I only saw pink cells under the microscope but not knowing what it was. Indeed I have studied quite a lot, yet it seems the questions managed to defy me. It is no longer about how much you know. It is how much you remember and how much your knowledge can be applied to clinical scenario that will determine your marks eventually.

Indeed, this semester examination clearly took its toll on all of us. No longer we could smiled of joyness after finishing one paper. No longer we could said good luck because it seems that luck have petering out on most of us. Hopeless we were.

Reflecting on those period again, I have found out something that need to be learned and remembered again and again in the future. When I was depressed, I kept returning to my blog to read the Quranic verse that I wrote on the previous post.

"If Allah helps you, none can overcome you; and if He forsakes you, who is there after Him that can help you? And in Allah (alone) let believers put their trust. " (al-Imran: 160)

So true is the verse. No matter how much you diligently worked or strived, in the end, Allah alone can determined on what we will receive. Only the help from Allah alone that can help us in facing great difficulties. Indeed, the believers should always put their trust and hope onto Allah alone and not to be despaired nor distressed by any event that have happened in their life.

Facing difficulties in answering exams, I faced and prayed to Allah dearly hoping to seek the best out of this semester exams. Truly, my faith is almost shakened by this catastrophy but alhamdulillah, after deep in contemplation....I gained pleasure out of this difficulties. When one faced with great adversity, one should always prayed on the Almighty Allah. We will never know how strong is our iman without experiencing hardship and great difficulties.Truly, life is a constant test for the believers.

Then, I read another Hadith about test and difficulties.

Sa`d reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said,

“The most in their suffering among the people are the prophets, then the best, then the (next) best. One is afflicted in accordance with his faith. If his faith is firm, his affliction is hard, and if his faith is weak, his affliction is light. Indeed, one would be so much subjected to adversity until he walks among the people without any sins.” (Ahmad and At-Tirmidhi)

Isn't it ironic that the closer you to Allah, the greater you are being tested. A bitter fact to swallow. Not really. The gift of strongly believing in Allah is so great and valuable that only people who deserved it can enter it.The gift is the heaven and the opportunity to meet the Almighty Creator. Yet, all of those people that will enter the heaven will be on the mercy of Allah alone and not on their good deeds that they had performed previously on the temporal world.

It just made me wonder on how great is then the Prophet Muhammad SAW and his companions facing all those difficulties in their entire life. Truly, they are the best of people. They hardly gave up upon facing from one adversity to another. Instead, they remain steadfast in their strive of propagating the word of Allah.

Or do ye think that ye shall enter the Garden (of bliss) without such (trials) as came to those who passed away before you? they encountered suffering and adversity, and were so shaken in spirit that even the Messenger and those of faith who were with him cried: "When (will come) the help of Allah?" Ah! Verily, the help of Allah is (always) near!" (al-Baqarah: 214)

It made me wonder how strong the opposition they faced such that Allah revealed this verse. Yet they are fighting and striving in the cause of Allah for their entire life. Are we?

Read and comprehend this hadith.

“Indeed amazing are the affairs of a believer! They are all for his benefit. If he is granted ease of living he is thankful; and this is best for him. And if he is afflicted with a hardship, he perseveres; and this is best or him.” (Muslim)

Have we become such Muslims?

Wallahuallam.

Good Bye REB. Although this time the experience was horrible, see u again on November.