On Paying Fifty Cents for a Plot of Land, an Architect and a Lawyer

He asked "can we do some service for the local people? Like web classes or something?"... and I went " What??? Why the hhh….heavens would we have to do that for them? We don't owe them anything. We bought that piece of land, we are paying for the mosque ourselves. We don’t owe them anything for us to have to 'make up' for building a mosque there".

A man asked the question to the solicitor who stood in front of the prayer crowd tonight  and said, in his Australian accent, thick as hookah smoke, that he was happy with the way things are going with the plans for the new mosque in Elermore Vale, Newcastle.

An artist impression of the upcoming mosque in Elermore Vale..uuu..whose car is that?

As the people in Newcastle may have heard or got to know, the muslim community of Newcastle is raising funds to build a new mosque to accommodate the increasing number of muslims residing here. The new mosque was proposed to be built in a suburb called Elermore Vale. The plot of land was bought several months ago and now, the last steps before a new shiny mosque is getting approval from the city council, and getting enough funds to reach a total target of AUD1.4million.

Since 2 years ago, the mosque committee has tried every single day to raise funds for the mosque. The evidence is clear, every Friday, there will be a man standing in front of the doors of the Masonic Hall that has been rented for several years now for the Friday prayers asking for donations "Sedeqah for the masjid *ching ching ching (sound of coins rattling)*. Sedeqah for the masjid *ching ching ching*. The Prophet told us that whosoever builds a mosque, Allah will build a house for him in Jannah (Paradise)!!!".

That's what he did, that man, every Friday. And the sound of his donation box will always stick in my memory, the sound of a thin layer of coins rattling in a big, hopeful box.

I'm not writing this so people would feel guilty about not giving a lot for to the mosque even when we use the mosque every day, every Friday, every Iftar,  every  Community Iftar, or every Eid, for free since the last 10 years, or since only recently.

I'm writing to share a feeling that I noticed while I said those words up there to a friend sitting beside me in the prayer hall.

"WE bought that piece of land, WE are paying for the mosque OURSELVES. WE don’t owe them anything for US to have to 'make up' for building a mosque there".

I don’t claim to have given much for the new mosque, but I feel… very connected to it. I feel that my occasional 50cents or 5 dollars were used when the committee bought the piece of land, or paid the architect or the solicitor. I feel that I have contributed to this mosque and I feel that I have a right to call the mosque mine…or ours. And for that, I love the new mosque, even when there's no rock solid guarantee that its going to be built. I love it and I want it, because I paid for it. I deserve to have it. Nuff said...

For those reading this and know of the situation, I implore you to  feel the same as I am. You should feel that YOU ARE contributing to this mosque, you should feel that you have ownership over the mosque, you should feel that the mosque is yours, or ours. Because it is.

You have given what is needed for this new mosque. It may have been AUD5, or AUD10, or AUD100, or your effort to telling people about this cause. You are in this as much as I am, or that man who asked for donations every Friday, or the Imam of the mosque. This masjid is going to be yours! In 10 years time when you decide to come around to visit Newcastle and bring your kids for a drive around , you should feel proud showing them that mosque because you helped to build that mosque. The mosque is there, because you took part in funding it.

 And it will be a place where thousands of people do good deeds, everyday. It will be a place where people will find faith, or regain fading faith, or learn about the Quran and Islam, or meet each other and spread goodness and truth. And it will be possible because of you.

So thank you all Novocastrians, for your being here will leave a mark of peace, good and faith for a very, very long time to come.

Yay we're getting a new mosque!

Azfar    

"Whosoever shares in building a masjid for Allah, even if it is as small as a bird’s nest, Allah (S.W.T.) will build for him a house in Paradise."  (Prophet Muhammad pbuh)

On "dear blade of Gryffindor...can you just magically appear in front of Harry?"

"And We strengthened their hearts with patience, when they stood up and said: Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth; we will by no means call upon any god besides Him, for then indeed we should have said and extravagant thing" (Al Kahf, 14)

I was talking about this in a discussion lately with some of my friends. Something I got from an article in SuhaibWebb. The article was mainly about Ramadhan, and slipped somewhere in the middle of the article, full of wisdom and faith is a verse from the Quran (the one in yellow up there). The verses prior to this one and the ones to come tell the story of a group of young men who had to run from their community and go into hiding in a cave in order to protect their lives. Why they had to run away you ask? It was because they carried with them a message of faith, which contradicted the belief system of the community and the governing entity. So confronting was their message, that they had to flee from their own people. Can you imagine how big that is?

Well what I'm interested in writing about today isn't really about the message they were bringing. Though I must admit that trying to elaborate on that message would be quite an effort and the little knowledge that I have would definitely do it injustice, and thus I won't be too brave to attempt that now.

I'd rather talk about that verse, which is interesting in itself. If we look closely into the words, we will find that Allah mentioned that He strengthened their hearts when they stood up and said... . WHEN they stood up. God sent them help, in the form of strengthening their hearts with patience when they have taken the initial step towards their goal. However hard to achieve and far away their goal was. There is a lesson to be learnt from this, a lesson that we can all practice in life.

Too many a time that I prayed and I prayed to God to make things easier for me, to show me the right way, to guide me to the right path in life, to make medicine easier to study, to make someone easier to approach, to make words flow easier from my lips. And as many of a time did I forget to or simply just didn't take any actions towards what I asked God for. And thinking about the soul of this verse, we should realize that God's help isn't far away from us, but in order to attain His help, we need to prove our commitment towards what we want. We need to take action and prove that we really want that something, and when we have taken the steps, InsyaAllah, God Willing, help will come. Like a patronum that showed Harry where the blade was, help will come.

It may be in the form of making our hearts believe even more, or some physical entity from anywhere at all, or a call from someone special. Or it may even be stumbling upon an article that'll help you believe in the path you have taken. Whatever form that it takes, it'll come when you have taken the effort, to carve what you want onto stone. Because if you write it in sand, making just some small strokes with your fingers, even the smallest breeze of an autumn day can ruin it.

So whatever it is that you want, remember to take steps towards it. Because life isn't that easy to have everything fall into place just because we want it to.

Trying to practice what I preach
Azfar

On how tall, built, macho and handsome I am

I get angry at people who make fun of others excessively. Partly because I've been laughingstock....or to put it in a lighter way,a joke by many, all my life. And partly because I've seen what making fun of others can do to a person.
Spare the constant self embarrassing stunts  I usually get myself in, I've always been made fun of by people. Mostly its because of my physical attributes. I'm short, small, dark, hairy, big nosed...you name it.
When I was a child I got very disturbed by all these remarks people make, sometimes not even meaning to offend, sometimes just a statement of the truth, of what appears to them in physicality. So disturbed was I that I sometimes get to a stage of not really liking myself, and blaming someone for what I was.
But not too far into teenage-hood that I finally stopped being disturbed by comments people make, because I started to accept what was given to my by God. It doesn't mean that I stopped wishing that I was a wee bit taller or that I was a bit bigger (there's the gym for that anyways) but I started to accept things that I was born with. Namely the phenotypes of my genes, things I've had no choice in. And since I started to accept what I was, responding to comments got a bit harder. I just don't know how to respond, for I see no problems with people making those jokes about me.

So yeah, the whole text up there was just to say, hey guys! I don't really mind whatever you guys say about me. I'm fine with it.  In saying that though, I for one do not condone making fun of other people's physical attributes.

For making fun of others doesn't necessarily reflect them, rather it reflects us.

Make me laugh
Azfar

p.s.: excuse the rant, I have no idea what to put in the blog so there goes. And yes, the picture up there is how I look like in actual reality =P.

On Climbing Over Walls and Calling Out to Him

To every one of you who has only recently been tested.

I hope that you do not see this test as a great impenetrable wall that stops light coming through. I pray that each and every one of you will find grappling hooks and ropes to help you climb over this wall, or great steel hammers to help you smash through. If ever you feel that you need a friend to boost you up, remember that many are around, right now probably a bit afraid to help you out for fears of your reactions, but always ready to lend you a hand or two for you to use, if not to provide a place to step on, to pass you a handkerchief.

Maybe He misses your voice calling out to Him? For you should know that God tests those whom He knows can endure it, those whom He loves.

Cry all you want, if you find comfort in it, for there its no shame in crying, but may all those tears turn into beads of spirit to strengthen your heart and soul. Rest and take a look back at the journey, in the spirit of learning and humility. May standing from afar lets you see the whole mountain with its cracks and crevices and helps you take a better way up next time.

Finally, lets all remember these verses in the Quran:
"So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief;
Verily with every difficulty there its relief;
Therefore, when you have finished (your occupation), devote yourself for Allah's worship;
And to your Lord, turn all your intentions and hopes"
(5-8:94, Al-Quran)

On A Bus-hopper Who Made a Doctor

Once when I was seventeen, I spent two weeks in a hospital in Penang for an attachment to the ED. The experience in the hospital was rather humdrum, apart from the daily motor vehicle accidents resulting in masses of brain injury cases and orthopaedic referrals.

However, an interesting event happened to me when I was about to go back home to Shah Alam. It was a Friday afternoon; my uncle took the day off to get me to the bus station. After the Friday prayers and some grub, it was time for farewells.

I then hopped on the bus, to several quiet heads, minding their own businesses while waiting for the bus to depart. I took my seat and pulled out a book and was about to start reading when I heard the voices of children outside of the bus. And before I knew it, I saw the driver open the bus door and in came a sudden gush of small, repetitive voices.

I tilted my head to the right, and saw small children, two girls and a boy. The girls wore head scarfs, just tiny triangular pieces of soft cloth wrapped around their heads with a knot under their chins. And in what seemed to be hand down clothes, the girls wore baju kurung, and the boy was in a tshirt and shorts.

The children without any hesitation then started to approach everyone in the bus, going to them one by one, asking for money. "Seringgit, seringgit...." I remember them say. Being the person to avoid uncomfortable situations, I decided to pretend to be all too absorbed in my reading, so when the children came to me they would see that I was reading and won't bother asking from me.

But oh boy, how wrong was I. I heard their voices came closer and closer, until, from the corner of my eye I saw a tiny figure standing beside me, repeating the words "seringgit...seringgit....". I chose to continue reading with the child standing beside me until, I guess, I couldn't avoid it any longer. These kids are professionals, really, did I really think that they haven't seen a person doing this before? 

She had a dark complexion, looks nothing like a Malay or and Indian, a mix probably. By her size, I would say she was 7 or 8 at the time. Wearing a red head scarf and with her tiny voice and a hand forming a cup, she stood there, eyes full of disinterest, repeating "seringgit...seringgit...". She was by herself, the other two had gone further along the bus aisle.

Did I have any money to spare for her at the time? I probably did, she probably wouldn't expect much either. Did I want to give her any money? No. I wasn't about to give my money to some kid who decided to hop on busses and beg. They're probably making heaps everyday doing this.

And so, not wanting to give any money, I offered her a question instead. With  a smile, I asked "what is your name?" (NB that the following conversations occurred in the Malay language, with me trying to do the Penang slang) . The child stopped uttering her begging chant, and looking slightly embarrassed, she told me her name. What her name was, I couldn't remember, I couldn't even work it out at that time, it didn't sound Malaysian. I then continued to ask her "have you had lunch yet?" - "no, we eat once we go home" , "how did you come here" - " we came by bus numbered *something something*", "where do you live?"-  "somewhere else, we take a bus to get here in the morning. My home is in Myanmar", "where's mum and dad?"- "I dunno... maybe in Myanmar".      

I then asked her more questions, just to engage with her and be nice, I guess. Without me noticing though, the other two children were done begging in the bus, and so now they stood on each side of the girl, listening to the conversation. Noticing them now, I tried asking the other girl, an older one it seemed, probably ten or eleven, the same questions. She smiled a bit, and then, in what seemed like a flash, snatched my book from my hands, dangled it above my head, all the while asking for money. That caught me by surprise. "Owh great, feral immigrant children harassing people on busses! What's happening to this world??"

I was then still adamant on not giving out any money to these children and I tried to take the book back from her while sparing a bit of dignity for myself by not acting too roughly, to no avail. Now it really, really seemed like I had no choice but to hand them some spare change as ransom for my photocopied book. But before I could fish my wallet out, the small girl, coming from the back of her elder friend snatched the book from the older girl and handed the book back to me, with a shy smile that could've melted a butter truck beside the bus. I thanked her.

And ever so suddenly, the bus engine started, the bus now looked less empty than it did several minutes ago and it looks like we were about to make a move. The kids, as if hearing an angry voice calling out for them for dinner, took the cue and went out. And the bus, with the engine running, suddenly felt so quiet. I didn't see them again, but I thought I saw a glimpse of a red scarf heading to another bus nearby.

After they left, I felt a sadness within me, and a feeling of utmost gratification for what I have. I felt sad for that girl who was brought into a foreign country, given barely enough to live, and forced to spend her days asking people for money which she will, at the end of the day, give to some syndicate of people smugglers. Not knowing where her parents are, not knowing the possibilities of a good future, not given a chance to an education. What does the future hold for her?

I saw during the moments of our short conversation how she, for that moment in time stopped being a beggar and became a child. I saw in her that that opportunity doesn't come often and I saw how much she appreciated me asking her those questions, to let her, just very briefly, be a child. And I thought about how many children in this world who are denied their rights to be children, to have to grow up and survive on their own so soon. My head would've just exploded. Too big a problem for me to solve. But even if I didn't find the solution to global poverty and hunger, this has been one of the events that further enforced my decision to become a doctor in the future. That with God's help, and the knowledge, I can one day help children like her in some way live a better life. 

Little child, I pray, wherever you are right now, that you are always blessed by God and that you are happy. For I don't know if I would ever smile like you if I was put under your circumstances. And even if you will never read or know of this, I want to thank you, on behalf of myself and potentially many more.

For that day when you smiled, you gave birth to a doctor.

Yours
Azfar

On the Freaks Whom I Call Friends

So raise your glass if you are wrong

In all the right ways

All my underdogs, we will never be, never be

Anything but loud

And nitty gritty dirty little freaks

(Raise Your Glass, Pink)

Looking at the present, we'd find that people are somewhat getting weirder and weirder. Things that are once seen as unacceptable is now rampant, things once seen as stupid now dominate mass media, things that were generally bad, are now seen as norm. Call it a liberation of ideas, call it eventual acceptance of what is in the essence right, but just not seen so at present, call it evolution of the human mind , but as a person and a muslim specifically, I do not see how these things liberate a person. More so, I can clearly see how these things trap a human into dependence on other human beings, just people craving for words of acceptance from other people, to have a kick of dopamine into their ventral tegmental area.

As pointed out by a dear friend in his blog post, is there hope for this world to be once again a place where good dominates over...non-good? A question that, to my great relief is being asked and addressed by many of my peers today. 

In the time where people are nose diving into hedonism and shamelessness sugar coated with terms like 'freedom of expression', 'rights' and 'modernism', it is great to know that there are people taking active measures to get people to the right path.

Though I dare not admit to being in the likes of such people, I would loudly exclaim my support and agreement to their efforts. This is the least I could do.

And as any classical tale of good versus evil, justice versus tyranny, there will be characters in the tale that would describe us in real life.

Firstly there's the status quo that practices evil and the people doing their best to uphold that. Then there's the people living in the status quo, some who agree to the conditions they are living in because it benefits them in one form or another, some who don't because it robs them of their rights and the majority of people who are hoping to make just enough to live without bothering others, even if it meant having to live and practice the status quo, all the while hoping for the better. And then there's the hero, who challenges the status quo, brings up their own army of the wronged and hurt and finally brings peace and justice to the kingdom.

Where do I stand amongst the characters of the tale? I do not fully know yet. But I believe that my limited experience in this life and some learning has unclouded my eyes, allowing me to see some of these characters in real life, in front of my eyes.

I've seen these heroes, who spend their time trying to get people to do good and change their mindsets from "its ok to live in this" into "this is clearly not right, and I have the power to make changes for the better". And I've seen the reaction of their peers towards them. And frankly,  I am saddened to see that while many just won't listen, some are even actively going against what they are doing. Its like telling a doctor who comes to your home to offer you help for your pain "Go away, I do not need you to complicate matters. I'll live with this pain in the back of my head all my life until I die, when finally I wont feel it anymore. And don't you dare going around to other people offering your medicines, they too don't need you". Its like a person knows there is a problem and they believe that there is a solution to it but they are not willing to listen to the options. And people who enjoin good are seen as weird and wrong and different from others, like humans in the default setting are not made to enjoin good. Well that is weird isn't it? Because everyone who is of respectable status and people who we love tell us to do good. Our parents tell us to do good, our teachers tell us to do good, our nation leaders tell us to do good.

And so why is it different if our peers tells us to do good? Why is it wrong for some people to spend their time enjoining good and why is it alright, or normal for some others to spend their times surfing the net for no particular reason? Why is it wrong for people to spend their money going to places to meet friends who also enjoin good  and while it is normal for others to spend whole heaps more to cross continents just to meet old friends? (N.B. dear reader that I'm not making these comparisons to highlight what is good and not, but simply to state what is accepted as normal and not) Oh yeah I forgot! Of course!  Because it is weird and freaky in the world we are living now for another person to care so much for another, that they take extra effort to ask the other to do good (because they believe that doing good will serve them well in this world and the next), and it is just unnecessary for people to teach and talk to others about doing good because "of course they know about it…they just…". And it is just normal for people to ask others to waste time  and money doing things of no benefit at all. Of course!

Well with that epiphany I just had I guess I can now stop my yapping. I'm starting to sound like one of those freaks.

He's dividing everyone

With his claim that God is One

So don't talk to me about Muhammad 

Because of him there is no peace and I have trouble in my mind

So dont talk to me about muhammad

And as we walk along together we will get along just fine

(Don't Talk about Muhammad, Dawud Wharnsby Ali)

Freaky in only so many ways

Azfar

 

(P.S : I think my posts are getting worse with each submission. But…. I'm blaming to relaxed atmosphere of the holidays for this, I usually have lots to write during the busiest times of the semester, it must the adrenaline. Hoping to post reading worthy material soon. )

Sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise

Stuvac has just started and I've so much to catch up on. I practically wiped my hard drive clean from anything that had scalpels, protruding body parts, insufficient blood flow, milk producing organs, thermal cauterizations and everything else that's intense, sadistic, macho and tiring.

However I'd just like to post this quick entry to share with you guys this poem by Bassey Ikpi, on just how better it was during those days when everything was easy.

Gonna pass this semester like it doesn't really matter
Azfar