Monday 28 February 2011

Tolerance by ignorance.

In the name of Allah.

And so I had another two-hour lecture for Immunology. Sad to say, I was wide awake only for the first five minutes or so and the rest was the endless effort of rocking my body back and forth trying to stay conscious. Nothing to be proud of, I know.

Just when I thought that the effort was going to end up in vain, the title 'Tolerance by Ignorance' appeared on the screen. Koyak! T.T Why you ask?

Have you ever wondered what will happen to the non-believers on the Day of Judgment? Some might say, "hell fire".

Wouldn't that be the opposite of Allah being al-'Adl and al-Hakim? The fact that the light of Islam is not shed among the non-believers makes them ignorant and such punishment shows nothing close to justice. Even in the Holy Quran, Allah reveals that :

"And whosoever does not respond to Allah's Caller, he cannot escape on earth, and there will be no Auliya' (protectors) for him besides Allah (from Allah's Punishment). Those are in manifest error." Al-Ahqaf [46:32]

In simple words, we have to preach first!

Their ignorance might save them from the fire but not us, for we bear al-Haq on our shoulders. Are we not the unjust ones for concealing the truth that was revealed to our beloved Prophet s.a.w.? I won't say more. Something for all of us, especially me, to think and ponder.

The more you know, the greater your responsibility will be.

Let's pray to Allah that we are able to do our part in delivering the risalah and not to be held accountable for the ignorance that dwells. Amiin.

Friday 18 February 2011

Into the light and beyond.

In the name of Allah.


The other day when I had my personal tutorial, Prof W mentioned about one of the hottest discoveries at present in neuroscience. It is about channel proteins which are photo-sensitive and involved in eukaryotic phototaxis response. Yeah, but I'm not going to write anything about it - just about the phototaxis part.

Euglena - Subhanallah!
So, to name a few, Tetrahymena and Euglena have positive phototactic response. In other words, when the bacteria sense even a bit of illumination, it'll move towards it. Now, let's see ourselves as the bacteria and Islam as light. What will we do? If you ask me this question about a year ago, I might answer, "negative phototactic response".

 "And indeed, every time I (Nuh a.s.) invited them that You may forgive them, they put their fingers in their ears, covered themselves with their garments, persisted, and were arrogant with [great] arrogance." Nuh [71:7]

Who said the Holy Quran is outdated? I might not be doing what were described per se, but refusing or avoiding invitations to kuliahs, halaqah or anything along that line because of studies or homework? Pfft, AS IF, I'm going to fully utilise the time to do my work. What will I answer to the Lord when He asks me on the Day of Judgement? "What have you done with your time when you refused to go to usrah?" I know what my answer would be, "I studied for the betterment of the ummah." Ah, that's going to be a great answer until I read this verse in the Holy Quran:

"That Day, We will seal over their mouths, and their hands will speak to Us, and their feet will testify about what they used to earn." Yaasin [36:65]

I have a feeling that Facebook is going to speak on my behalf as well. Scary? But nothing is scarier than this for Allah's judgment is the ultimate.

"Because of their sins they were drowned and put into the Fire, and they found not for themselves besides Allah [any] helpers." Nuh [71:25]

Do not be demotivated though. There are no helpers except Allah. And for those who claim themselves as Da'ie, and yes, that includes me, stop complaining and start working harder! I know Allah is the only authority that could give hidayah. But, our work is nothing compared to the Prophets. Take Nuh a.s. as an example - 950 years of dakwah and only 80 followed him! So, who are we to complain? Ouch, right back at me. T.T

There's this quote that I learnt from my Principal back in high school, "I will never complain". That's the spirit of a true Da'ie - I don't think I fit to be called this. Alas, life goes on. Whether we like it or not, we still have to do dakwah, no?
Let's pray for His hidayah :)
 Don't you just love getting a wakeup call - from a bacteria, no less? ;)

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Born as ambassadors, we are.

In the name of Allah.

I just like the idea of us being ambassadors. Which country are we representing? Malaysia? Yes? No? How about Melayu? Katanya, "takkan hilang melayu di dunia" kan? How about our sponsoring bodies? They send us to study for a reason. Well, questions are not meant to be left as questions.

I want to say that I'm a proud ambassador of Malaysia, but hmm........ let me check the 'History' section of my brain. Ahuh! 16th September 1963, that is how far I can go with it. Let's try looking for Tanah Melayu. Urgh, I'm not good with dates. I'm confident that it's just a few hundred years back. Melayu pulak, I could track back down to Parameswara, the founder of Majapahit empire. And he was not even from 'our' tanah, he's from Java. -.-' I don't even know if I can call myself melayu. Right, I might fit the definition in our Perlembagaan. But, my great grandfather was from Sri Lanka. >.< I bet there are lots of others who are note pure breed. So, who are we?

Melayu or melayu(verb) ?? xD

Hmm.. I want to call myself the ambassador of Islam. Wait a minute?? Islam?? *scanning through my brain* Wooooaaahh! That's like waaaayyyy back - since the creation of Adam a.s.! You might say this, "I thought Islam started only after the Prophet-hood of our beloved Muhammad s.a.w." Well, there is a misconception in the meaning of the word 'Islam'. Sure, we were taught back in our school days that it came from the word 'salam' which means peace. The actual meaning of Islam is total submission to God. So yeah, it was dated back to the creation of mankind - when the Angels were instructed by Allah, to prostrate before Adam a.s., which is quite an interesting scene described in the Holy Quran. I think I should write on that too. Later though.

"And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, 'Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority(caliph)'. They said, 'Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?' Allah said, 'Indeed, I know that which you do not know'."  Al-Baqarah [2:30]

Before I go on with my blabbering, when the Angels described us as corrupted, Allah said that He knows what the Angels don't know. Meaning to say that, we are more than that! We are destined for greatness and that is His words. Huh, so if any of you ever thought that you are incapable of being the caliph on this Earth, think again. You don't want to show defiance to the divine words of Allah.

We have finally found the answer, no? Now, we know that we're ambassadors of His Deen, what should we do? What does it mean? Dakwah. Yes, that is the duty of a caliph. People around us will look at what we do, how we talk, walk, everything! The spotlight is on us. Show the qudwah of muslim to everyone - the believers and non-believers. This is our chance!

Sadly, the reality is, muslims nowadays are not aware of that. They act recklessly. I like this saying in malay, 'Ikut hati, mati. Ikut rasa, binasa. Ikut nafsu, lesu. Ikut iman, aman." Ok, I added my own words to the last bit but it fits well, isn't it? That is why we have Islamophohia around, labelled as terrorists where ever we go. That is not how things should be. There are no others to blame but us. *pointing at chest* What is in there is not pure. T.T Why? Allah, the almighty had given us the answer.

"And do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know [it].Al-Baqarah [2:43]

Mixing the truth with falsehood does not only mean in our words - also in our actions. The actions that will bring us back to Jannah, our rightful place. This is a good muhasabah to all of us, including me - how many of our deeds and actions over the years brought us closer to Jannah? How sure are we that the good deeds we have done, Allah will accept them? All this while Allah has mentioned not to conceal the truth - to do dakwah, the greatest sunnah of our Prophet s.aw., using his ways. Are we even close to that?

Let us have a silent moment and istighfar.

Remember that Allah is always by your side, especially if you are helping His Deen. So, come my muslim brethren! Let's do dakwah together!

Allahu akbar!

After all, we are born as muslim embassadors. :)

Monday 14 February 2011

Our hands - not that easy to make.


In the name of Allah.


It just came to me recently that Biochemistry is not that dull anymore.  Least in my expectation that I could actually learn about dakwah from it. Maybe it is His divine way to proof to me that study is a SMALL subset of dakwah. Yes, emphasis on the SMALL.

And so, I have to learn about Sonic Hedgehog Homologue, SHH for short. When this friend of mine, Iki asked me, "Why do you have to study such trifling matter?". You can guess that I answered, "I don't know. But hedgehogs are cute though!". LOL. Period.

Cute innit?

To put it simply, SHH are molecules that regulate loads of signaling pathways in vertebrates. Besides the mechanics which are too ridiculous to learn - some of which are still beyond our knowledge, if you don't have them, you might have your feet grow on your head, eyes on your knees. Yeah, we shall have everything out of place. Subhanallah! Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim. For if Allah is neither of them, nauzubillah, THAT is how humans are going to be like.

What intrigues me the most is, how our hand is developed while we were still in our mothers' wombs. SHH is responsible, not entirely though for this. With the help of Gli3 repressor and Gli1 activator, OK, spare the details. Bluergh, I'm not here to teach Molecular Cell Biology. With the parameters of time - how long SHH is expressed, concentration - the amount present, the presence of SHH - the absence of SHH makes our thumb and combinations of those three mentioned parameters make the development of our hands possible. Subhanallah!

The not-so-attractive diagram. :p

So, I told Iki about this and he relates this to these verses from the Holy Quran :

"Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones?  Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order, the very tip of his fingers." Al-Qiyamah [75:3-4]

Koyak! T.T

To top that :

"And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless." Al-A'raf [7:179]

Another wake up call it is! Do you want to be like those who are mentioned in this verse? I know I don't.

Which one are you?

I'm taking this positively. Biochemistry is not just a subject anymore. It fortifies the verses in the Holy Quran. Just name a field, be it sciences or arts or whatever. If you see them through the perspective of Islam, with the guidance of Quran, Hadith and Sunnah, insyAllah, we have solid reasons to study them now. It's apart of our ubudiyah and a SMALL section of dakwah. :)

Thursday 10 February 2011

Kenapa saya berubah?

In the name of Allah.


A dear friend of mine wrote something on how he has changed and I think that would also be a good post to spice up this blog. Saya memang malas nak meng-edit layout blog ni - so, this will do for now.

Remember when I said "I used to have a blog and it went dead"? I think that was a foreshadow of what was to come. The last post was dated a day before flying off to the UK. Little did I know that I was going to meet up with this bunch of great abang-abang. I guess God made me stop writing all those nonsense for a reason.

To tell you the truth, I was one of those who pandang slack dekat geng-geng surau, kalau alim sket kira poyo, dengar nasyid telinga berdarah Mahsuri. Even when I first arrived in the UK, one of my friends changed drastically and "Kau ni brothers giler!" was one of my favourite lines to make fun of him. In case you don't know, brothers is the term used to describe orang-orang yang sok suci (in fact, memang suci pun!).

But I made quite a turn around, 180 degrees is just not enough to describe it. Back in KYUEM, usrah was a BIG NO-NO to me. Went to the first few sessions and then cabut.  It seemed to be some kind of weekly gathering with random stuff being shared. Nothing more than what you can get from googling on the net. Living alone in the UK might have made me realise that He is the only one you could put all your hopes on. It amazes me till now, kononnya nak lari la dari usrah bagai, tapi in the end, this is where I stand today.

Usrah - It's more than what words can describe. Be part of it and you'll know what I mean :)


The main point is (untuk orang-orang yang tak dapat point lagi, yes, you!=p) you have to grab the opportunity.  Kau mampu cakap yang esok kau masih hidup? Kalau mampu, sila lah! Ingat ayat ni?

"..Allah tidak akan mengubah keadaan sesuatu kaum sebelum mereka mengubah keadaan mereka sendiri.." Ar-Ra'ad  [13:11]

Agak hairanlah bila ada statement macam "Dah Allah buat aku macam ni.." atau "Dah nasib macam ni..".  But, that's the reality.  If you want to change, do it now! Don't hesitate.

However, it's not all sweet.  Your friends will start to question you. Come to think of it, biarlah dorang nak fikir apa-apa pun.  I'm doing this because that is my call for Him. InsyAllah you'll find better companions.  There are so much to tell with so little time to write.  I'm willing to tell about everything.  All you need to do is just holler me :)


Lepas starting point, boleh memecut!

The hardest part is always the starting point.  I know I was not alone. And you should know that too :D

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Wake Up Call

In the name of Allah.

To cut things short, I used to have a blog and it went dead. I believe that there's always a good reason behind everything that has happened to me for the past one year or so. Alhamdulillah, I'm ever grateful towards Him for the chance that has been opened up to me.

Wake up!!!! O.o

The popular Quran verse and possibly one of my favourite verses from the Holy Book says:

"Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. "Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred. Our Lord, and lay not upon us a burden like that which You laid upon those before us. Our Lord, and burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our protector, so give us victory over the disbelieving people." Al-Baqarah [2:286]

I do believe that blogging can be a good medium for dakwah but it pales in comparison to the sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. ; halaqah, usrah, Quranic circle but, lets just leave it at that.

In terms of how I'm going to write, it's going to be very colloquial, in English, Malay, mixture of both, Arabic, Japanese and the list goes on and on and on. Don't expect too much from me because I still have lots to learn as a muslim. 

Oh, and this is where I'm going to share with you about my journey.


Selamat Membaca ! :)