An Achievement

I never did mention about the class I attended walaupun ditanya Zana (sorry Zana). I didnt want to tell about it in case I flung the exam, in case I quit half way, in case I will be too caught up with the weekend chores, or just give up on the teacher.

Well yesterday we concluded the first level of the class and I passed the exam. Yeay.. It is my Level 1 Arabic class actually. It wasnt too complicated (it is for beginners after all), tapi macam diberitahu oleh ustaz (ustaz is used more loosely and to encompass any knowledgable persons, teacher etc) it is the revision and the usage of the language is most important.

Say what - can I speak Arabic now? Naaah - I can count 1 to 10, I can tell you what is 137 in Arabic. I can tell you tree = syajaroh and car = sayyaroh and a few other words like mumtaz (excellent) and jayd (good) or jayd jiddan (very good). I cant say I know what is 454 in Arabic nor do I know how to say I have a blog. Yet.

We hope to continue to Level 2 soon, although the bad news is we do not have enough people who wants to continue to that level. Tolong doa, somehow I do want to do this (semasa di Mekah, saya meragam sebab orang Arab tak pandai berbahasa Inggeris. Tapi kemudian saya tersedar, saya yang bersolat dan membaca Quran tiap2 hari ni sepatutnya lebih memahami bahasa Arab. Saya ni, yang mengaku Muslim patutnya tahu).

Anyways. This is my class ustaz; he was marking our exams. He is an Egyption, speaks Arab dengan sungguh sedap. And who is always smiling (he said, MasyaAllah, why are you taking my photo?)

And I need to show this too (typical of me). My exam results.

(in case you dont know, that is a 98. Yeay.)

Alhamdulillah I have persevered so far. Weekends are such challenging days for classes. Wish me luck in this.

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Mencari Taqwa Part 6 ~ Selamat Tinggal

Other fave photos.

Parking 11A always reminds me of the prof.

My last ziarah to Masjid Nabi was solemn. It was late morning. Tak ramai di masjid (at least tak lah ramai kalau compare to solat fardhu). I made my way deep into the masjid. It was cool and calm. And then found that I am at the waiting area to the Raudhah. I knew I didnt have enough window time to wait for entrance again, jadi saya terus mencari ruang untuk solat dan berdoa. Untuk makmur hidup, sejahtera keluarga. Dan juga berdoa agar ini bukan ziarah yang terakhir ke sini. Agar diberi ruang untuk terus beriman dan mencari rahmatNya. Did anybody not cry at such last visits?

 

Jika selepas ini ada yang bertanya what's your favorite city? Without any doubt, it has got to be this place. Ada yang sayu, tenang dan redha di sini. Saya andaikan itulah rahmat.

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Mencari Taqwa Part 5 ~ Membeli di Madinah

Please take note I am not talking about shopping, maupun membeli-belah. Somehow that sort of means merayau2 di pasar / kedai dengan leka dan membuat senseless purchases (at least that is how that seems to me). Membeli means you have specific things you need to buy - straight to the point.

Semasa ke masjid kami lalu di celah2 bangunan / hotel yang penuh dengan kedai2 kecil or bazaar, if you like. Macam2 benda yang dijualnya. Amat menarik. Saya tergelak bila saya dapati kedai2 ini dibuka sebaik selepas solat subuh selesai, which is about 5am every morning! Interesting. Solat subuh is at about 430am or so. And they remain open till late after Isya'.

Membeli buah tangan seeloknya di Madinah. Di Mekah barang2 lebih mahal, maybe twice as much in some cases. Belilah kurma, jubah wanita, jubah lelaki, tasbih, sejadah and what have you. I love these scenes. Sungguh menakjubkan pada saya.

(different phases of buah kurma yang masak / separuh masak)

En route to Masjid Nabi I found a fruit peddlar with a cart laden with bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots etc, sometimes managed by a kind old man. Tiga hari kami makan cherry dan peach yang manis dan ranum (reminds me of summer fruits during college actually).

Dan selepas solat zuhur dan selanjutnya semakin ramai yang menjual di hadapan / tepi masjid sehingga membuatkan laluan masuk / keluar masjid sesak. Tapi saya suka, tidak pun saya membeli but there is somethig so different about the scenery.

 

 

 (he threw the colorful scarves into the air to attract buyers. I like to watch. And take pictures).

(or you can buy things around Madinah Hilton, you pay a bit more I think)

(more payung and blue skies)

Kata ustaz, membelilah. Rahmatkanlah kota ini. Asalkan tidak membazir.

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Mencari Taqwa Part 4 - Ziarah Madinah

We visited Masjid Quba'. Ia masjid yang dibina Rasulullah semasa berhijrah ke Madinah. Dan masjid yang berkali2 disebut di mana Rasulullah bersolat sunat dua rakaat semasa baginda tinggal di Madinah. Lebih kurang 5 km dari bandar Madinah. It is white washed with four tall pillars. Ia antara masjid paling suci selepas al Aqsa.

Next we were taken to the ladang kurma. Mugkin terlalu ramai pengunjung Msia dan Indon sehingga di beg dan kedai pun ditulis dalam bahasa Melayu. Kami minum teh dan makan kurma di bawah pokok kurma (fyi the picture looks much better than it actually is).

I love kurma trees (believe it or not) and was excited the first time I saw the date trees with the yellow fruits. It really does look awesome. You can see the ripe golden dates at the top of the tree from afar.

We visited the dataran syuhadah (is that what the ustaz called it? I cant remember) where the Uhud martyr rested; termasuklah Saidina Hamzah.

This is the Bukit Uhud di mana berlakunya peperangan tersebut. 

Then we went to pasar kurma. Dari gelagat peniaga, saya agak tentu orang Msia banyak berbelanja di sini (we were the first to get to the bus - nak cerita kononnya kami tak banyak membeli! - so we managed to get this photo of the others). Fyi, membeli kurma semestinya di pasar kurma Madinah - lebih murah - bukan di kebun ataupun di Makkah (tapi kalau fresh dates lebih baik dibeli di kebun kurma, tak jumpa pulak di pasar).

We were also shown other masjids including Masjid Qiblatain. Unfortunately we didnt stop. All in all, saya suka cara mutawwif menyusun program. Kami selalu ada banyak masa untuk pulang ke hotel dan kemudian solat zuhur di Masjid Nabi.

ps - Saya terjumpa gambar Masjid Quba' pada waktu malam. Cantik rupanya masjid ini.

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Mencari Taqwa Part 3 ~ Solat di Masjid Nabi

Ada sesuatu yang amat istimewa bersolat di Masjid Nabawi. Ia amat meriah. Saya agak sembahyang Jumaat di Masjid Negara pun tidak setanding dengan sembahyang fardhu di sini.

When we were in Madinah, the daily temperature hit up and around 43degrees. I suppose it is peak summer. Compared to local temperature that is certainly hot. Namun semua orang berjalan ke masjid (Alhamdulillah hotel di Madinah amat dekat ke masjid). Berduyun-duyun. Lebih dekat dengan waktu, lebih ramai yang sampai. Dataran di luar masjid yang amat besar pun penuh dengan jemaah.

   (dataran masjid amat sibuk selepas selesai solat)

 Be careful when entering the masjid sebab jika anda seorang wanita, beg anda akan diperiksa (tiada diperiksa pula di seksyen lelaki). Kalau terjumpa kamera mereka akan suruh anda simpan di pigeon hole yang disediakan, direkod dan akan diawasi. Kalau mood guard wanita tak baik, telefon pun disuruh simpan di situ (this happened to me). Jadi pandai2lah anda selit handphone anda. Dada juga ditepuk, just to make sure you are not hiding anything there (tapi most of the time dia tak jumpa pun, nikmat Allah). Kadang2 queue masuk ke masjid panjang disebabkan proses ini. Jadi, selalu rancang untuk tiba di masjid awal. Also kalau tiba lewat, saf mungkin penuh dan anda terpaksa solat di dataran (and I dont think you'd enjoy your solat there). Dan saya amat panik bila iqamah selesai dan saya masih belum jumpa ruang untuk solat! (this also happened).

(pandangan lazim apabila keluar masjid - dan yang saya suka - bapa2 akan tunggu kaum wanita di belakang tali merah)

(kami selalu berjumpa di pintu 25. Agar senang berjumpa, selalu berjanji tempat menunggu)

Saya suka masuk Masjid Nabi. It is always cool inside. Calm when it is not prayer time. Kalau solat fardhu saya suka ke seksyen 'tanpa kanak2'. Jauh dari resah anak2 yang menunggu ibu selesai solat. Saya suka architecture masjid. Column nya yang besar dan teguh. Arches nya yang tinggi. Warnanya. Karpetnya. Luasnya. Saujana mata memandang. Saya suka juga Quran yang diletakkan di merata2 rak sama saja rupa nya. Tak serabut pada mata. I thought the masjid was perfectly perfect.

To tell you the truth, I even like the toilet (fyi toilets are my utmost concern). Walaupun style lama. Located outside at the dataran, it is in the basement and it is cool there. Ada escalator turun. Boleh relax dekat tempat wudhu'. Certainly you need not avoid the toilets here.

(Doesnt this look wonderful? I certainly do love the blue skies)

Dan memang panas di luar masjid. Tapi kalau kita asyik berkata panas, panas, memang amat panaslah jadinya. Kata ustaz ada hadith yang mengatakan dalam debu Madinah ada ubat. Dalam udara Madinah ada ubat. I love what he said. We walked to the masjid, basked in the hot sun and breathed deeply udara dan debu Madinah. Mencari berkat tempat kesayangan Rasulullah.

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Selamat Beribadah, Ramadhan 1433

Tiada masa yang lebih sesuai dari Ramadhan untuk mengajar dan melatih diri untuk beramal dan menjadi lebih baik dari sebelumnya. So what are your plans for Ramadhan?

Mengkhatam dan melebihkan bacaan Quran?
Atau sembahyang malam?
Mencapai impian bertemu lailatul-qadar?
Bertarawikh
Bertadabbur alQuran
Tiada menghabiskan masa merayau2 di pasar
Lebihkan diam
Cakap yang baik2
Lebihkan bersedeqah
Kurangkan makan
Kurangkan tidur
Dan berdoa, dan berdoa, segala yang dirancang tercapai
Agar ramadhan ini menjadi lebih baik dari sebelumnya.

Selamat mencari redha dan rahmat di bulan yang mulia ini.

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Mencari Taqwa Part 2 ~ Ziarah Masjid Nabawi

We flew on the Saudi Arabian airlines. Not that we consciously picked the carrier; it came with the date selected - pilihlah tarikh yang sesuai untuk umrah, to me there is no sense visiting Madinah or Makkah pada hari2 uzur - and the fact that we wanted to enter Madinah first. I like that they read doa musafir, doa naik kenderaan at take-off and recite Alhamdulillah at arrival. Itu antara kelebihannya. I suppose food and other services are rather comparable. We've got no complaints.

The flight was filled with Arab families yang pulang bercuti di KL in fact. Bila makanan tiba saya asyik menjeling cara wanita Arab makan di sebalik tutup muka mereka. Saya berpendapat mereka makan sungguh sopan - at least the ones I watched were. They examined the food, spread the napkin on their lap, then carefully twirled the noodle on their fork. And then ate. Slowly. In a way I rather like the way they are dressed too. Kita, entah apa yang nak dibungakan sangat. Semua baju berbunga.. Anyway.

I was glad I didnt cry when saying goodbye to the kids. We were in a rush so we hugged quickly as I said, ingat pesan mama (semua pesanan dah dipesankan pun berkali2 berhari2 sebelumnya). But I did shed tears semasa mutawwif membaca doanya. Sebak pulak masa tu.

We arrived in Madinah close to midnight after a short stop at Riyadh (most of the families boarded off here). Madinah airport was smaller than I expected. The heat hit us as we stepped down from the plane to the bus. As we weaved through the city streets we saw Masjid Nabawi in between the building blocks. It was bathed in glorious lights at midnite.

We were taken on the masjid nabi tour the next morning. The dataran outside is vast. We were shown kubah yang berwarna hijau, terletaknya makam Rasulullah saw, Abu Bakar & Umar as. Namun kaum wanita tidak lagi dibenarkan masuk ke kawasan makam.

 (kubah hijau di antara payung masjid)

We were also shown Baqi', perkuburan Uthman Affan, para isteri nabi, keluarga nabi dan sahabat nabi yang lain, which is just across from the masjid. And again women are not allowed entrance here (saya beranggapan mungkin kaum wanita kadang2 beremosi keterlaluan). Note : I couldnt upload the Baqi' photos at this time. But Baqi' looked lapang and tenang and definitely different from our tanah perkuburan.  

Next we went to wait entrance to the raudhah. Dont be surprised, but women are granted entrance according to negeri masing2 (pengiring akan membawa plaque nama negara!) Malaysia & Indonesia are gathered into a group. And you wait a long time at different spots as directed by mak-guard arab (yang garang pada pendapat saya - maybe they have to be that way to manage such crowds).  No such thing for the men's section I am told.

Raudhah di bahagian lelaki berkarpet warna hijau. Di kawasan wanita karpetnya berwarna hijau dengan bunga berwarna kemerahan. Lain2 bahagian masjid karpet berwarna merah dengan bunga2 (that's how you tell if you are in the Raudhah).

(sementara menunggu giliran masuk ke Raudhah, ada ceramah oleh penceramah dari Indon; satu2nya penceramah yang bukan berbangsa Arab. She is standing against the column clad in black. The sign above her reads something like, you dont need to push. If you are patient, your wishes will be granted, InsyaAllah - or something akin to that)

 (Raudhah di bahagian lelaki)

Entrance to the raudhah is never as I imagined it to be. The area of the raudhah is limited and there are MANY that wish to solat sunat dan berdoa di situ. Jadi keadaan amat kelam-kabut. But my personal opinion is, if you are patient and berdoa dipermudahkan Allah, InsyaAllah akan tercapai niat untuk bersolat dan berdoa (dan dengan panjang!) Biasanya Msia & Indonesia adalah yang terakhir dipanggil jadi tiada lagi pengunjung lain di Raudhah selepas itu maka adalah sedikit masa untuk kita berdoa dengan lebih tenang. InsyaAllah.

(dataran masjid dan payung. Doesnt it look beautiful?)

I love the payung di Masjid Nabi. And I love the blue skies in Madinah (these I will repeat many, many times I am sure).

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Mencari Taqwa ~ Part 1

For a time I wondered if I am going to talk about my latest visit. And then later decided I should.

After all, I went through great lengths to talk about our (awesome) KK trip and our foray into the forests at Kuching. And even to Bukit Maxwell which is on my mom's backyard (so to speak).

And so I suppose I will have a new series of posts on my recent ziarah to Madinah and Makkah (which is the reason for the silence in the blog for the last couple of weeks). I beg your patience, but it might seem that I may have a lot to get out of my system regarding this subject - on second thoughts, I dont think I actually want to get the subject out of my system.     

This is one of my favorite pictures. Payung Masjid Nabawi & its minaret. I love how blue the sky is in Madinah.

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Yang Baik-Baik

Muqaddimah ~ Saya suka membaca tulisan orang baik-baik (you may interpret that as you will). Ada saja pengajaran yang boleh dijadikan tauladan. Kadang2 sebak bila membaca. Kadang2 terfikir pulak, they are the most amazing people yang patut dibuat contoh. MasyaAllah. Dan hati sendiri berkata, hidup pun inilah sekali nya; carilah alasan untuk buat yang baik2 dan yang terbaik - tak mahu pulak menyesal di hujung kehidupan ataupun di sana nanti.

Ustaz bercerita (btw, we were talking about the benefits of larger phone screens - like the s3, dan orang ofis bercerita that they surf the net on their smart phones during traffic jams when commuting to/from work. Saya terdiam kerana saya pulak terasa malu nak bercerita saya dengar cd ustaz pada masa2 begini..), dari sebuah hadith di mana Abu Dzar menceritakan kisah Rasulullah saw membaca ayat yang sama berkali2 pada setiap raka'at semasa baginda solat malam hinggalah sampai subuh. 

Keesokan harinya bertanyalah Abu Dzar mengapa Rasulullah sepanjang malam semalam baginda baca ayat yang sama berulang2 hingga ke pagi (saya tak ingat pula ayat dari surah yang mana satu). Jawab Rasulullah saw beliau merayu pada Allah agar umat baginda diampunkan Allah. Tiada sebab lain. Beliau berdoa Ya Allah, tolong ampunkan hamba2Mu ini. Tolong ampunkan umatku. Mereka ini punyai banyak salah dan cukup banyak berbuat dosa. Kalau Engkau memilih untuk mengazab mereka, mereka tetap hambaMu juga. Tetapi kalau Engkau memilih untuk mengampunkan mereka, Engkau Maha Perkasa, Maha Bijaksana. Dan kata Rasulullah lagi, Alhamdulillah aku telah diberitahu bahawa permintaan aku telah dimakbulkan Allah selagi umatku tidak mensyirikkan Allah.

Kata ustaz lagi, hadith ni nak bagitau betapa sayangnya Rasulullah kepada kita, umatnya. Lebih dari kita sayangkan keluarga kita. Bayangkanlah. Kita cuba bayar balik sayang Rasulullah itu dengan mentaati perintah Allah dan menurut sunnah Nabi.

Saya andaikan juga jika ingin berdoa akan sesuatu, bangunlah pada satu pertiga akhir malam dan berdoalah berkali2 pada Allah. Agar doa yang diminta itu dimakbulkan Allah. Cuba dengan kesungguhan. Dan ternyata ia satu kebenaran. Wallahualam (siapalah saya?)

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