Learning from life itself 3- Farid

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

I met a person in Burlington Mosque whose name is Farid.
He is a Pakistani and a family man.

He told me of a story about himself.

This is his story ;

Long before , he had to do many jobs in order to support is family.
Yes , life is tough in America . Some people who has never been here will think that dollars ( yes , the greenback ) grew on trees (a friend of mine told me that back in his country , people think that dollars grew on tree and people just came and pick all the dollars ).

He works round the clock .

Obviously , with his job , it is almost impossible to pray Jumaat prayer.
So , he always if not often miss the Jumaat prayer.

One day , a friend of him realize this and gave him an advice.

He said , no matter how much you have obey with the 5 salah daily pray but if you miss the Jumaat prayer , you will be in great trouble in Akhirat.

But farid told his friend, it is impossible because of his job commitment .

So ,his friend told him to make 2 rakaat salah and pray to Allah that Allah make it easy for him to pray for Jumaat prayer.
His friend also advice Farid to talk to his manager to let him go during Jumaat prayer.
His friend also told him that if he had done his 2 rakaat prayer and make dua' to Allah and ask for a break from his manager to go Jumaat , and still his manager didn't let him go for Jumaat prayer ,
then at least he had tried and did ask Allah for help.

Then , the next morning , farid talk to is manager to let him go during Jumaat prayer
, and to his dismay , his manager reject his application.

Farid feel sad , but at least he did ask Allah for help and he did the best he could.

Surely , Allah is the Most Gracious and The Most Merciful , Allah is the Greatest , to Allah we ask for everything and it is He Whom granted everything.

That afternoon, his manager called him to is office. She said that she needed him to work on Friday night because they want her wife to work on Saturday morning ( both him and his wife work at the same place but different shift).

MasyaAllah , Allahuakbar , all praise to Allah , Farid now could go to pray Jumaat since he change is shift from day to night.
He never miss Jumaat prayer again.

All praise to Allah who granted His Mercy to Farid and to all of us.

And Farid said to me ;

'Brother , if you are in trouble or if you need anything , pray two rakaat , make dua' to Allah , surely Allah will help you, He is the Most Gracious ,the Most Merciful'

I almost cried when he said that .

I've learned a very good lesson and Alhamdulillah , to Allah I ask for everything.

May Allah accept our good deeds and forgave our bad deeds and accept our repentance to Him, amin ya rabbal a'lamin.

Note; And his company even gave him room to pray for his 5 times daily prayer since he prays salat in the cafeteria .May Allah bless his soul.

Learning from life itself - Part 2

Assalamualaikum,
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

Yesterday ,Sunday 19th 2008 ,
Alhamdulillah , my daughter won a quran memorization competition held by Quincy Mosque here in Boston.
She did what her father failed to do when he was 5 .
Currently she had already memorize 7 short surahs which her father failed to do when he was 5.
She is doing much better than her father .
I pray and du'a to Allah so that she will memorize the whole quran .
I also pray and make du'a to Allah so that she will understand the quran and teach them to others.
I also pray to Allah that she will understand the hadeeth of Rasulullah saw and teach them to others.
I also pray that she will have a good life in this world and follow the teachings of Quran nad hadeeths and go to Jannah without heesab and to all my children's as well.

I hope that she will not follow my footsteps of making a lot of major sins and minor sins.
I repent to Allah so that Allah will forgive me in this world and hereafter.

O Allah , please make my children's have a good life in this world , follow the teachings of Quran and Hadeeth and have a good life in hereafter , and please choose them as your servants and make them to Jannah without heesab, amin ya rabbal alamin.

Proud father

Learning from life itself

Assalamualaikum,

Learning from life itself. All this while i'm working here in Quincy MA ( well , i'm not here because of study but rather because of work) I've met few individuals in Muslim community who really touch my heart and my mind. 

     After few weeks I've arrived in Quincy and few times to the mosque, I've met this guy who always come to the mosque and we became friend later . He is from India and already reside in USA for 6 years now and make a living as a system analyst engineer. ( There are hundreds or  if not thousands of Indian people working in Boston and greater area as computer engineer or anything that relates to computer -and they are really very smart people - I wonder what happened to our CyberJaya project - are they producing enough computer engineers like India where they could 'export' their engineers to all over the world ? )

     One day , he asked me to read quran together with him . After we sit down , he asked me , which surah should we read first and if I have any favorite surah . As a typical Muslim Malay , I said to him , it is surah Yassin as i've read it so many times before. So , he said , let us recite surah Yassin then. I suggested to him that I recite 10 ayahs first and then he recite another 10 ayahs and so on until we finish. He agree with that .

  So , I read from the Quran first 10 ayahs and then come his turn . He recite the next 10 ayahs with ease and to my amaze , he recite it without looking at the Book. Now , wait a minute ! Does he really 'hafaz' or memorize the entire surah ? Well , I said to my self , let's wait another 10 ayahs and see how it's going .

   MasyaAllah , he really remember and memorize the whole surah Yassin . Now , it really makes  me wonder . I probably read surah Yassin hudreds of time and probably thousand time ,but my 'kepala ' ,  cannot memorize the entire surah . Why is that ? Why he can memorize the surah and I cannot ?

   Then , he asked me , should we read another surah , and I said yes and he suggest Surah Al-Mulk because he feels that he want to read the surah. So , I agree and the same thing happened , he memorize the entire surah Mulk ! For myself , I rarely read surah Mulk and this guy in front of me , who is an engineer himslef just like me , could memorize 2 surahs now ,Yassin and Mulk.

Now , I said to myself ,I have to ask this brother where he learned Quran and where did he learned to memorize the Quran . This is what he said 

" Brother , I've just learned how to read the quran in January 2007 . I learned it from a brother at this mosque who conduct a quranic class and arabic "

 Then I asked him again ,  well , it's just only a year and you can memorize 2 surahs already , or do you have memorize the entire quran ?  He said , "No brother , I only memorized all the 'easy surahs'  and few juzuks of al-Quran. Then I said to him , MasyaAllah brother , you only learned quran a year ago and now you memorize more surahs than me who learned quran since I was 6 years old. He just smiled and said that I could probably done better than him .

    One thing he said is that he always learned it during his spare time and he learned it by listening to Quran recitation from www.quranexplorer.com where great reciters recited the Holy Quran.

    This friend of mine makes me wonder of myself  as a muslim , how deep my knowledge of Islam is ? Why can't I memorize the entire Quran or at least half of it ? And how far I really understand Quran and how much that I've practice according to Quran and Sunnah Rasulullah saw ? 

     It seems to me , I had only little knowledge of Quran and Sunnah saw although I was born as a muslim in a muslim family , I have never read the entire translation of Quran and I haven't even read 1 volume of Hadeeth of Bukhari . How can I say I fully understand Islam when I didn't even fully understand Quran and Hadeeth by heart. 

   This brother remind me of the things that I negelct for all this years and 'Islam ikut-ikutan' as I practised before should be further enhanced by studying Quran and Sunnah . May Allah bless his soul for reminding me of what I neglected before .

( This friend of mine is currently away and on leave for 6 months from his job to study proper recitation of Quran and learning to memorize the entire Quran- May Allah made it easy for him and bless his soul with knowledge and wisdom- ameen ) 

.

Ramadhan in Boston USA

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

 It's already Ramadhan and probably it's not too late to wish Ramadhan Mubarak to all muslim brothers and sisters. This is my first time my Ramadhan in USA and my 4th time outside Malaysia( well i went for studies in England back in 90's )

One thing that really amazed me all the time is that how packed the mosque is whenever Ramadhan comes . Here in Boston ( Quincy more specific) , muslims were originated from all over the world and some Americans would come and pray and worships Allah in His house, MasyaAllah. That is one of the blessing of Ramadhan where the remembrance of Allah is plentiful during this time .

Currently , it's Fall season right now and fajr time is 4:50 am and maghrib is around 7:10 pm . The weather wasn't really that hot and humid like we had during summer, but it was rather pleasant which temperature ranging from 80- 90 deg F during daytime to 50-60 deg F during the night.

The challenge of fasting is not the weather , but rather the 'sexiness' of the population here, since it is still consider hot weather for Americans , so the dress is a little bit 'exposed' I would say. Lower you gaze most of time is the 'key' in order to fulfill your fasting obligation. Since i didn't listen to music except for nasheed songs ( even that i have stop listening for Ramadhan).

Halal food is aplenty around this area. There are 4 groceries stores and 1 groceries cum pizza store within 5 minutes drive.There is also 1  huge Chinese groceries store that sells most of food stuff from Vietnam, Thailand ,Indonesia and Malaysia as well. They even sell durian , serai fresh just like back in Malaysia ,Ikan masin ( what ?? ) , daun pandan , bunga kantan and even daun pisang ( wow !!!), just name it , InsyaAllah , they'll have that.

Anyway, I'll continue writing later as Asar is approaching and best deeds for prayer is when you pray it at mosque,  jamaah and early . 

Assalamualaikum

Assalamualaikum,
Well 'happy birthday' to you Siti Khadijah Maisarah, the 'little one' on her 1st birthday (without the candle of course...) on 27th of July 2008.
It was a simple celebration with cake brought from Roche Bros after checking the 'halal' and 'haram' content, especially the frac fatty acids and glycerins because it can be made from animal or vegetable fats and alhamdulillah the labels show it's made from corn oil and other vegetables ingredients , after the mad cow diseases spread all over the country, it seems that they don't want to take any chances of the 'bad fatty acids'. In Malaysia it's much easier to buy all the stuffs although since the fatty acids produced is based on vegetable fats and not from 'kerbau pendek' fats or animal fats.

Anyway, selamat hari jadi sayang.

My experiences of going to Americaaaa pt 1

Assalamualaikum,
Di sini kawe nok cito guano procedure nak g amerika. Kawe ni g atas L1 nyo visa , maknonyo kawe buleh kijo sini.. tapi procedure dia leceh la. Mulanya pada bulan Oktober ke Nov gitulah , kawe kena bagi information seperti sijil belajar kawe kat uk dulu utk difaxkan ke Boston, sebuah syarikat law disana..tujuannya utk dihantar ke Immigration Dept utk tujuan keje di US..L1 ni hanya boleh dikeluarkan dgn syarat tiada dah org US nak keje utk tujuan tu .. so kena bg ler macam2 experiences utk buat keje tu.
Lama juga diorg process tu, kira dah lepas transfer dari tersang ke kl baru ler ada cerita yg seterusnya... lama gak US govt nak process..maklumlah , bukan senang nak bagi peluang keje pada org luar . So ,bila dah settle dgn US nya govt dapat sijil kebenaran utk proses L1 tu , then diorg poskan ke Malaysia .

Bila dah dpt borang tu ,then baru boleh process. Caranya dlm part 2 yek..
Letih lah baru vacuum minivan (org Malaysia panggil MPV) , dahlah mahal..USD 1.50 utk 4 minit sahaja , so habis gak USD 5 tadi ( dalam RM16 gak...kalau kat lipis tu ,baru RM 12 basuh luar campur vacuum ,alaa.. kat tepi sungai Jelai tu , kat tepi jalan naik bukit tepi tokong tu .. ish kalau tak tahu,bukan org lipis laaa weii ) , itu buat sendiri tu , sebab yg self service nya ,kalau yg bukan self service tah berapa agaknya... macam aku pam tayar minvan gak , USD 0.75 utk 3 minit kot , "tak dan" nak pusing tayar belah sana dah xde pressure ,hampeh ....kat Malaysia free je...ish ish rindu kat Malaysia.

Tadi aku beli makanan kat luar , "Falafel King" with rice and lamb .. pehh.. ni lah aku rasa sedap betul makan nasi walaupun tak pedas , dia nya salad campur mayonis memang sedap gegilos , lamb pun sedap ( lamb tu kambing brader... aku makan dging kambing , bukan kambing tak sembelih...haha sajer nak bgtau )... masakan dari middle east . Tuanpunya kedai org Iran , ramai gak aku tgk org beli tadi , mat salleh pun ramai beli ,bagus lah ,kedai org islam dan halal.
Kedai nya pun tak jauh dari rumah aku,betul2 kat bandar Quincy .. tapi yelah , tak leh celen juga masakan tomyam dan paprik siam kat sebelah CIMB lipis , laaa.. sebelah zakat pahang tuu.. haa situ lah.. sedap weii... aku memang tak miss g sana kalau makan luar ler.. sedap, pandai masak.
Anyway , cukup dulu for today ,tomorrow 27 of July 2008 ,genap 1 tahun anak bongsu aku Siti Khadijah Maisarah , Ya Allah , Kau lindungilah anakku Ya Allah dibawah rahmatMu Ya Allah dan masukkan lah anak2 ku dalam golongan org2 yg soleh dan solehah serta bertakwa pada Mu Ya Allah. Amin.
Assalamualaikum.

Dari Gelanggi ,Koyan,Kechau B, Kechau A, Tersang dan akhirnya Boston

Bismillahirahmanirrahim

Assalamualaikum,

Hmmm..salam ke diri sendiri dulu rasanya nih. Anyway, melihatkan everyone dah ada blog masing2 and come out with their own view regarding issues from politics to religion which sometimes irritates me and some of them are true, well i think it's better if i put my thought of it or blogging about it .
Living in USA in northestern region in Massachusetts in Boston ( well actually Quincy ,which is part of greater Boston ) after lived in Tersang (yes ,Felda Tersang Tiga - salam utk semua org Tersang satu hingga tiga ) and Kechau ( yes, Kechau 6 dan Kechau 8 dan Kechau 1 - Salam utk org Kechau A ngan B dan semua Felda Plantations gugusan Kechau dan welcome to our 2 newest manager En Baharom to Kechau A and En Shukri Salleh ke Kechau B - Both of them were my former BOSS ) ....it seems like a dream.
Sometimes i've to pinch myself whether it's true or not that i'm in America ( tak ler bangga.. cuma tak sangka jer ... hmm) .. and I always ask my wife , do u realize that you're already in America? If you tell me that i'm going to be here in America a year ago, I'll laugh at it and say .. aah.. amerika.. ye lah tuuu... Sabah pun tak lepas lagi ,nak ke America.. caittt.. sudah ler.
Tapi itulah ,Allah dah sebut dalam Quran surah Yaasin , kalau Allah kata "jadi" ,maka jadilah , dan disinilah hambaMu ini ya Allah berada di atas mukabumi ini ya Allah, mencari keredhaan mu ya Allah.
Apa khabar agaknya member2 aku yg kat Tersang ngan Koyan ( kilang FPISB Tersang ngan Koyan ler.. apa kabo semue , "kah" kat sini sihat jer.. ish lama tak cakap Pahang .. berbelit lidah wei) ngan member2 kat Kechau A ngan B ... moga-moga semuanya sihat dan Allah merahmati kita semua dunia dan akhirat ..amin..
Sekian dulu utk time nih..(eii..tak sangka -berblogging juga aku akhirnya..ish ish )..

Assalamualaikum.

Che Wan