Assalamu'alaikum...
It's week 9! I can't believe myself this distressing quarter is finally coming to an end. No more GE labs! No more staying back late past school hours. No more back pains, swollen eyes, deprived sleep hours etc...(at least for a couple months to come). Owh, I'm gonna miss coming in to GE lab now..I've spent so much time in there that I've thought of it as my second home..huhu. Never mind, like I won't get another chance to have myself tortured..kan? One more academic year to get over with..phew. I'm gonna need the strength of an elephant to ace this one. Hmm..after a stretched, long Winter, the overdue Spring is finally here! The sun finally gets the better of the cold. The weather is really tempting us here to go lepak2 outside.
my apartment's backyard view
my apartment's backyard viewYesterday, we did jaulah after 'Asar with Br. Kamran, Br. Irfan, and Br. Tanwir. Now that the weather is nice and warm, we can do the real umumi jaulah by walking door to door. Otherwise, our umumi jaulah would always take form of a khususi jaulah due to the unfriendly weather. So only during this time do we get to walk from house to house meeting our Muslim brothers, which is the preferred old-fashion way. Subhanallah..what a great feeling to be walking outside in the sunshine. Besides it's been a while since I last had a nice long afternoon walk. The main difference I want to point out between the jaulah I do here and the one I do back home is that, here, we don't know which houses belong to a Muslim. The quickest way to find out is by looking at the name tags on the mailboxes. So when we come across names like "Muhammad", "Mahmood", "Abdullah", and many other Muslim-like names, we would ring the bell and wait for an answer. Oftentimes we don't get to meet many brothers, and there are times when we meet none at all. Sometimes we even knock on the wrong house; we ring a non-Muslim house instead.
Yesterday we left in two groups, to two different apartment complexes. My group went to the one across the street from Br. Kamran's. We've been here last week but couldn't cover all the houses. So yesterday we just picked up where we left off and covered all the remaining units. There were like 20 houses or so. We did meet a couple of Muslims last week from the digging. But yesterday unfortunately we didn't get to meet any more Muslims. We jotted down the numbers of the targeted houses whose residents were not home so we can get back to them later. From there we went to Br. Tanwir's neighborhood to visit an Afghani brother. The brother we intended to meet was not home, we met his brother instead. This brother we met, he is disabled..and his breathing is aided by a ventilator. He could do nothing but lay down in his bed. Br. Kamran did much of the talking..he gave some encouragement and later asked the brother to make do'a for us. After that, we went back to ICR right away to catch 'Asar. We had a short bayan after 'Asar by Mael to wrap up our jaulah. Oh ye..another thing, Br. Tanwir was appointed the 'amir for this month of May.
Alhamdulillah..we're meeting more and more new brothers since the last few months, though the progress is slow. But it doesn't matter how many brothers we meet, Allah swt is The Most Appreciative, He will not let any effort we do to please Him go to waste. It seems nothing is happening, but we never know, Allah swt may be giving hidayah in some other places in this world because of our little effort. Besides, the main target of this effort is ourselves and our own iman. By doing what Rasulullah saw and the Sahabah r.hum used to do, we would get a little idea or realization of how difficult it was for them to spread Lailahaillah Muhammadurrasulullah. This is their path to Allah's pleasure, and to reach the same destination as they did, we have no other choice but to walk down the same path. Only then will we realize how precious this Deen that we've taken for granted all this while. They had nothing, but still, Islam was spread to every corner of the world..and look at us now, we got everything..all the resources are in our favor, but we can't even get our friends to pray, to come to the masjid. Lahaulawalaquwwataillabillah. The same Islam, the same Quran, but different conviction in the heart.
P/S: Btw, here are the closest definitions I could come up with for these two terms..hope they're helpful..=)
umumi jaulah, in which we meet random Muslim brothers, usually going from house to house
khususi jaulah, in which we meet specific people, like the imam or the president of a masjid, etc
Yesterday we left in two groups, to two different apartment complexes. My group went to the one across the street from Br. Kamran's. We've been here last week but couldn't cover all the houses. So yesterday we just picked up where we left off and covered all the remaining units. There were like 20 houses or so. We did meet a couple of Muslims last week from the digging. But yesterday unfortunately we didn't get to meet any more Muslims. We jotted down the numbers of the targeted houses whose residents were not home so we can get back to them later. From there we went to Br. Tanwir's neighborhood to visit an Afghani brother. The brother we intended to meet was not home, we met his brother instead. This brother we met, he is disabled..and his breathing is aided by a ventilator. He could do nothing but lay down in his bed. Br. Kamran did much of the talking..he gave some encouragement and later asked the brother to make do'a for us. After that, we went back to ICR right away to catch 'Asar. We had a short bayan after 'Asar by Mael to wrap up our jaulah. Oh ye..another thing, Br. Tanwir was appointed the 'amir for this month of May.
Alhamdulillah..we're meeting more and more new brothers since the last few months, though the progress is slow. But it doesn't matter how many brothers we meet, Allah swt is The Most Appreciative, He will not let any effort we do to please Him go to waste. It seems nothing is happening, but we never know, Allah swt may be giving hidayah in some other places in this world because of our little effort. Besides, the main target of this effort is ourselves and our own iman. By doing what Rasulullah saw and the Sahabah r.hum used to do, we would get a little idea or realization of how difficult it was for them to spread Lailahaillah Muhammadurrasulullah. This is their path to Allah's pleasure, and to reach the same destination as they did, we have no other choice but to walk down the same path. Only then will we realize how precious this Deen that we've taken for granted all this while. They had nothing, but still, Islam was spread to every corner of the world..and look at us now, we got everything..all the resources are in our favor, but we can't even get our friends to pray, to come to the masjid. Lahaulawalaquwwataillabillah. The same Islam, the same Quran, but different conviction in the heart.
P/S: Btw, here are the closest definitions I could come up with for these two terms..hope they're helpful..=)
umumi jaulah, in which we meet random Muslim brothers, usually going from house to house
khususi jaulah, in which we meet specific people, like the imam or the president of a masjid, etc
