can't I enjoy my youth?

*Sebuah post ditujukan kepada diri penulis*

"I just want to concentrate on my studies at the moment, do what youngsters have to do, and don't want any interruptions. I'll shift my focus to learning Islam when I get an established job, have settled down and have a family."

This is a plain deception from syaitan, the kind of thinking he wants us to have. May Allah protect us all from it. By saying this, am I not being arrogant? It is as if I am certain that I will still be alive for the next five, ten years to come. Forget about years, I might not even make it to school, or job tomorrow. There's no guarantee that I'll still be breathing for the next five minutes even. Being young, I think it's very "unlikely" for me to die? The Akhirah seems very far away that talking about it now doesn't sound right. Well, I still got at least 40-50 years to go, so what's there to worry about? Yes there is. The reality is, the Akhirah is so close to me that I don't realize it's just beneath my feet. The land that I step on every day, underneath it is the beginning of the hereafter. Like it or not, I've been in contact with the hereafter for as long as I can remember. It was never apart from me to begin with.

Sometimes it does strike my mind that, I've been striving so hard (konon2) for this such and such degree. But what if I die tomorrow. Where will my degree be? Where will my 4.0 be? Where will my promised well-paid job be? Where will my beautiful wife be? (oops..) The moment I breathe my last breath, it'll all be finished. An absolute "The End" to all my striving and struggles for the unseen future. And this is when I will have to resort to the good deeds I've done, if any. Had I made my youth an investment for the hereafter, alhamdulillah..but had I used up my youth in the pursuit of worldly pleasures, hoping that I can make it up when I hit old age, nauzubillah. Let's not get the wrong idea here. It's not that we cannot strive for our future..being students it's our primary responsibility even. In fact, we should be the best in our studies, or whatever fields we're in. But never let the urge to enjoy our youth get the better of our preparation for Akhirah. "A degree" is not certain and "the joy" doesn't last long, but "akhirah" is certain and it lasts forever. So lets not risk our akhirah for mere worldly offerings.

By sparing our times in seeking the knowledge of Deen, while others are enjoying their youth to the fullest, are we being deprived of our youth? Nope. Not at all. It appears as if we're missing out on what others are gaining but it's actually the opposite. From the viewpoint of Islam, "enjoying our youth" has got it's very own meaning. Youth is the most productive period throughout our entire lifetime, in which our energy and intelligence are at their peaks. When these are used for the sake of Islam, biiznillah, Deen will spread within and without. Nothing beats the blessing of being able to spend our youth in the worship of Allah swt. Of course this comes from His guidance in the first place. So never regret the times we have given for the Deen, for they will come back to us as a relief, a glad tiding. And watch out for the things we do out of desires, for they may come back to us as a regret.

Once Imam Abu Hanifah rah. was giving advice to his student, Imam Abu Yusuf rah. He said that in your youth you should spend your time in seeking Islamic knowledge, and thereafter seek a job, and when you get enough money then you should get married. He has made spending our youth seem "simple", but on the contrary I am making my youth seem "complicated."

P/S: There are some (a lot actually) Islamic books in this house I've been wanting to read. But the fact that I never got around to it makes me angry at myself. Apparently I'm failing the "seeking Islamic knowledge" part. (-_-*)

youngsters @ Syracuse

Alhamdulillah. We got home in one peace from spending the weekend at Syracuse Masjid. This was one of the longest weekends I've ever had. Never before I felt the time is running really slow like what I felt when I was there.

Sami' na wa ata' na

So last Friday, those who were going sat in mesyuwarah after Maghrib. Br. Kamran was taking over as a temporary 'amir since our current 'amir, Br. Intikhab was out in masthurat jama'ah for the weekend. It turned out that Br. Tanwir was the only elder brother who was going with the jama'ah, while the rest were all youngsters. As for Br. Kamran, he already did his three days last week. Now the thing I feared the most happened; I was made the 'amir for the going jama'ah. When Br. Kamran was making up his mind, I was praying in my heart so he wouldn't choose me (I believe the others were doing the same too), but Allah wanted the otherwise. The moment he tapped my lap, I felt like a giant rock had just crash-landed on my head. Seconds later, loads of worry and anxiety came surging into my veins, accompanying my newly acquired responsibility. No one among us wants to be made 'amir really, but once decided in mesyuwarah you'll have to do your best to live up to the trust. For any responsibility you take, you'll be held accountable for it on the day of judgement. But nowadays the situation is reversed, people are competing to gain responsibilities. If only they knew...

The Burmese

Four Burmese, three Malaysians, one Indian, and one Pakistani American made up our jama'ah at this point. Among the Burmese, only Akbar and Zakaria speak English while the other two, Hassan and Saleem don't. Unlike Akbar and Zakaria who have been here for four years, the later two just arrived from Burma a few weeks ago. The military dictatorship in Burma is forcing more and more people to migrate out as refugees. As a result, these people have no choice but to live apart from their beloved homeland.

Our jama'ah left with a poor preparation and somewhat in a hurry. As told by Br. Kamran, we needed to get there by Isya' prayer or else the masjid would be closed for the night. We left in two cars. The Malaysians, Akbar, and Hassan filled up one car while Br. Tanwir, Farouq, Zakaria, and Salim were in the other. I sat through the journey feeling all worked up about what's gonna happen over there. The fact that this masjid we're going has somewhat restrictive rules to coming jama'ahs made me even more restless. I was thinking I might end up getting the jama'ah into a mess. But then I reminded myself that sooner or later, if Allah keeps me in this effort, I will have to shoulder this responsibility of being an 'amir anyway. So I tried my best to be pleased with what He had decided for me, reassuring myself that there must be a blessing behind this. There was this kitchen issue during the stay of some other jama'ah that has made the kitchen not accessible to any jama'ahs now. Jama'ahs can stay but they cannot use the kitchen. Since cooking was out of the question, we had to bring our own home-cooked food, hoping that it would suffice for the entire khuruj. Br. Kamran suggested us to bring a microwave so we could heat up the food, but we forgot to put it in the car before leaving. -_-")

Imam & Son

We made it in time. There was a class going on by the Imam upon our arrival. After the lecture, I talked to the Imam (in the best way possible), consulting him on the dos and don's of the masjid along with introducing our jama'ah. The Imam's name was Yassir, and he's from Egypt. He was very receptive and welcoming. And guess what, he even left the kitchen opened for our use. More surprising, he let his son, Ammar stay with our jama'ah for the khuruj. Most of the time there were a lot of kids playing around in the masjid especially when events were taking place. They have Saturday and Sunday schools (comparable to "sekolah agama" back home) every week in this masjid. So if the schools are on, we are advised to do our 'amal in a separate room so we don't interfere with the school activities and stuff. But last weekend the classes were canceled and we got to do our programs without a hitch. Yet another favor from Him, I came to know that the president who set the no-kitchen rule was not around..I was pretty much relieved I didn't have to face him. Alhamdulillah, from this point on everything was made easy for us.

More Burmese

We started out with nine people in our jama'ah from Rochester but then ended up with fifteen. Ammar made the tenth, and four more local Burmese joined us the next morning. This was quite a big number to handle, especially when not all of 'em speak English.

Newborn Sumaiyyah

During jaulah time after 'Asr, Hafiz Ali invited us over to his place for some food, in celebrating the birth of his new baby girl. He named her Sumaiyyah, after the name of the first sahabiah who was martyred in Islam. After he did azan and iqamah on the baby, he requested me to do tahniq on her. Now Mael held Sumaiyyah in his arms while I put honey in her mouth. She looked so little and delicate. Had I been the one who held her I would've squeezed her flat..hehe. From Mael's face, I could read what's on his mind at that time: "I wish this were my daughter." ;D

I left Syracuse feeling bad that I could not spend more time with the local Burmese and that I did not fulfill the rights of this effort. This was pretty much an all-play jama'ah I brought. However we didn't come back empty handed. We did learn something throughout the khuruj and had new relationships established as well. May Allah accept our khuruj and choose us again to come out in His path next time..ameen.

P/S: When you wanna go out on khuruj, syaitan will make it seem very hard to your mind. He will try his best to put all kinds of feelings in your heart so you would feel reluctant to leave your home. But once you've made it out, things will become a lot easier than they were. Over time I've realized that no matter how reluctant I was to go out on khuruj, I always came back with a smile of satisfaction and contentment. =)

winter quarter closes down

Alhamdulillah..Finals are over (yeay!), though they didn't really go as I'd anticipated..(-_-") Hm..the snow is not showing any signs of clearing up or even receding. One of my professors assured us that the snow would go away in a week or two, and this was two weeks ago. Guess what..the snow is still there, even more than ever. Well, we don't really 'know' things. We may be able to predict and plan but we don't decide what will happen. Anyway..as decided in mesyuwarah a few weeks ago, this weekend we three Malaysians are supposed to be going to Syracuse for our three-day khuruj. But the thing is we haven't got any updates on this, since we haven't been to the masjid for quite some time now. I guess this exams thing has got us pretty much caught up in worldliness. There might be no elder brothers left to go with us this time since most of them have spent time in masthurat jama'ah last week. Although we ourselves have been in contact with this effort for quite a while, and are 'experienced' enough to handle things on our own, we still need an elder brother to kind of supervise us over there. There might not be problems with doing the 'amal and everything, the issue here is how to deal with the management and to get around when we are there. After all, we're still youngsters who are hasty and lack wisdom..hehe. We'll see how it goes later today.

P/S: One-week break ahead, what to do? I don't want to end up wasting my holidays as I always did.

quickie

Pejam, celik, celik, pejam..dah habis Winter quarter. Memang bagus sistem Quarter nih nak dibandingkan sistem Semester, swift jer..budak-budak tak sempat nak malas dah habis. Tapi kes aku lain sikit, aku tak sempat nak rajin quarter dah habis..hehe. 3 finals minggu depan, lepas tu insyaallah nak setelkan masalah tiket yang dah terbengkalai, kalau tak Nadzmi balik sorang-sorang la jawabnyer. Risau pulak nanti kalau dia di apa-apakan..haha. Nadzmi ni dah jadi housemate aku sejak aku mula-mula masuk INTEC dulu, sebelum aku kenal usaha ni, dah 4 tahun pun. Memang kamcing, dia tau perangai aku aku tau perangai dia. Aku doakan yang terbaik untuk dia dan kawan-kawan aku yang lain. ameen.

Sedikit update usaha tempatan, hujung minggu ini, bersamaan sekarang, beberapa brother keluar ke Buffalo dalam jema'ah masthurat, atau dalam bahasa inggerisnya, ladies effort. Jadi brother2 yang dah kahwin and ade family tu jela yang pergi, yang belum kahwin tu kenalah tinggal kan..(kesian) Lagipun kitorang nak kena bersedia untuk final exams ni. Aku pun tak berapa nak faham usaha masthurat ni macam maner, tapi yang aku tau usaha ni memang sangat-sangat halus dan sensitif, yelah melibatkan kaum perempuan kan. Time mesyuarat halaqah beberapa minggu lepas ade jugak bincang pasal usaha masthurat. Time tu ada sorang brother bacakan tertib yang dikirimkan terus dari Nizamuddin. Kitorang ni dengar-dengar macam tu je lah, maklumlah belum berkelayakan..segan pulak nak bersemangat sangat..=) Tapi rumusan yang aku ingat dari mesyuarat, bukan semua couple layak untuk keluar jema'ah masthurat..banyak faktor yang perlu diambil kira sebelum satu pasangan ni boleh dikatakan layak keluar jema'ah masthurat. Tu jelah yang aku tau, bagi sesiapa yang lebih tahu dialu-alukan untuk tambah.

Itu je kot. Tak boleh panjang2 sebab nanti tak jadi "quickie" dah. Bagi sesiapa yang tengah bertungkus lumus baca buku atau powerpoint slides tu, selamat membaca ye. Assalamualaikum.

loves to LOVE

Don't get too attached to worldly loves..for they are transient and filled with disappointments.

Only one love is worth giving everything for..the love for The One who loves you the most.

None loves you like He does..=)

p/s: nasihat untuk diri dan semua