Eid Mubarak

Eid mubarak. Photo of me with some Canterburians for "Salam Perantauan" photo session. Theme: Red -  but apparently there are some outrageously colour-blind chicks, but the more the merrier...

Tazkirah Ramadhan

In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most beneficent.

All praise and glory to Allah, lord of the universe. Peace and blessing to Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and his companions.

Brothers & sisters in Islam,

As we approached the end of Ramadhan, 90% of us would have their mind  preoccupied with Eid celebration with the plans for binge eating, trying out new clothes and stuffs like that. But lets not get ourselves carried away and stop for a moment,  evaluate ourselves, our Ramadhan and what our plans for the future regarding our deeds. The question is, do we, after end of Ramadhan, regress back to our old selves? Or do we achieve something from it, and that is by continuing some of the deeds that were performed during this blessed month. One deeds that was encouraged in Ramadhan and  should remain the mainstay of our daily activities is tadabbur Al-Quran. The word tadabbur can be roughly translated to 'contemplate', which means to study thoroughly and to have in mind as an intention or possibility. Hence, Al-Quran is not just for reading but it has meanings for which are there to take lessons from as stated by this verse 38: 29:

  كِتَابٌ أَنْزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ لِيَدَّبَّرُوا آيَاتِهِ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُولُو الألْبَابِ

(This is) a Book that We have revealed unto you (O Prophet), full of lasting Bliss that they may ponder upon its Messages and that those who have understood may (take them to heart and [always] be mindful.[38:29]

Brothers & sisters in Islam,

In order to achieve understanding of Al-Quran, one can resort to reading tafsirs as they compiles other verses of Quran, hadith and opinions of ulama in explaining, expanding and interpretating the verse of Quran. Many tafsirs are out there but there are two that are highly recommended, Tafsir Ibn Kathir by Ibn Kathir - a classical tafsir which mainly uses hadith to explain verses of Quran, and Fi Zilal Al Quran by Syed Qutb - a more contemporary tafsir that includes modern problems in explaining the verses of Quran.
Brothers & sisters in Islam,

To conclude, if there is one thing that we could take from Ramadhan, is to be closer to Al-Quran and that can be achieved by tadabbur Al-Quran. I would also like to take this opportunity to say Eid mubarak and apologize for any mistakes i made.     

Daylight saving

After almost 9 years living in UK and NZ, only now have I confirmed my hunch on why they observe day-light saving. According to a "reliable" source, Daylight Saving Time is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. The practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Extra afternoon daylight reduces traffic fatalities; its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns greatly differ and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and contradictory. 

Class resumes tomorrow and how I wish for a valium to correct my sleeping habits.

Satay recipe

Tried cooking satay for ifthar today. Here's the recipe:

1 kg boneless chicken
1 kg topside beef
2 jar of Ayam brand satay sauce (lol)

Cut meat into cubes or strip and marinate with 1 jar of satay sauce overnight. Then skewer meat into soaked bamboo sticks. Grill away. I grilled using oven grill set at 300 degrees for 5 minutes before turning over and then another 5 minutes. The other jar of satay sauce is used as a errr, sauce. Result:

This photo shows what ideally the satay should turn out. Mine: doesn't look as good and the meat weren't that tasty - 4 factors to blame: (1) meat wasn't really defrosted when it was put out for marination, (2) not enough marinate sauce, (3) oven grilled, instead of bbq grill as additional oil dab can be used in the latter option, and (4) it was cold when I ate it. 

Help

Palestinian women lead young girls through the Kalandia checkpoint, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah, to cross to Jerusalem to attend Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosques compound on September 19, 2008. Thousands of Muslim faithful have been crossing every week from the West bank to attend Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa, Islam's third holiest shrine, since the start of the holy month of Ramadan three weeks ago.(DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images)

Israeli border police hold back Palestinians on their way to pray for the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, at Kalandia checkpoint, between the West Bank town of Ramallah and Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Palestinian women walk past men (on the other side of the fence) waiting to cross a checkpoint to get into Israel in order to pray for the holy fasting month of Ramadan at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Friday, Sept. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehil)

As you can see, our brethrens in Palestine aren't doing too good and they need our help. If you can spare some dough, please donate to Aman Palestin Bhd. Acount no: 562263010787(Maybank) 12029010047880(Bank Islam). For more info call 03-89267019 (Malaysia) or visit amanpalestin.org

Photos from boston.com

the Dwellings

O you who believe! Let not a group scoff at another group, it may be that the latter are better than the former. Nor let (some) women scoff at other women, it may be that the latter are better than the former. Nor defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. How bad is it to insult one's brother after having Faith. And whosoever does not repent, then such are indeed zalimun (transgressors, wrong-doers).

O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion; indeed some suspicions are sins. And spy not, neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it. And fear Allah. Verily, Allah is the One Who Forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful.

O mankind! We have created you from a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honourable of you with Allah is that (believer) who has taqwa (piety). Verily Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.

Verses from Qur'an 49:11-13 as recited in today's tarawih prayer at University of Canterbury.

On a totally unrelated note, I'm getting pretty fed up with chrome's hanging and now seriously considering a move to kyubi (firefox) or worse IE. I'm hoping the final version of chrome come out soon and fix these 'hanging' coz I kinda fancy it for being speedy (fast load).

Comment moderation

All I wanted to say is I've switched on comment moderation. Not that there was ever any flood of comments on my blog, but I can't condone any comments that in any way promote maksiah (sins) and such. A society that allow sins to perpetuate is very much condemned in Quran and I will not allow this blog to be a medium for those sort of activities. Go somewhere else, there's plenty out there. I'm not free of sins too and may be a bit myopic of my own faults but I'm working on that (hopefully) and this entry will act as a precedence/reminder that most of my entries should be kept in the limits of Islamic law.

The photo sure does bring back memories of high school. Back then, we used to hang cats on window grills like this:

No cats were harmed though, and after several 'hanging', they finally figure out how to get down. 

Ramadhan blues

Whether it is a good thing or not, this whole week I got a holiday as the convener of the class had to go outstation and felt drafting someone else in such short notice as unfair hence canceling the whole week of class. I should be pissed because my government paid hefty fees to get me educated but hey, who doesn't like holiday? My mates invited me to go down to Dunny, but poor them, they don't have holiday, so what am I suppose to do during the day when everyone else at class? (actually, I could do hafazan or some reading, or sleep). So, here I am, at home, with free time to spend and to contemplate and evaluate my Ramadhan this year. The only aim I set this year was that, it must be better than last year's Ramadhan. But that Ramadhan was the worst I ever experienced, and without going into much details on that, it reminded me that to have the eagerness to perform ibadah is a blessing and mercy from Allah itself. To be woken up in the early morning so you're able to perform qiam and have sahur is a blessing as is to have the right state of mind or freedom of time to focus on hafazan or quran recitation. Nevertheless, one doesn't perform ibadah because he is pure or pious, but one performs it in order to purify oneself or reach piety. This is an important concept that I would like to remind myself and others. It debunk the concept: "I'm evil so I don't perform ibadah". Anyway, as alluded earlier, the state of my Ramadhan last year was bad and it was only a manifestation of the regression that I have experienced as far as I can remember when I stop involving in dakwah activities 3 years ago. It strike me today, I haven't made much improvement to myself since, and in fact, I am in a state worse than I was. I was demystified of my current state only when observing how much my mates have progressed. I'm not sure where I'm going with this musing but the point is, the regression must stop now, retrain my self-discipline, endure the journey and pray for the result.

Remember this cat?


He's kinda serious underneath those makeup:


And also master of disguise:


Stolen from pantip.com

masochism

mas·och·ism [mas-uh-kiz-uhm]

–noun
1. Psychiatry. the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation.
2. gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification.
3. the act of turning one's destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself.
4. the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc.

The goat was licking an electric fence.

PS: Chrome do 'hang' a lot when browsing YouTube, which is surprising. And a simple copy-paste of text for blogging is hard since the default mode in chrome is to copy the whole html behing the text. Several cons for you to chew on...

Google Chrome (Updated)

A new browser in town and I gave it a go. When compared to IE7, Google Chrome loads pages faster, looks cooler and has some nifty functions not available to its rival. I like the customizable tab (look better too) and the highlight-then-right-click-and-search function. Open source means third party apps will be available soon ala Firefox. But comparing it with Firefox 3, no much difference between the two, even the functions are the same. Mozilla is after all under Google. In addition, Chrome has issues with securities, but I don't have details on that so nothing I could elaborate there.

Update: Apparently, IE 8 beta version is already out and I tried it. Still more sluggish than Chrome when tested by comparing the loading time of an important website - Soccernet.com. What caught my eye with IE 8 is the built-in accelerator that allows you to do stuffs to highlighted stuff. For example, you highlight the word 'Shah Alam', click the accelerator logo on it, then you can, say, either search 'Shah Alam' in YouTube or in Google map. At this moment, I'm sticking to Chrome mainly because speed matters for me. I'm sure accelerator for Chrome would come out soon as a third party app or when the final version of Chrome is out. My hunch is that the accelerator was based on firefox third-party app..  

Salman the Persian

One of prophet Muhammad's companion, Salman the Persian or Salman Al-Farisi, was born into an affluent Persian family and was much loved by his father. Early in his life, he was a devout Magian (fire worshipper) and attained the position of custodian of fire. However, one day he passed by a Christian group and out of curiosity stayed with them to learn of their religion. He found that this religion was better and replaced his old religion with this one. His father was not approved of this and chained him away but Salman managed to sneak out and fled to Syria, where Christianity was flourishing at that time. As years gone by, news of a new a prophet in Arabia reached him and he set out to Hijjaz (the region in Arabia where Mecca and Medina (then Yathrib) were located) by joining an Arab caravan heading there. Before reaching Yathrib, he was betrayed by his host and was sold to a Jewish family as slaved. He was transferred to Yathrib and that is where he accepted Islam as his faith after observing prophet Muhammad pbuh. He couldn't join the Battle of Badr and Battle of Uhd due to his position as a slave. However, after Uhd, he was released from slavery following a payment of planting several hundreds of palm trees for his master, an agreement brokered by prophet Muhammad pbuh. The following military conflict, the Battle of the Trench, made Salman famous among the Muslims. Salman was the one who gave idea of building a trench to fortify a seiged Medina from the Confederate army, a strategy that was alien to the Arab world back then. The Muslims were outnumbered and faced betrayal from previously ally Jewish tribes, the trench provided the Muslims time until the Confederate army has to withdraw due to poor weather (or divine intervention). After the death of the prophet, Salman became a governer in Syria where he is known to give away all his salary to charity. His living is largely dependent on his own crop. Salman is known for his attributes of generosity, humility, extensive knowledge of Islam, Christianity, Zoroastriasm. He was also the first person to translate al-Quran.

Summarised from wikipedia.

Nothing to do with Salman Al-Farisi (but I wanted to write something too before my hiatus from blogging for a couple of days) is that Man Utd has got this talented youngster that had me impressed. Another 19 year-old Brazilian, Rodrigo Possebon made his competitive debut in the 1-1 EPL match against Newcastle Utd. He also made a 13-minute cameo in the 1-0 win over Portsmouth this morning. Playing in the defensive CM position, he was comfortable on the ball, good range of passing, good ball control and technique and can use both feet. He is 6 foot tall too which is a plus.

Weird ...

Al-Yankovich, another musician who does parodies. His song 'eat it', a parody of Michael Jackson's 'Beat it', had me in stitches. 'Amish paradise' and 'Smells like nirvana', parodies of 'gangsta paradise' and 'smells like teen spirit' respectively, were good too. Now, I stumbled upon 'e-bay', a parody of BSB 'I want it that way, which had kept me entertained a couple of minutes ago. This is not the official video but still funny:

Shoelace how-to

Back in high school, washing those white shoes and relacing them was one of those mundane that I had to do weekly. Who the **** gave the idea of white shoe as part of school uniform in a tropical, wet and muddy country. Luckily for me, I only experienced a year of it as I quickly volunteered to be a librarian so that i could wear black leather shoes instead. Anyway, to make lacing those shoes more interesting, I have stumbled upon this website last year - Ian's Shoelace site. So far, my favourite is Over Under Lacing, which happen to be the author's favourite as well. Its not too fancy but remain stylish over the normal lacing method:

Lacing Technique:

1. The lace is run straight across the bottom (grey section) and is fed into both bottom eyelets.

2. The ends are crossed over underneath and emerge from the next set of eyelets up the shoe, then crossed over on top and fed into the next set of eyelets.

3. Repeat step (2) until both ends reach the top eyelets

Note: If the shoe has an ODD number of eyelet pairs (eg. 7 pairs = 14 eyelets, like my shoe at left), start with the bottom (grey section) underneath in order for the last crossover to also be underneath when you reach the top eyelets.

amateur transplants

I was belatedly introduced to this duo - Amateur Transplants - Drs from London who does musical parody mostly on medical stuffs. There are couple of their songs posted on YouTube if you want to look it up. However, some songs have strong languages so thread with caution if you think you might be offended. Here's one of my favourite - anaesthethist hymn:

optimism or delusion?

More from Worth1000.com - a cool website with collection of photoshop galleries and contests.

()*^%$!@*%&%

First, I almost finish that damn ethic essay. Took me too long to finish it as with my extremely short attention span, I would spend 15-30 minutes break per 100 words typed. This entry is also part of my break btw.

Second, it snowed yesterday and I snapped a photo of my car covered in snow and wanted to share it on the blog but unfortunately the photo is too crappy as (1) I took it with my pda-phone that is only 2mega-pixel and no exposure adjustment so the photo is overexposed (2) behind the car is a white shed which meant no resolution of snow.

Third, one of those break I mentioned earlier was spent watching this movie called Hot Fuzz. A cop comedy movie from the makers of Shaun of the Dead and same actors too. Hilarious with interesting plot to boot. I would recommend it for anyone who want to take a breather now and then. Its a bit gory so don't get pissed at me for not warning you beforehand.

Fourth, its )*&@!#)^ freezing now. Heaters is definitely required at the moment, and I am anticipating electricity bill that, for the first time in my years in NZ, to exceed the $100 mark. Just for note, my usual bill averaged out to $50 per month and never exceeded $80 in a single month.

Fifth, Ramadhan is near. Moonsighting in NZ would be on 31st August. I remember when I used to join those back in Dunedin at the scenic Signal Hill. I never saw the moon because it always was cloudy back then.

Sixth, occasionally there will be some random people who would skype me. Normally, I ignore but on the odd occasion, I just chat along just for the fun of it. Its interesting to note that some Malaysian doesn't know what NZ stands for. Need more geography lessons I say. We don't want to fall to the same level as the US do we. Remember Miss South Carolina..

Seventh, happy birthday sis.

Eighth, I edited this entry three times. Too many grammatical error that makes it unbearably embarrassing..

apathy

more
Even more

Ignore last post

This weekend, I have to coop up in my room due to another ethic essay write-up, again. Sigh, and it such a nice day outside. Felt like summer coming early with the sun beaming unchallenged. I've managed to finish tweaking the blog as mentioned. New features:

- Blog roll (titled as 'others' on the sidebar): this is gadget from blogspot where I just add the url of the website/blog I want to follow and it will display the latest updates of that website. The website requires RSS feed for it to work. Apparently, blogspot's blog have these inherently.

- Updated 'labels' list on sidebar

- Improved shoutbox

So, lots of things have been going on this past week. First, Olympics is on and the curtain raiser for EPL, the Charity Shield, finish with Man Utd as the victor again. In the meanwhile, there is that war in Georgia. I just have to mention about this war, mainly because of somebody ironically said this: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century." Guess who? His name is synonymous for backwoods or shrubs. In Malaysia, this article from The Star came out. I think the medical officers has every right to be aggrieved by the perceived unfairness of payment. If this is not addressed, more and more docs will opt for the lucrative private practice, leaving the public health system understaffed and stressed.

zzzz

My broadband connection is currently a pain in the arse. I could barely do anything with it at the moment, and I've struggled to get through to just post this entry, which you might as guess it, another pointless entry. All I intend to say is, my Internet is down, and I won't be posting anything fancy (not that there ever was) at least till 20th August. You might have notice that the blog layout might change a bit and that is because I did some tweaking just out of boredom but just couldn't finish it off since the aforemention slowness is making me even more bored.

The Sun

Chapter 91: The Sun
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
By the sun and his morning brightness,
by the moon as she follows him,
by the day which reveals it splendour,
by the night when it enshrouds him,
by the heaven and its construction,
by the earth and its spreading,
by the soul and its moulding,
and inspiration with knowledge of wickedness and piety.
Successful is the one who keeps it pure,
and ruined is the one who corrupts it.
In their insolence the people of Thamoud denied the truth,
when their most wretched broke forth.
The Messenger of Allah said to them:
"The she-camel of Allah, let her have her drink".
They cried lies to him, and hamstrung her.
For that sin their Lord let loose His scourge upon themm,
and razed their city to the ground.
He fear not what may follow.

As with chapter 22, Allah starts this chapter with mentions of the natural phenomena He created. These are often repeated throughout the Quran to serve as reminder for mankind of the signs of His existence and His rule. It begs the question - surely life on earth cannot be purely out of coincidence? And that, surely life on earth is then not left to chances or without guidance or control? The chapter moves on to state the basic truth about man - "by the soul and its moulding and inspiration with knowledge of wickedness and piety. Successful is the one who keeps it pure, and ruined is the one who corrupts it." - in that man is just as capable of recognising the good as he is of recognising the evil in everything he encounters. Man is equally capable of directing himself one way or the other. This dual ability is deeply ingrained within him. All external factors, like Divine messages, only serve to awaken his potential and help it take its chosen way. In other words, these factors do not create this potential, which is innate; they only help it develop. In addition to his innate ability, man is equipped with a conscious faculty which determines his line of actions and is, therefore, responsible for his actions and decisions. He who uses this faculty to strengthen his inclinations to what is good and to purify himself and to weaken the evil drive within him will be prosperous and successfull; while he who uses this faculty to surpress the good tendency in him will ruin himself. The chapters followed on with an example of Thamoud people who disobeyed Allah's ruling and was punished by it. In this chapter, only a cursory story of the Thamoud people was given. This example is used multiple time throughout the Qur'an, one is in chapter 89 (the Dawn).

Summarised from Sayyid Qutb's In the Shade of the Qur'an vol.30 translation by M.A. Salahi, A.A. Shamis (1979) Redwood Burn Ltd.

Please note that the Quran is to be read in Arabic as stated in the Quran itself (i dont remember the verse) - as even the best translation cannot provide the meaning of some of the arabic words/style/connotation used in the Quran. This has to be kept in mind when reading translation of the quran.