The Collected Works of Ziad Hafiz Razak
My life in verse and prose.
Ya Tuhan,
Sungguh sungguh aku takut akan Mati
Aku takut bila jantungku t’lah terhenti
Dan jarum masa enggan berputar lagi
Tuhanku,
Aku tak sanggup menerima hakikat
Bahawa Kehidupan ini seolah sesaat
Dan aku sebenarnya t’lah lama tersasarsesat
Ya Tuhan,
Berikan aku masa lagi untuk berghairah
Masa untuk aku berbesarmegah
Bermandi dalam syurga duniawi mewah
Tuhanku,
Sungguh sungguh hidupku berdagangbeli
Kuasa, perempuan, hidup berpuji -
Berapa harga redhaMu, Ilahi?
Those who know me well enough would know that one of my (many?) pet peeves is the nature and quality of Friday sermons in Malaysian masjids. I don’t mind it, I suppose, that religious bureaucracies insist on standardisation of the texts for Friday sermons – but the sheer banality and superficiality of our weekly sermons make it a constant source of sorrow for me.
Reading this book made me nod in agreement – a lot. The writer’s contention is precisely that many masjids have elected to keep the Friday sermon as bland as possible. Is it fear of religion as a source of political mobilisation? Or a sincere effort to depoliticise the masjid? Perhaps our Muslim preachers are just too lazy to use the Friday prayers as an opportunity to educate and edify? Whatever the motive might be, much of what the writer had to say were resonant to me.
Perhaps my biggest issue with this book is that sometimes the author does appear to be carried away in his indignance at the abject state of the Friday khutbah. He certainly lays his political cards on the table, making rather angry, and to my mind, rather vicious, denunciations of Muslim leaders such as those currently in charge in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Maybe it is unfair or unfeeling for me to feel such distate, but I do think that if one truly believes in the Majesty of His Justice, then one would not, cannot, get too worked up over the myriad injustices on this Earth. Sooner or later, His Justice will prevail.
We do not need to foam at the mouth too much – we do what we can, in the ways that we can, but we must also have faith that He will set things aright, if not in this world, then certainly in the Next.
Overall, I would give this a 4-star rating. Good read, but some parts were too angry for my liking.
When I was about to turn 40, I went through a series of personal and professional crises that had stopped me in my tracks, and led me to question most of what I thought my self and my ambitions had been. I took stock of how far I had come, worked through much of my hurt, and even relived some of the foundational pain that I had kept well hidden, even from myself. Despite everything, I looked back at my life, up to then, and saw that it was good.
Not merely good, in fact, but blessed beyond measure.
I realised, after much reflection, and many miles travelled on a long train trip across Asia, that I could walk away from what I had been doing for years – just being marionetted by other people’s dreams for me, and being haunted and made angry by other people having hurt me. I could choose a different way of Being – more purposeful, more meaningful.
As naive as it may sound, I am choosing to live a good life, to try to be a good person, and to bring goodness to the lives of those around me. It sounds simple, maybe even banal. And certainly there are some days when this new “ambition” feels so small – as if I am throwing away all this “talent” to feed on the crumbs of daily fortunes. Some days, when I feel low, I would cast an eye on the good luck and successes of others, and that familiar wave of Envy and Self-pity comes over me. Some days it feels that I might drown in the inundation.
But some days, like today, when I feel like I’ve touched someone’s life, even if in a small, small way – when it feels like I have pierced through some fog of existential loneliness, to break through and begin to know another human being, and to dignify another’s existence, without guile or grief – on days like today, my heart is full.
This morning I woke up
And walked to the bathroom
I saw my face in the mirror
Those dead eyes, swimming in doom
God, please, I said
Give me a way out, any way out
Thirty years, all this time
Like a cornered rat, without redoubt
These choices I have made
Now I drown in a sea of regrets
My friends, their laughter echo loud
I sink beneath Life’s parapet
God help me now to find
A path out from my ragged mind.
Everyone just wants someone, anyone
to Listen
to pay Attention
like coins from a fraying purse
a Hunger and a boundless Thirst
to be Seen
to be Heard
like a Human worthy and complete
standing on their own two feet
Everyone just wants that singular one
to Kiss
to be Kissed
like water I pour my Self
like wine I drink your Self
to Care
to be Cared for
like a Human loved and beloved
lying together amidst this cosmic Bed.
Dihujung hayat aku terlantar
Minda terjerat dibawah sedar
Sepuluh jari terketarsusun
Merontajerit memohon ampun
Wahai Tuhanku! Aku bermohon
Berilah aku sedikit masa!
Nyawaku ini jangan Kau runtun
Hamba Mu masih belum bersedia
Belum masanya mandi gaharu
Barkapur barus - tunggu dahulu!
Belum masanya berhijab kafan
Berkuburtalqin, kumohon: Jangan!
Berikan aku sedikit masa
Jiwaku masih berlumur dosa
Berikan aku ruang bertaubat
Sebelum jasad beku termayat
Belum masanya Ya Rabbul Jalal
Jangan biarkan aku tersial!
Some people think that it’s “just a job” and tell themselves that “I got away with it”. Can just “update my CV” and move on.
As Johnny Cash would say, you can run on for a long time, but sooner or later God’ll cut you down.
Some days Life kicks you in the teeth and tries to bury you beneath Reminds you that you're down and out, defeated in your final bout. In youth, you dreamt of summits' heights The culmination of long nights and days of striving, willing toil - Yet here you are, your hopes all foiled. For no one's owed a just reward - as hostages to Life's sharp sword, we all shall suffer what we must: the lashings of Life's roaring gusts. This bitter Truth shall have its round: To some, all riches shall redound while others must make do with this: If not this Life, the Next holds bliss.
For most of those in my generation, we grew up amidst a time of great change. Our parents were a guinea pig generation: young men and women who were wrenched out of their villages and kampungs, thrown up into schools and universities far away from their origins, and then told to keep their heads down and rebuild a young nation, still reeling from the ashes of racial unrest.
This social upheaval, this march towards the utopia of development, wreaked a heavy cost on those who had to live through it, and I think it is not unfair to say that for many young Malaysians living through this period, many of them suffered through their own individual crises of faith. For some, the white heat of science and technology was so searing that faith was no longer something to be indulged in. For many others, the frightening pace of change meant that religion was not only a custom to remain loyal to, but a safe harbour for the mind and the soul.
My own version of living through this period of great social change was that I was sent to religious school in the mornings, prior to attending government school in the afternoons. A middle-aged ustaz, white turban ever-present, would be holding his thin sliver of rotan and teaching us to recite the Quran, and while the rotan mostly never did anything more than thwack down onto the Quran that we held in front of us when we missed a step, the threat of it was always heart-stopping. We learnt everything by rote: the letters of the abjad. The short verses of the juz amma. The fundamentals of Sunni theology: the pillars of the Faith, the pillars of Islam, the twenty attributes of God.
Like many of us then, I was taught to give due deference to the ustaz and ustazah. The implicit principle was that religious education was also supposed to purify you, to give you a moral grounding in what it means to be a good Muslim and a good human being.
Now, as I am older, I think this assumption around the morality of religious preachers is fraying. Although the phenomenon of using religion as a means of waging politics is not new, it is telling that the Malay language now has a phrase for it – “penunggang agama“. And we can see the penunggangan taking place across the spectrum of contemporary Malay society: using religion to sell TV entertainment, using religion to sell tudung and telekung, using religion to sell bottled water. Religious preachers being arrested for lewd behaviour, for social abuse, for rape.
When I survey this sordid state of affairs in the religious life of the country that I live in, I am reminded again of that hadith narrated by Imam Malik in his classic work, Al Muwatta’: “I have been sent to perfect good character.” The implication here is that all your ritual, all your praying and almsgiving and Haj-going would be for naught, if at the end of it all, your personality and character remains untouched by His Message.
And it is this principle that has guided my interaction with others, especially with religious men and women. I try my best to read their character, searching through the tone of voice, the timbre and weight of words said, the nod of the head and the flick of the hand. How the words match against what is done.
Of course, for many of us, it is easier to just keep to a more basic heuristic: kalau pakai jubah or serban, mesti lah alim kan? And the next step: kalau alim, mestilah baik kan? But our experience surely must teach us now, that we need to look beyond the superficial. And the ultimate test of goodness, of morality, must surely be that your character reflects the dignity of your soul and the depth of your learning.
Harder to do, yes, but surely necessary in these troubled times!
And so we go on like this, pretending As if nothing has and will ever change Not one of us fully comprehending Why these ties that you bind are now fraying, estranged You think that if we all just walk blindly Close our eyes and ears to Justice and Truth Somehow we can look back at this fondly That Love alone can somehow meekly soothe I reject your compulsive Forgiveness I object to your purblind Compassion I want Love that is grounded on Fairness Not one based on evasive omissions Avert your eyes, if you will, to all this And pretend like we will somehow forget But there is no going back to your imagined bliss Only hearts overfed with putrid regret.