On Aidilfitri and Injustice
On Beautiful Patience
One of the most singular stories in the Quran is that of Joseph. Unlike the stories of other prophets in the Holy Book, which are typically spread over many different chapters and verses, the story of Joseph forms a single coherent narrative, contained in a single chapter which bears the name of Joseph – the Patient, the Beautiful, the Translator of Dreams, the Saviour of Egypt.
One of the most poignant episodes in the story of Joseph, of course, is the sorrow of his father, Jacob. This loving father, well aware of Joseph’s piety and destiny, sought to protect his prodigal son from the jealousy of his envious siblings. Alas, the father’s warning was no match for the machinations of his children: they threw Joseph down the bottom of a well to die, and later pretended to the father, weeping, that Joseph was devoured by a wolf.
Curiously, while the father was quick to challenge the veracity of his children’s claim, the narrative does not speak of castigation or punishment. Jacob says, instead:
“No! Your souls must have tempted you to do something evil. So I can only endure with beautiful patience! It is Allah’s help that I seek to bear your claims.”
But immediately after this, the narrative shifts from Jacob the father to the travails of Joseph the son: discovered at the bottom of a well, sold into slavery, refusing his mistress’ seduction and placed in prison despite his innocence, until later rescued from imprisonment and placed in charge of the great storehouses of Egypt, upon the King’s pronouncement:
“Today you are highly esteemed and fully trusted by us.”
As the story would have it, there is another mention of that phrase, “beautiful patience”: when Joseph’s brothers, desperate for food, enters into Egypt, their brother was detained by Joseph, and they had to return back to their father, this time reporting truthfully over the loss of yet another of their patriarch’s progeny. This time, Jacob repeats his lament, barely suppressing his long-held grief over the loss of Joseph:
“No! Your souls must have tempted you to do something evil. So I am left with nothing but beautiful patience! I trust Allah will return them all to me. Surely He alone is the All-Knowing, All-Wise.” He turned away from them, lamenting, “Alas, poor Joseph!” And his eyes turned white out of the grief he suppressed.
Of course, the story ends happily: Joseph eventually reveals his identity, and welcomes his parents with love and honour:
“Then he raised his parents to the throne, and they all fell down in prostration to Joseph, who then said, ‘O my dear father! This is the interpretation of my old dream. My Lord has made it come true. He was truly kind to me when He freed me from prison, and brought you all from the desert after Satan had ignited rivalry between me and my siblings. Indeed my Lord is subtle in fulfilling what He wills. Surely He alone is the All-Knowing, All-Wise.
“My Lord! You have surely granted me authority and taught me the interpretation of dreams. O Originator of the heavens and the earth! You are my Guardian in this world and the Hereafter. Allow me to die as one who submits and join me with the righteous.”
Beautiful patience: what else can carry a person through the grief and sadness of losing one’s own sons, or being cast into exile by your own siblings, wrongly accused of seduction and put into prison? What else but that beautiful patience could carry one through years of imprisonment, never for once wavering in God’s Justice and Mercy? What else but beautiful patience can explain the stoic acceptance of a father, suspicious of his own children even as he grieves for the loss of his beloved son?
Ramadan, to me, is a time for us to cultivate that aspect of beautiful patience in ourselves – a time for abstaining from food and pleasures of life, to return to Him in prayer and in companionship with His Scripture and the rhythms of the prescribed evening prayers. May He grant us the strength and the courage to arm ourselves with beautiful patience against the slings and arrows of Life’s trials!
On Prophetic Leadership
One of my favourites parts of the Quran (and there are a few), is the stories of the prophets in Surah as-Shu’ara, when various prophets – Nuh, Hud, Salih, Lut, Shu’aib – were sent to their peoples, with the mission to call their communities to the obedience of God. Each of their respective peoples suffer from some distinctive sin – be it idolatry, or vanity, or greed, or lust – and it is the mission of the respective prophets to call to their people, to lead them away from their waywardness and to guide them back unto His Path.
There is a beautiful symmetry in each story of the prophets, particularly in the call they make to their people:
“Will you not fear Allah?
I am truly a trustworthy messenger to you.
So fear Allah, and obey me.
I do not ask you for any reward for this message. My reward is only from the Lord of all worlds.”
For every prophet, there is a resonance in the message that they bring to their respective people. This refrain, in the call to God and in the refusal for reward, marks to my mind a code for what could be termed Prophetic Leadership, which is:
The Goal is Taqwa – Fear of God, or God-consciousness. For each of the peoples that have been sent a prophet, the remedy to their immorality and depravity is to return to a constant state of being aware of His Majesty and His Power. What we now think of “mindfulness” cannot be shorn from the divine nature of Taqwa – it is not enough to be merely mindful, but what will truly save us as individuals and as a community is constant and vigilant awareness and consciousness of His Mercy and His Compassion.
The important of Trustworthiness. More than anything, for a messenger to be taken as credible by the people he calls to, is for that messenger to be trusted by his people. Modern concepts of leadership often tolerates immorality as well as amorality: many of us accept and even expect poor behaviour from our leaders, and often the leaders themselves come to believe that they are above “common” norms of conduct, or even above the law. And especially at the international stage, it is regarded as naive to believe that there is any other more important goal for a state than its own self-interest. But we have seen, throughout history as well as in literature, how human communities need trust more than anything to bind people together. The idea of moral leadership may sometimes be seen as naive, today, but only because we have allowed poor leaders to lower the bar for what society expects from its leaders. More recently, banking crises have erupted over the loss of trust amongst depositors – indeed, trust is at the centre, the vital commodity – not only of our system of banking and credit, but the very core of our humanity.
Obedience to the Leader is founded on God. It is important to note here that in the prophetic approach to leadership, the concept is not founded on some mystical idea of a leader’s greatness, or some consensual acceptance of the leader’s intelligence or strength or cunning – rather, the proper foundation of obedience is that very goal of human existence: the fear and consciousness of God. For the prophets, leadership is a contract with the Divine: “I obey you for as long as you call for the fear of God, and for as long as your conduct is in line with that very fear of God.” There is no place for the dictator or the despot in the Muslim conception of leadership. Obedience is necessary for cohesion and unity in the community, but that very obedience is marshalled in the cause of God, and for nothing and no one else.
The leader does not ask for any reward other than from Him. Amongst the Malay community today, there is a tacit acceptance, a dubious social contract: “I will tolerate the corrupt leader, for as long as the corrupt leader showers me and my community with assistance.” We shrug our shoulders when we are told that our leaders are enriching themselves at the public expense, and we take it for granted that a leader would naturally surround himself with fancy cars and big houses and women. But the prophet as leader does not ask for any earthly reward. Muhammad himself, from all reliable narrations, lived a life of relative poverty, mending his own clothes, helping his wife with domestic chores. Sadly today, even those who profess to walk in his path, who claim the name of Islam in the service of their politics, have done away with Muhammad’s life and example in the conduct of their own daily lives.
It is certainly a truism through the ages, that it is much easier to claim that one is on the path of jihad, to claim to be a defender and fighter for the cause of Islam and in the name of God. It is much harder to actually walk the path of the prophets, to walk the path of Muhammad himself and how he led others and himself. It is much harder to lead as the prophets did: with utter devotion to His cause, in fear of Him, in adoration of His Mercy and His Compassion, to evince Trust in one’s behaviour and conduct, and to seek no reward except for His Forgiveness.
It is a difficult and arduous path – a lifetime of obedience to God and self-sacrifice. How many of us today are willing to take up that cause?
On This Ramadan Evening (Thoughts on the 20th of Ramadan)
As I am writing this, it is the 20th night of Ramadan, and I have just completed my Tarawih prayers for the evening.
“Would you say this is the best Ramadan you’ve ever had, yang?” Kat looked up at me, asking casually.
I thought about that question, and I am compelled to answer: Yes. I am not sure if this is the best ever, but certainly the best Ramadan that I can remember in years. I am keeping to the Tarawih prayers, every night, mostly at home. I have been keeping pace with my Quran recitation, and I feel calmer than I have felt in a long, long time.
The Quran recitation, I think, has a lot to do with the latter. This year, like most of the Ramadans I can remember over the past decade or so, I made the promise to myself that I would try to recite the Quran in full – to khatam the entire Book by the end of Ramadan. And most years, I would keep pace for maybe the first week, before the full blast of work deadlines and buka puasa invites and moreh gatherings would derail me by around the second week of the fasting month.
This year so far, Alhamdulillah, it has been good. It is the night of the 20th, and I am halfway through the 24th juz of the Quran. And more than just the momentum – I feel a serenity and a palpable sense of flow these nights of Ramadan as I recite the Quran. My Arabic is barely serviceable, but I know enough to make a guess of what it is I am reading – but even when I don’t, the very act of reciting the Quran fills me with a sense of wonder and grace.
As I recite each verse, I feel myself almost floating on a breeze, my tone rising and dipping and rising again to a crescendo as I reach the end of this verse, or at the start of that other verse. At times, my recitation feels like a horse at a brisk gallop, my enunciation almost breathlessly trying to keep up with flow of His Words. At other times, I whisper the words in a low hush, just luxuriating in the melody of the words, many of which sometimes I can barely understand, with my rudimentary command of the language. Sometimes, I hear myself reading the words and I try to imagine how it must have been for the earliest Muslims, to hear this strange music and to know, in their heart of hearts, that what they were hearing was something truly Eternal.
Every year, I am told that we are supposed to make the best of the final ten nights of Ramadan – a final coup de grace to this most revered of months. I am seeing now, though dimly as if through a haze, that feeling of bittersweet embrace, knowing that I am here in the final ten nights and that the sands of Ramadan will soon run out, not to return for another year. InshaAllah, the hope is to make the most of it, before Ramadan comes to an end.
On Mercy and Compassion
During Ramadan, I think a lot about how, of all His Ninety-Nine Names that He has claimed for Himself, it is The Merciful and The Compassionate that takes centre stage.
Ar Rahman. Ar Rahim.
Almost every chapter in the Quran would be prefaced with Bismillahirrahmanirrahim – In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and the Most Compassionate.
Given how so many of our religious functionaries can spew fire and brimstone over His Justice and His Punishment, it is curious that it is Mercy and Compassion that is central to the Muslim conception of God. The satanic desire to elevate oneself, to inflate one’s ego – I was made out of fire, unlike that other puny creature made merely out of clay – can often lead to a sense of misplaced grandeur, and has certainly led many to believe, probably erroneiously, that they speak with His authority.
If the Christian God is said to privilege Love, then the Muslim God puts the relationship between the Creator and the human in its proper place: the makhluq are humble creatures who depend on Him for everything: for our wealth, for our success, for every breath of air that we take. We need His Mercy and His Compassion for our survival, for our very existence.
I believe that by putting Mercy and Compassion at the very centre of Muslim ritual and practice, God is modeling the way for us to exist in our own everyday life and in our dealings with our fellow humans. Prioritise mercy and compassion with your loved ones, with the ones you meet in your everyday.
If Mercy and Compassion are at the heart of the nature of the Divine, then by being merciful and compassionate ourselves, we too can strive to touch the Divine in everything that we do, and everything that we are.
Tentang Lebai Alphard
(dengan pohonan ampun maaf buat penulis lagu asal) Sepohon kayu daun berlendir Lebat bunganya serta buahnya Walaupun mulut berbuih "takbir!" Kalau dah tak ikhlas apa gunanya? Lihatlah, situ, si Lebai Alphard Kopiah putih, hidupnya mewah Rumah banglo tersergam megah Akhlaknya bau bak ubat gegat! Tunggang agama sehari-hari Elaun berkoyan poket sendiri Supaya nanti peroleh undi Kuasa duniawi dijunjung tinggi.
On Wokeness and Privilege
There is a lot of talk now, not just about wokeness, but also about a so-called anti-woke movement – a counter-revolution.
For my part, I try as hard as I can to listen – really *listen* – not just to what people are saying, but also to what I am feeling as these things are being said.
For one, I think it is important to understand the motives underlying – and the emotions flowing through – these conversations. In many instances, of course, the recent rise of “wokeness” is a legitimate uprising against injustice and oppression. Indeed, it is part of a long-running moral arc of struggle – for the right of the slave to be free, for the right of the woman to vote, for the right of the poor to live dignified lives.
At the same time, I also recognise that as a straight Muslim Malay male, I am part of the dominant narrative in the land where I live. Many of the institutions and incentives are kindly predisposed (if not outrightly rigged!) – if not in my outright favour, then at the very least in the favour of those who look like me, who sound like me, who have names like mine.
It is too easy, I think, to simply dismiss “wokeness” – and the often-frustrating polemics that have arisen in the wake of its ascendance. Much of it can be grating, ingenuous, or even plain outrageous. But I think “wokeness” is, or should be, something that speaks to the core of what it means to live a moral life: to be just in our dealings with others, to treat others with dignity and respect, to do unto others as we would like others to do unto us.
One of the most gratifying aspects of my faith, for me, is that Islam was born in the deepest reaches of the desert, and that the message resonated most, in its earliest days, with the enslaved, the poor, the marginalised, the downtrodden, the oppressed. Muhammad did not pander to the rich, and indeed he refused riches when it was offered to him by the great and the good of Makkah, if only he would shut up on all that God business.
And Muhammad taught us that everyone had access to Him through His Scripture: there was no need for a Church or a Rabbinate to intercede or to mediate on behalf of the believers. Salvation was offered to anyone and everyone, and we will all be judged on the content of our character and the good works that we do on this Earth.
So whenever I get annoyed at reading something that someone had written or said, I try to remind myself that “wokeness” is, at the heart of it, a plea for justice. Yes, there will be those who try to profit from “wokeness” – either from what they stand to gain from through what is demanded, or merely from the satisfaction of being up on the moral high horse of performativeness. But we still have a duty to enact and perform justice by ourselves, in the acts that we do in our own small circle of existence.
That is all that anyone can truly ask for.
On the Friday Khutbah
For years, I had made it a point to drive some distance away from my workplace in order to attend Friday prayers at ISTAC – an outpost of the International Islamic University Malaysia, where the khutbahs are delivered in English, and (for most of the time) the sermons are prepared and delivered in person by a member of the academic staff of ISTAC, rather than the usual regurgitation of the bland and inane texts provided by our esteemed religious bureaucracies.
I finally gave up the ghost some months back, after realising that even in that intellectual oasis, the government-sanctioned text has begun to rear its rather boring head. To be fair, there were still many occasions when the sermons were prepared and delivered by ISTAC academic staff – as a treat, sometimes ISTAC would even open its khutbah platform to external speakers. On one memorable occasion, an Australian Uyghur preacher was invited to speak, and he gave such an impassioned sermon on the plight of his fellow Uyghur brothers and sisters, that many of us were moved to tears. (Needless to say, there are no tears involved when it comes to the usual gomen sermons – most of the jama’ah would be busy trying to stay awake, instead.) But recently, more often than not, the officially-approved text would be delivered, and in the usual tones: either the typical uninvolved drone of the bored state-employed imam, or the declamatory faux-politician style of the wannabe celebrity preacher.
So recently, as I started reading Khaled Abou El Fadl’s excellent compilation of his Friday khutbahs, I was reminded of how the subordination of Muslim scholars to the needs and wants of the State has truly led to the current sorry state of the intellectual stagnation and sheepification of the Muslim ummah. With the excuse of trying to prevent the politicisation of our masjids, our religious apparatchiks have rather succeeded also in preventing any sort of enlightenment for the ummah on these weekly occasions when we would gather as one people, down our tools and close our shops, to attend the masjid and glorify His Name.
I can only take solace from the hope that, with the Friday sermon forever entrenched as a core pillar of the Muslim experience, the time might come, one day, when these moments of gathering would rise from their current sordid state to become what they were in the time of the Prophet Muhammad: a constant madrasah for the education and edification of the Muslim ummah.