Welcome to the Internet World

Some of the ladies here have discovered the wonderful world of web and are very excited about what the e-mail (for instance) has to offer and also the delicious recipes they can find on the net. Good for them!

So they are forwarding a lot of emails to everyone, a group of ladies here. By the way I am talking about Malaysian ok. So I am getting emails which I have read before, I am receiving gory emails (by the younger ones), email Norman Hakim and Memey doing monkey acts, email gambar tudung Siti Nurhaliza, and also email on a lot of food product yang haram, yang tak boleh makan, yang ada babi, yang tak sembelih betul.

Most of the emails I ignore, sometimes I read sometimes I leave. Some also I would reply especially to rebut some of articles. Usually I do this if I have evidence of some sort that the article is outdated or incorrect. Some forward hoax email that I have recieved ages ago like the picture of a lady's' breast infected by some larvae, or the supposedly kaum Ad who is found in somewhere somewhere.

Not forgetting there are also email berunsurkan agama with wonderful power points and so on (beware many contain hadith dhaif!). Yesterday I received a chain mail which are agama related. Herewith I paste it

IVE FIVE MINUTES OF TIME TO ATLEST READ IT TO THE END INSHAALLAH

Subject: DONT DELETE! IF YOUR A MUSLIM! PLEASE READ THIS!

This is true.From Madina Sheikh Ahmed has sent this news.On a Friday Sheikh Ahmed fell asleep reading the Quraan. Then he dreamt the Prophet Muhammed (saw) standing in front of him and saying that in one week seven thousand people died but not even one was a true Muslim. None did what ALLAH wanted. He also said now is a bad time. These days Wives dont look after their Husbands,Girls go round without being covered they do not respect parents or others,Rich do not look after the poor,they do not give gifts or money or do not give fulfil zakaat.he also said to Sheikh Ahmed make people understand to give zakaat,To do prayer and to keep fast. The day of judgement is near. When There is a single star in the sky,straight away the path of forgiveness will close. The writing in The Quraan will disappear (vanish). The Sun will lower itself with Earth.

The Prophet said whoever reads this news to someone else,

'I WILL ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT MAKE HIM A PLACE IN PARADISE, AND IF SOMEONE DOES NOT BELIEVE THIS NEWS TO BE TRUE THEY WILL BE BANISHED FROM PARADISE '

If a poor person gives out this news to other people his/her good wish will come true. Sheikh Ahmed said if this is not true then my death will be off a Non-Muslim. The Prophet said

'KEEP FAST, DO PRAYERS, GIVE ZAKAAT AND GIVE KINDNESS TO THE POOR'

Whoever Forwards this will get his/her reward in three days. One Person forward it to 40 people he had 8,000 thousand, take prophet in his business. One Person did not believe this news and his son died. One kept saying he will forward it today, tomorrow but never forward this news he died as well.

PLEASE DO NOT THINK THIS IS NOT TRUE.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE!

How many chain mails we get spamming our inbox? Too many right? Usually I would ignore it sebab tak kuasalah. But somehow this time I felt like I need to say something. This is mainly because the one who emailed this is a person of piety. Dalam lingo kita kiranya makcik alim lah. Which she is! She is highly respected among the malays here and I love her. I do. She is a very kind lady.

I don't like this email because I think there is a form of syirik in it! Who is this author of the email who has much time in his hand to author this and threaten us with death when death is only in the hands of Allah?

So I thought this could cause fitna (trial bukan slander) on her. How fitna?

1. Since she is a respected person and her piety, people could construe that what she does is correct and would believe the content and forward it.
2. And also many people would just forward it without believing the content but still forward it because it is from this lady and the mail has the warning of qiamah stories and it should be a good thing to berpesan-pesan di anatra kawan-kawan kan?
3. Or people would melekeh-lekehkan this lady knowing the content is not right. What? She doesn't know better? Wallahu3alam.

So lollies have been morphed into lollyitchy and decided to reply

Salam,

Alhamdullilah kita semuanya mempunyai semangat berpesan-pesan sesama saudara Islam. Indeed Hari Kiamat itu adalah haq.

maka dengan itu saya setuju dengan isi utama email ini (iatu tanda hari kiamat). Walaubagaimana pun saya tidak dapat menerima 'ugutan" yang seolah olah jika saya tidak memforwardkan email ini maka sesuatu musibah akan terjadi. Saya cuma akan forward dengan niat untuk menyampaikan pesanan dan bukan kerana takutkan kematian ahli keluarga saya. Ajal di tangan Allah Subhana Wataala yang menentukan dan bukan di tangan email ini.

Salam Sayang
Lollitchy

After sending the email out, I felt worried. Alamak! What if orang kata aku macam bagus. Belahlah Lollies tu. Nak buat baklah kononnya. Macamlah orang tak tau. In a way I felt that I was at risk of getting into the infamous territory among the ladies here.

But I still felt strongly about saying something.

Alhamdullilah that very evening, this good lady replied the email apologising for her ignorance of not reading the mail properly and asked everyone to forget the email and stay away from syirik and to remember Allah all the time and know that only He has power over us.

I met her later (last night) and I also apologised for causing her unease. She thanked me so hard. She said her husband was really angry at her for forwarding such mails. Kena marah tak kasi can punya. *I am truly sorry to hear that*. But she said she did not read it properly pun. nampak macam kiamat-kiamat terus tekan forward. Understandable. She was shivering the whole evening (which I am not surprise with her. I told you she is a very nice person. Naive sikit but very nice).

In a way, this has become a good lesson for her to be aware of the responsibilities in the internet world. He he he. Not all that look good and virtuous are good in cyber space.

So I said to her, "Welcome to the Internet world".