Be Good to Thy Neighbour

Next to my house is a local family. Not only are they local nationality, the man of the house is also the brother of my landlord. So sangat-sangat VVIP.

Anyway we didnt get to a very good start. When we parked very near to his house border, he sort of told my lover off. And sometimes when we try to make eye contact, we as in my lover and the man while me with the wife of course, you don't find the arab men to talk to women neighbours like we do in Malaysia. Anyway when we try to make eye contact, they avoided us. What more, the wife upon reaching home from work, drove by the driver, will wait for the car door to be opened, the gate opened and the nain door opened, then she will walk straight into the house.

Anyway we basically ignored each other. But one day I was listening to a lecture which advised to be good to neighbours. It was the first 10 Dzulhijjah, to do something extra to gain ajr. As usual the mu'alimah suggested exchange (or maybe just one sided pun tak apa) of food or anything. So I said to myself, what the heck, why not. No harm done insya Allah.

I know they have kids - 3 young boys in their primary school age - thus I bought a dozen of personally selected Krispy Kreme Donut.

When I ding dong their house, the helper spoke to me through the intercom with the voice that sounded panic and bewildered, "Yes. What do you want?", she asked. I had to explain that I am their immediate neighbour and I have something to give her. When she opened the gate, her face still panic-looking, her master was at the main door equally looking surprised but all of their expression changed when I passed them the Krispy Kreme box, "For the boys" I said. Then the helper went cheerful and thanked me on behalf of her master.

I didnt speak to the master.

I felt... good doing it. It doesn't really matter now whether we never talked, really what do you expect with the locals here, nor do we have eye contact or anything. I am just glad I did it.

One fine day, here was a ding dong at my house. It was the maid next door, and she practically screamed at the intercom, 'I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU MADAAAAAAAM". I opened the door and laughed. In her hand was a huge wovened basket of assortments.

Wow! I told my lover. This must be expensive, judging by the the quality of the confectionaries. Hmmm could this pose some form of dillema. I mean I would love to exchange food once in a while but I really do not want to make it into a competition. Surely I can't afford expensive confectionery like this. Well we agreed that we give when we want to give and what we want to give and will Insya Allah try our best to do it for Allah. The last bit is the hardest.

After sometime, I went to buy a cake for them.

A few days ago, they gave me this fancy decorated chocolate ala ala hantaran kahwin. Seriously nak makan pun sayang tau. There is candy floss in small cases too. Macam make up pulak.

Arabs really love this fancy confectionery. And that is why chocolate shops like patchi and godiva and many other confectionery shops are thriving. All these fancy decorated sweet shops are really good business here.

I wonder if I make something homemade would it be good enough to give them? Ataupun we will stick to a safe one, cakes and sweets of the sort. Yeah maybe we'll do the latter.

What G@ndalf Should Have Said

My kids are in the mood watching L0TR. They have been watching the three series for rounds and rounds.

This is perhaps the first time Jack is watching it in full and is able to comprehend what is happening.

So there was this scene at Moria, where G@ndalf had to face Balrog at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. Balrog is a demon of fire, darkness and shadow with fiery whip to boot.

As they were fighting, G@ndalf spew out some incantations in foreign language to Balrog followed with his famous, "You shall not pass!". At this point of foreign language, Jack said, "La ilahha ilallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah!!!! That's what he should say"

Well well well! Indeed that would probably be the best ruqyah.

The clip



The said moment was at 2:50

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Indeed there is no difference in white magic and black magic. Sorcery is disbelieve. Asking assistance from one sorcerer to cure the ailment caused by another sorcerer is a trap into further abyss of shirk. May Allah help us all.

The current movies such as harry P0tter, L0Tr, twilight and all the devil akin to human have dangerous elements of shirk and further beautifying the evil of the devil. In twilight, we take pity and sympathise and in torn to chose between evil Edward and jacob. in Harry Potter, you are forced to choose the lesser evil, the nice witches against the one who cannot be named. Whereas the matter of fact is,all of them are practicing shirk and magic.

Yes I do watch them. But warn your children that the one you rely on is Allah. Allah has prescribed to us the Quran to counter evil or Abracadabra and spells and incantations. Trust Allah. Ya Rabb protect me form these evil.

Allah says, “Verily, the plot of Satan is weak” (al-Nisaa 76).

Seeking power from other than Allah is shirk because there can never be other pwoer besides Him. The next time when your children pretend play by moving their "wands" and casting a spell, remind them what it means by doing that. That it is using other super power to perform supernatural things. Perform magic. And magic is disbelief.

Al Baqarah 2: 102

They followed what the Shayâtin (devils) gave out (falsely of the magic) in the lifetime of Sulaimân (Solomon). Sulaimân did not disbelieve, but the Shayâtin (devils) disbelieved, teaching men magic and such things that came down at Babylon to the two (angels,) Hârût and Mârût, but neither of these two angels taught anyone (such things) till they had said, “We are only for trial, so disbelieve not (by learning this magic from us).” And from these (angels) people learn that by which they cause separation between man and his wife, but they could not thus harm anyone except by Allâh’s Leave. And they learn that which harms them and profits them not. And indeed they knew that the buyers of it (magic) would have no share in the Hereafter. And how bad indeed was that for which they sold their ownselves, if they but knew. (102)

And be aware that Allah says in the Quran.

Al Ahzab 7: 16-17

(Iblîs) said: "Because You have sent me astray, surely I will sit in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path (16)
Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left, and You will not find most of them as thankful ones (i.e. they will not be dutiful to You)." (17)

With so many series and movies beautifying the devil, do we not feel that this is the very trap that Shaytan promised to do to us, among others? Making us subconsciously having to choose between two evils.

Be aware and you can guard yourself and your children from all these lurking dangers around us.

It means a world to Haziq too

Because I cannot afford to miss some of my classes, I sometimes sacrifice not going to Haziq's award ceremonies at school. Well, mostly sebab dia dah besar anyway, I think he can understand. Unlesslah dia buat performance sekolah like debating or give a talk or anything of that sort, then I'll go. So I usually skip his award ceremony, but I still go for Sya's and Jack's because it means a world to them.

Award ceremony sekolah Haziq tu bukannya best sangat pun. Call out the names laju-laju and kasi cert aje. So yeah, skip school for that?

Sometimes Haziq would give me a letter from his school, saying ada award ceremony. And I would ask, what day is it? And he would name the day and I would say, I have class Haziq. It's ok, he would say, you make me nervous anyway. I might fell off the stairs. *Laughters* Closed case.

So one day, the award ceremony was not on my school day and I asked him, should I go. And he said, well it doesn't matter pun. I told him, I will go anyway.

So I went. But that morning, the traffic was really bad. The ceremony was at 8:30, I managed to be there at maybe 8:50. The ceremony was still going on trailing to the finishing part. Went through the bad traffic but didn't get to view Haziq receiving the cert? Oh well Qadr Allah. I went up to him anyway to say congratulations.

And he said, "Wow! You came! I was looking for you when I was on stage but couldn't find you and i actually felt disappointed. All the while I was looking for black tudung and you are wearing green! No wonder!" He grinned proudly.

Oh!

Yes haziq I am not wearing black today.

We just do not know what Allah's Plans are

Prophet Muhammad salllahu alaihi wasalam made alot of effort calling for daawah to the other Arab tribes especially those who come to make pilgrimage in Makkah. Prophet sallahu alaihi wasalam was also looking for other areas to refuge Islam in. He, however, had to fight the bad words spread about him that he is a mad man, magician and so forth.He went to speak to many tribes but was often rejected.

It was the eleventh year of Prophethood. And the pilgrimage season was coming. Prophet and some of his companions passed by Aqabah in Mina, and heard some people talking. They went towards them and found six men from yathrib, all of them were from Khazraj tribe - As'ad bin Zurarah, "Awf bin Harith, Rafi' bin Malik, Qutbah bin "Amr, 'Uqbah bin 'Amr and Jabir bin Abdullah.

Anyway, these Madinese always hearing from the Jews (who stayed in Madinah hoping to receive a prophet) that a Prophet was about to rise. The Jews were also threatening the Madinah people.

You see the Arabs from Madinah were always at war between tribes. They were also pagans and were never scholarly and knowledgeable like the Jews. The Jews threatened the Medina people that a Prophet will come and the time is near. And when a prophet does come, the Jews will follow him and then they will kill all of these pagans as the children of 'Ad and Thamud had been killed.

So the Madinese had the idea of a coming prophet for along time.

Prophet salllahu alaihi wasalam, introduced to them that he is a prophet and that he is calling people to tawheed that is to worship only one God. The God who create all things, the God that gives life and take life.

When they heard this, they exchanged ideas among themselves that this must be the Prophet that the Jews were threatening them about and they decided to haste in embracing the religion before the Jews get it first.

Thus they embraced Islam.

Who would have thought, that because the Jew were taking about the prophet so much, that this was a platform to prepare The Madinah people for a prophet. The Arabs at that time had no structured religion unlike the Jews and the Christians. They were worshipping idols that they made even though they do believe in God who creates.

With all that are happening in this world now, only Allah knows what kind of platform is He preparing for all of us. To create more shaheed? To create a stronger ummah. To wake us up? to be united? To open the eyes and heart of the believers? To prepare us for Imam Mahdi?

Indeed Allah knows best. He is the best planner.

Ooooppsss

I was driving to pick up the kids the other. I got at the junction where I am supposed to turn left. The traffic light was red and I stopped.

Then I heard honking. I ignored it for a few seconds because honking is so common so why bother. It has become some background nice sometimes. But the honking went on. I turned right. There was a Ford Mustang next to me. The driver was a man with long red curly hair tied up in a pony tail making a huge mop style hair. He was smiling and talking something in a made up sign language.

Oh he was asking permission from me to cut queue and whether he can go in front of me. Oh, what a nice chap, asking permission to cut queue. That was new. So I let him while I busy myself doing what I like in the car.

But he couldn't get in immediately because there was not much space in front of me and the light was red. So there he was waiting at the end of the line of short poles that are put so people don't cut queues or to put division between those who wants to drive straight or make a turning.

*Blink*. the light is now green. I gave him time to get in front of me because I am patient that way. And at that very moment, I heard a short police siren. Oooppss the big police Toyota Landcruiser was next to him pointing to him! He tried to say something to the police by giving some made up sign language. But the police was not buying it or he couldn't understand the sign language or he didn't find his mop red hair cute, followed the Mustang and tell him to stop over.

Oh!

But he did ask for permission.