Surah Saad......ayat 17 to ayat 29

[  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bq8v4kb3i4   ]

[ shaykh tawfique chowdhury , episode 2 ]

.....mashaallah! subhanallah!, what a commentary on nabi daud's repentance...

.....doa nabi yunus, " la il hailla antasubha nakainni kotuminaz zolimim"

friends, dato and tansri,

at a time when our national clown and his band of 'baduts' are living in their own mad mad world of deceit and deception; of gross and going on a rampage of shameless corruption and national pillage; while the  rest of us sane people stand , having to live by in  horror and suffer in silence,and to contend with a nation divided between 'belief ' and 'make- belief', which have divides friends, relatives , brothers and sisters into opposing camps......let us drown our epic national sorrow today on  a biblical mega  story of epic proportion :  nabi daud's repentance.

for years, and i having read many comparative tafseer, i cannot comprehend why allah insert 'this story about 2 brothers who braved themselves and scaled the high wall of istana negara' . it seemed out of sync with the rest of the narrative....

it is human to plan 
but allah decides. 

....and the extent of nabi daud's repentence was phenomenal!
40 day's of sujud!

it beats my 4 months of  just nightly 'sembahyang hajat' when i had my little querrel with an 'untouchable' in teganu,
which was also answered in the most remarkable of ways.
but next time if, again, i have problems with HIS creations, i will take a leaf from this biblical story, and do astagfirullah and sujud instead.
it can be shorter, less painful with more decisive result.

indeed,allah answers all prayers and doa .
astagfirullah is the most potent of doa.

caliph umar called for muslims to pray for rain after a long spell of drought during his.
he chose not to be imam to the prayer.
he chose instead to 'bertawasul' with any semblance of close contact to the nabi [ pbuh ]
he requested ibnu abbas, nabi's uncle, to be the imam leading the prayer.
ibnu abbas, in his post prayer doa just went into a long spell of 'astagfirullah'.
rain came shortly after.

Bear with what they say, and remember Our bondman David, lord of might, Lo! he was ever turning in repentance (toward Allah). (17) Lo! We subdued the hills to hymn the praises (of their Lord) with him at nightfall and sunrise, (18) And the birds assembled; all were turning unto Him. (19) We made his kingdom strong and gave him wisdom and decisive speech. (20) And hath the story of the litigants come unto thee? How they climbed the wall into the royal chamber; (21) How they burst in upon David, and he was afraid of them. They said: Be not afraid! (We are) two litigants, one of whom hath wronged the other, therefor judge aright between us; be not unjust; and show us the fair way. (22) Lo! this my brother hath ninety and nine ewes while I had one ewe; and he said: Entrust it to me, and he conquered me in speech. (23) (David) said: He hath wronged thee in demanding thine ewe in addition to his ewes, and lo! many partners oppress one another, save such as believe and do good works, and they are few. And David guessed that We had tried him, and he sought forgiveness of his Lord, and he bowed himself and fell down prostrate and repented. (24) So We forgave him that; and lo! he had access to Our presence and a happy journey's end. (25) (And it was said unto him): O David! Lo! We have set thee as a viceroy in the earth; therefor judge aright between mankind, and follow not desire that it beguile thee from the way of Allah. Lo! those who wander from the way of Allah have an awful doom, forasmuch as they forgot the Day of Reckoning. (26) And We created not the heaven and the earth and all that is between them in vain. That is the opinion of those who disbelieve. And woe unto those who disbelieve, from the Fire! (27)

Shall We treat those who believe and do good works as those who spread corruption in the earth; or shall We treat the pious as the wicked? (28) (This is) a Scripture that We have revealed unto thee, full of blessing, that they may ponder its revelations, and that men of understanding may reflect. (29) 

[ translation by pickthal  ]

a 'selamat hari raya aidil fitri' to you guys and family'

ma'af , zahir batin.

drive safely.....

insyaallah!

dr nik

[  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwlKvuSpQIs  ]

[ recitation by qari shaykh salman uthaybi  ]

Surah Saad.......Prologue; ayat 1 to ayat 16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfMyncw8jXg

[ surah sad, recitation by qari shaykh mishary rashid al afasy ]




friends , dato and tansri,

i have many friends: medical consultants, engineers,lawyers ,even close relative who still ask [ even in their sixties and fifties! ]: " doc , why tafseer? , i am already quite happy  with abdullah yusuf ali...and what is tafseer by the way?"

OMG !

another big group of malaysians [ why does it has to be malaysians all the time, escape my wild imaginations! ]will go to great length in their retirement and pre-retirement, attending classes for tajwid . very few go to some length trying to comprehend the qur'an, study hadiths etc and etc
give another 20 years they will still be stuck at ' alif ba ta ' of tajwid.
qur'an........''.no comprehendo! "
hadith...NO
or join the tabligh.....why!? join that group of ignorant , uneducated people!

finding a tok guru in tasawuf or 'attacking' the qur'an in major way by reading the big comparative tafseer volume etc etc  are not for them...tajwid, 
YES, it seems like a big malaysian love affair with tajwid, just tajwid.

i have no querrel with 'tajwid' but some years back i had a conversation with a 'tajwid' tok guru, and i asked him," do you understand the qur'an, i mean do you study tafseer of the qur'an ?" 

NO!......and this is from a tok guru, going round masjid and madrasah giving lessons in selangor.

we are as if stuck in a time warp, i term as 'ablution phase islam', and do not seem to want to move anywhere else. 

it is as if you are running on a threadmill, you whole life....you are not going any where!

yes , accepted that allah promise a lot of barakah in reading the qur'an.
there is even as much barakah in just listening to someone reading the qur'an!

i, for instance like to listen to shaykh mishary rashid and his 'friends' so much on qur'anexplorer.com, to the point i read little, but listen more, esp with pickthal in the background giving the translation , after every ayat.
thanks to the internet!

in a well known tradition, nabi [ pbuh ] liked to listen to ibnu mas'ud's rendition of the qur'an,
even though nabi is the walking qur'an.

but  my friends, to move 'mountains of dirt collected over decades of relative ignorance' of the qur'an; to change hearts...to reignite the spirit.....one need to comprehend and think about the content of the qur'an....' tadabbur alqur'an '

otherwise my friends, hearts remain unmoved, and eyes remain dry and spirit hollow for your own  whole lifetime.
at the end of your time, you become g25 material.....! 
by the time one realize this , it is already , "man rabbuka?"

we are starting on surah  saad today.
we will start with shaykh tawfique chowdhury. midway, ustd nouman ali khan will join us, insyaaalah.

dr nik 


" why, why why...why him , a simpleton, and not us, tan sris, dato sris and movers and shakers of  quraish society?......"

allah is ya fattah, ya razak, ya wahab, ya gahniy , ya mughni......
ya ghaniy, ya hamid, ya mubdi , ya muid, ya rahim, ya wadud....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8hIgE5PBKk

[ shaykh tawfique chowdhury  ]

Before We Move On to Surah Saad.....'.The Caliph '

friends, dato and tansri,

before we move on to surah as sad , for us who missed al jazeera's fine documentary on 'the 'caliphate', 

let us revisit this documentary.

i am no historian.

it is difficult to precisely pin point when exactly the dirty fingers of political islam really started.

one can argue political islam really started after nabi's demise.

certainly not  seen much during caliph abu bakr.

during umar 's time, the land mass under muslim rule got bigger with muawiyah being an efficient general as well as governor

with othman's assassination, political islam was in full bloom.

with territorial expansion, lots of money and dunya, this is inevitable.

and interesting and well researched documentary.

a sad one as well towards the end.

watch this series if you  can spare the time.

this will mainly explain :

...why later days muslims, 1.8 billion of them become 'apologists for their ugama in the late 20th and early 21st century;

...why 'muslim nation states' come to regard social bodies and organizations that really can uplift their level of depravity and sense of pride , bodies such as ikhwanul muslimin, hamas  and hizbul it tahrir, just to name a few , as organizations that need to be banned and shunned, by muslims themselves.

... why this recent shameless blockade of progressive state  like qatar by its shameless neighbours can occur. donald trump wants it!

....why much of syria, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan and yemen are presently in turmoil

liberal islam, ok
g 25 islam, ok

sisters in islam , ok

irshad manji's brand of  reformation in islam , very very ok !

[  ....and by the way she 'got married' to her partner, laura bacaro,  in hawai in may 2016 ]

that is also ok.

'these types of islam ok.

but if you guys talk about syariah , we will nuke or drone you'

dr nik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3O9d7PsI48

[ the calip part 1  ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuplOE5JB4M

[ the caliph part 2  ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXXSo7WzZsk

[ the caliph part 3  ]



ps:
for readers from usa, europe and outside malaysia, not familiar  with these two terms: g25 and sisters in islam, 
these two represent socalled progressive muslims in malaysia.

g25 is consisted of retired distinguished senior govt servants and ex ambassadors, and sisters in islam, prime movers are mainly a small group of single professional ladies with liberal islam in their minds in the background.

Surah as Saffat....... Shaykh Tawfique Chowdhury's commentary part 3

friends, dato and tansri,

towards the end of shaykh tawfique's commentary part 2 , he was commenting on the life and time of prophet ibrahim. in this section he will be commenting on the rest of the named prophets in surah as saffat.

as a digression, i am always fascinated by young ibrahim's surreal conversation or rather  very brief altercation with jibril in that split seconds when king nimrud got ibrahim catapulted , airborne and before falling into a cauldron of fire.

jibril alaihisalam asked, "... thou need my help?"
the young ibrahim replied, "the help of Allah alone is what I need!"
"pray, then, to HIM, that HE may save thee!" rejoined Gabriel.
"He knows my condition," answered Abraham.


this dichotomy i find plays itself very well in two group of people at opposing poles of the ugama currently.

i am referring to the salafi/wahabi grouping on one side whose daily litanies and wirids weighs very heavily on doa, doa,  and doa , apart from the 'standard'  tahlil, tahmid and tasbeeh.
to the point they are almost apologetic about the use of the word 'zikr'.. i can feel that to present day wahabies , 'zikr' and 'ihsan' , when their tok gurus have , but to mention them , they do it with some degree of apology. such was their sensitivity to anything 'sufi'

the sufis on the other hand weighs heavily on zikr, zikr and zikr, apart from the 'standard' solat and qur'an, tahlil and tahmid, to the point doa constitute only a small portion of their activities. 

it is completely almost the other way round.

there are levels and levels in ihsan and the difference between the two groupings are difference between 'prefects' and 'lovers'.

' lovers almost stop asking.....everything thrown by allah and from allah to him is alright and ok!.....redha, to the point he stops asking'

the 'prefects' are overwhelmed by syariah , while the drunken 'lovers' are drowned by 'love and mahabbah'.

we mere mortals, ideally want to have the right mix of both  syariah' and ' mahabbah; 
exoteric islam and esoteric islam....the outer shell, and a deeper inner kernel.
we need both.

to get the right mix, it is back to ilm , ilm and ilm.
...and you must be willing to meet with all these these socalled tok gurus with an open and a critical heart.
don't sell your soul  easily to just anyone with a skull cap or large turban.
it is read, read, read...and to a certain extent , with modern technology now, it is listen, listen and listen.
then choose  your tok guru  murshid that is, if you can find him.

our ugama is not for 'donkeys'.
it is for thinkers!

this is just my humble  perception.
we mere mortals ossilate in between  being 'lovers' and 'prefects'.
take a middle position, a safe position , i guess.
happy hunting.
allahualam.

let us join shaykh tawfique chowdhury in his third and final part of commentary of surah as saffat. there is a section about prophet yunus here. 
his lack of sabr and frustration that lead him to abandon his flock, and finally landed in the belly of a whale.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3XoTCIvttA

[   shaykh tawfique chowdhury's commentary part 3  and final commentary ]



.....and if you ask me what is prophet's yunus [pbuh ] doa and prayer.
it is one of the most powerful zikr ever:
" la ila hailla antasubha nakainni kontuminaz zolimin..."

one of my favourite doa and wirid, given by one shaykh , in our 1st meeting in ipoh some years back.
i took ba'yah from him that day.

" la ila  hailla antasubha nakainni kontuminaz zolimun !.."

dr nik

Surah as Saffat.............Shaykh Tawfique Chowdhury's commentary , part 2.

friends, dato and tansri,

these last ten days of ramadan, with terrible heat outside in excess of 33 degrees centigrade and high humidity, we can allow ourselves to day dream a wee bit, before another night of 'hard work' chasing the 'lailatul qadr'........

put yourself in jannatul firdaus. 
you are a horse lover and a chronic durian addict in your previous 'earth years', which now seems like a millineum  years away. 
all the initial difficulties during those earth years were now faint memories.
so distant.

you just walk out of your palatial home of 400 rooms.
much bigger and certainly much, much grander  scale than the palaces of royal brunei and royal teganu put together!

al bariq, is there waiting for you at your porch....mercs , jaguars, porches, mesaratis and bentley turbos, and a dozen or two feraris, all lined up.
but today you just want to ride your favourite pure arabian stallion.

you want to go slowly, slowly, today.
you want to smell  and saviour all the beautiful blooming fruiting of your vast orchard of ash sajaratul musang king, miles and miles of fine and top class  durian orchard!
no place for a 'durian kampong , d24, d2 or thailand' here.
all top class!

dozens of houris lined themselves up at the doorway, with musk and gaharu scented flower petals to welcome you.

on the other side of your massive palatial home your beautiful dear mrs, who has just joined you after spending some considerable 'years' at the plateau of al a'raf, who have, al hamdullillah, been given an automatic upgrade to jannatul firdaus on your account, has her own programme. 

she wants to visit YOUR orchard of red roses today.
you have no complain.
here , even in jannatul firdaus , her wish is still your command!

yesterday, already, she  had finished her day enchanted by 65 different hues  and shades of pink roses. 

today morning, she just woke up on the left side of the bed and told you she wanted to do  just RED today. just go around smelling the  different shade of red roses....and that will take a full day even in her own private jet.
you private garden is so large , it goes beyond the horizon.
you reckon she will take at least a full month to just survey your garden of roses!
...and that does not include your prada and the hermes outlet yet! 
but in jannah , everything are ok.

women are women, even in jannatul firdaus.

you still don't argue, fight or querrel with them!
that is rule numero uno.

it helps that she is even more than 1000 time beautiful now than before!

she is  very new to jannatul firdaus, so you allow her over indulgence.

down at an nar, the story is totally different.

let us visit shaykh tawfique chowdhury for part 2 of his commentary.

he will be talking of a different kind of  tree!:

........ash sajaratul zaqqum!

dr nik


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKj31oUMk_E&t=1713s

[   shaykh tawfique chowdhury's commentary  part 2 ]

Surah as Saffat.........Shaykh Tawfique Chowdhury, commentary part 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXI-X2K5A80

[  shaykh tawfique chowdhury, commentary part 1.  ]

friends, dato and tansri,

i had a high level 'tiff' with someone 'high up' and 'untouchable' some years back.
i prayed hajat daily for 4 months  even during the whole of ramadan  that year, and finally  at just after mid night, one fine day, i had an unexpected personal call on my hp from another 'untouchable'.

'pucuk di cita, ulam mendatang!'

lo and behold...the issue was 'settled ' in the best way possible rather overwhelmingly conclusive, by YA LATIFF on the equestrian playing field of  bidong, teganu.
the gory details will not be revealed here of course!

the most subtle one,
the most soft,
the one who connects all the dots.
the one who changes hearts,[ ya mukalibal qulub...]
the one who changes parameters on the ground.
oh !...the one in total control..........

my personal experience  of the inner workings and secret of YA LATIFF is nothing compared to the muslims of makkah who were at the wrong end of the stick from the quraish of makkah.
their resilence was tested more.
their prayers answered 15 years later!

YA Latiff, in HIS ultimate wisdom answered their prayers after 15 long years!

on that fateful day, makkah gave way without a fight.
nabi entered makkah on his camel, his head bowed down almost touching his saddle in prayer and shukr, not the typical proud posture of some one in victory.

several centuries later the muslims ummah lost jerusalem to the crusaders.
their prayers were answered only after some 91 years later with the victory by salahudin al ayyubi.

prayers and doa are always answered by allah.
it is just always a matter of timing.
oftentimes it is answered in jannah.
more often than not, a NO, is the right answer.
the request is deemed inappropriate

which reminded me to a well known oral tradition of the nabi about a poor sahabat who persisted in asking nabi [ pbuh ] to doa for his prosperity.
the sahabat was a poor  sherperd.
nabi avoided his requests mant times.
but due to his persistence , nabi  finally conceded and did doa for his prosperity.

lo and behold, the sahabat's herd of goats and sheep increased tremendously.
he had to go further and further away from his local surau and masjid and 'kampong'.
missing a lot of congregational prayers at the surau initially, later not attending at all.

he be came a wealthy herder during nabi's time and the zakat over his herd became substantive, that out of greed, he did not pay zakat in the right amount to the point nabi directed his  zakat official' to stop zakat collection  from him.

during calip abu bakr's time, he did not collect zakat from this chap in respect of nabi's sop.
during caliph's umar time, umar also carried the same policy.

the poor simple sherperd, over time became a wealthy corporate man, but in the process behaved like qarun....proud, haugthy and ghaflah.
he ended up a miserable soul.
a case of inappropriate doa.

ya latif , 'the most subtle one ', actuates one man's rezeki according to HIS knowledge.
oftentimes, when our doa is inappropriate with our character and inherent wisdom or lack of it , the answer is NO.

what a digression.
now let us enjoy shaykh tawfique chowdhury's commentary on the opening gambit of surah as saffat, part 1




dr nik
'the sanctuary'
pantai telaga papan
teganu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXI-X2K5A80





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a274IKWDVJs

[ qari shaykh mishary rashid al afasy  ]

Surah as Saffat............Prologue

friends, dato and tansri,

surah as saffat in essence deals with tawhid [ the unity of allah , for want of better term ];

and biblical snapshots of giants amongst messengers: noah, ibrahim , lut, ismail,  yunus, musa ....

a medium long surah consisting of 182 ayat, makkan in origin.

do enjoy qari mishari rashid al afasy's recitation before we move on to tawfique chowdhury's commentary.

we are quite lucky this time.

initially, i search and search, and i could not find a reasonable english commentary of the surah.

malay?.....no hope at all. 

when we are still unable to differentiate between fair leadership, good leadership and awfully rotten one that need to go and duck its head under the sand or the whole lot of the cabinet going up the twin tower and jumping down as a group harakiri, what hope do we have of finding a decent MALAY COMMENTARY OF SURAH AS SAFFAT.

TANSRI, DATO AND FRIENDS, I AM SORRY WE ARE PATHETIC.

WE ARE PATHETIC EVEN BY THIRD WORLD STANDARD 

ALL 0F US!

'kang kong' doctors, law makers, professors, ambassadors , ex and present, yb,s, tansris and dato sris.....movers and shakers of malaysian society.....all of us!
all of us behave as if we do not have a day of accountability.
silence is tantamount to tacit agreement .

everything 'tidak apa'.
everything  in the name 'cari makan'.
honesty, integrity and shame  go out of the window.
we are still well stuck at the ablution phase of our ugama....even our socalled scholars and muftis are 'kang kong', mediocre scholars and muftis..

america is in 'hot soup' now.
they voted in a clown and a racist into office of the president.
but at least they have the institutions to make sure he get kicked out finally
we in malaysia , don't!

but back to our tafseer,
lo and behold after much attempts i found tawfique!

but since surah as saffat is a long one , enjoy the recitation  first.

we will meet tawfique in the next slot.

dr nik

[   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a274IKWDVJs    ]

qari, shaykh mishary rashid al afasy

Let Us Get Back To Basic.........al Fatihah Revisited

[  http://tafseerkoran.blogspot.my/2012/09/surah-al-fatiha-1-1-7.html  ]


friends , dato, and tansri,

before we move on from surah ya seen to surah as saffat, let us get back to basic.
let us revisit surah al fatihah.
for some of us who have taken this journey together with me since sept 9th , 2012, we have covered roughly about two third of the qur'an to-date.
that is a long journey indeed.

i started this tafseerblog just shortly before that, inspired by muhammad asad aka leopold weiss. at the turn of the 20th century, leopold weiss, of jewish origin from krakow, poland, as a young man in his early 20's, was 'implanted' in the middle east by a german newspaper to report back the goings on in the muslim heartland.

but mashaallah!
man plan but Allah directs! 
leopold weiss went on to become the most significant and substantive european muslim of his time. in the process he translated and explained an english version of the qur'an, '' the message of the qur'an ''.

my own personal qur'anic journey started in my early thirties. bow-tied, with a slight english twang  occasionally juxtaposed with an unmistakable 'budu' accent, i was just back from london when, i was given the responsibility to be in charge of a large medical contingent looking after the health of 30,000 malaysian muslim pilgrims at haj of 1985.

even at that age , a recalcitrant ' young dr nik already decided in his mind that he was not going to be 'blinkered' by the limited world view of one or two ustaz', so despite my scant knowledge of the 'ugama', i foraged through hamka's voluminous 'tafsir al azhar', all 7,000 pages of it's 10 volumes, in a period of 6 months!

that was the beginning of what i would term as the 'permanent head damage'.
hamka, in this nusantara, i must concede , was very much under-rated.
hardly anyone reads him now.
his tafseer is brilliant.
i know.

over the years , i have gone through tafsir al azhar three time.
its contemporariness and relevance to the modern age, it's depth and breath, dealing with an ayat, beat the rather dry , rather military nuance of ibnu katsir or the 'tafseer by committee' one get from going through say  'tafseer ar rahman'.

then in the 90's came internet and the proliferation of daie like nouman ali khan, hamza yusuf, ahmad israr, suhaib webb, abu talha, ustaz latifi al patani etc and etc.
....and now we have 'whats app'.

marry all of these shaykhs and ustad together to the internet, and spiced them with 'whats app' we get a 'high octane ' combustible mix' free for international da'awah at my fingertip......... my love affair with tafseer has gone  'global under one roof'!

i have people reading this tafseer now right from alaska to vladivostok , form tokyo to dunedin , nz!.......at no cost , just my time.
alhamdullillah.

..............................

in surah al fatihah, unlike the longer surah, we are really spoilt for choice.
we have more than 3 dozen choices actually.
all good contemporary commentaries.

here, i limit it to only four.
if you are the type who keep up with contemporary politics and also a fan of sayyid qutb, i would recommend shaykh abu talha for you.

if you understand 'french' and like politics, and can put yourself in the position of a simple man from kota bharu, tuan guru nik aziz bring back happy memories of what we are missing most in our national political landscape at present.

if you are young, ustad nouman ali khan is definitely for you.

i love contemporary politics  or rather i keep up with contemporary politics. 
and i love sayyid qutb perspective of the qur'an .
i like his honesty and bravery in the face of grave danger and inequities of his time.
therefore after listening to all the four available here , i am biased towards listening to shaykh abu talha.......he seemed to have the right 'controlled anger', and the right dose of acceptance/ridha.

that is what i feel we muslims have to be in the present world climate.

'controlled anger' and the right dose of ridha  .
that climax and perception one gest when one reaches his exposition  on 'waladdho lin...', if you guys have the stamina to reach there.
i doubt that many will do.
the question time is also excellent.
listen
and when you guys finish listening to shaykh abu talha or to tok guru nik aziz or nouman ali khan, venture into my personal journey on the aspect of 'death' in 'just visiting part 2 '



dr nik isahak

[   http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2017/01/just-visiting-part-2.html   ]

Surah Ya Seen.........Epilogue

[   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBm_3FsOCiQ   ]

[  final  commentary by ustad nouman ali khan  ]

friends, dato and tansri,

you may be oxbridge, harvard , yale or just university malaya.

you may have powerful prefix in front of your name, or long post -fixes, al haj, phd's and md's.

but if you think life is all there is, without final accountability, you are in for a huge spot of trouble , my friend.

.....Who will revive these bones when they have rotted away? (78) Say: He will revive them Who produced them at the first, for He is Knower of every creation, (79) Who hath appointed for you fire from the green tree, and behold! ye kindle from it. (80) Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth Able to create the like of them? Aye, that He is! for He is the All-Wise Creator, (81) But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that he saith unto it: Be! and it is. (82) Therefor glory be to Him in Whose hand is the dominion over all things! Unto Him ye will be brought back. (83)

[  translation by pickthal   ]

dr nik

[  http://drnikisahak.blogspot.my/2014/12/a-long-prescription-for-friend.html  ]

Surah Ya Seen..........ayat 45 to ayat 54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybgPBspm594

[  commentary by ustad nouman ali khan, part 10   ]

friends, dato and tansri,

When it is said unto them: Beware of that which is before you and that which is behind you, that haply ye may find mercy (they are heedless). (45) Never came a token of the tokens of their Lord to them, but they did turn away from it! (46) And when it is said unto them: Spend of that wherewith Allah hath provided you, those who disbelieve say unto those who believe: Shall we feed those whom Allah, if He willed, would feed? Ye are in naught else than error manifest. (47) And they say: When will this promise be fulfilled, if ye are truthful? (48) They await but one Shout, which will surprise them while they are disputing. (49) Then they cannot make bequest, nor can they return to their own folk. (50) And the trumpet is blown and lo! from the graves they hie unto their Lord, (51) Crying: Woe upon us! Who hath raised us from our place of sleep? This is that which the Beneficent did promise, and the messengers spoke truth. (52) It is but one Shout, and behold them brought together before Us! (53) This day no soul is wronged in aught; nor are ye requited aught save what ye used to do. (54) 

[ translated by pickthal  ]

oh no!.....omg!

dr nik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09TI5CHQuac

[  karen armstrong on ' muhammad, a prophet of our time '  ]

.............this is an old discourse, but karen's perspective of islam is excellent

she  was asked in pakistan ,..." where are the moderate westerners? "

Surah Ya Seen.....ayat 33 to ayat 44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW1MMi6irvA

[  recitation , full surah, by shaykh mishary rashid al afasy  ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwTd1PErmNc

[  commentary by ustad nouman ali khan , part 8 ]

friends , dato and tansri,

a friend asked me the other day, 'what are the best activities to do in ramadan?'.

off the cuff i told him, ' most probably, in my relative ignorance , a trinity of  astagfirullah; selawat on the nabi with its many variation [...that reminded me my  usa shaykh handed me 40 pages of various variation of selawat on the nabi for my weekly wirid, but i am still stuck to just the shortest and easiest!.....my limited 'neurons' cannot take more than the shortest and the easiest... ]; and the qur'an with tadabbur and understanding, ramadan being the month of celebration of the qu'ran.

i was obviously off the mark!

this morning in a post subuh tazkirah, our group was reading 'fadilat amal', related to amal in ramadan.

'fadilat amal' is one of two voluminous standard text written specifically for tabligh groups in asia, authored by shaykh al kandalawi of india.

we are no tabligh. just a group of  recalcitrant 'oldies', with no definitive tok gurus, suddenly interested in our ugama in our ripe old age!

our homes are saying goodbye to us , slowly, slowly....and the graves are calling.

in a well known hadith , nabi [pbuh] was asked a question in a similar  vein by a badwi sahabat.

his answer was:

lots of astagfirullah

lots of 'laila haillallah' and its variations.

lots of doa  for jannah 

....and  lots of doa for freedom from hell.

mashaallah, allahualam.

A token unto them is the dead earth. We revive it, and We bring forth from it grain so that they eat thereof; (33) And We have placed therein gardens of the date-palm and grapes, and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein, (34) That they may eat of the fruit thereof, and their hands made it not. Will they not, then, give thanks? (35) Glory be to Him Who created all the sexual pairs, of that which the earth groweth, and of themselves, and of that which they know not! (36) A token unto them is night. We strip it of the day, and lo! they are in darkness. (37) And the sun runneth on unto a resting-place for him. That is the measuring of the Mighty, the Wise. (38) And for the moon We have appointed mansions till she return like an old shrivelled palm-leaf. (39) It is not for the sun to overtake the moon, nor doth the night outstrip the day. They float each in an orbit. (40) And a token unto them is that We bear their offspring in the laden ship, (41) And have created for them of the like thereof whereon they ride. (42) And if We will, We drown them, and there is no help for them, neither can they be saved; (43) Unless by mercy from Us and as comfort for a while. (44) 

[ translation by pickthal  ]

dr nik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zPr2QcN0xQ

[  commentary part 9  ]

.........we, pathetic souls!