Another chapter of my life

Assalamualaikum to all my dear brothers and sisters in Islam

Yeah, yesterday was the end to yet another chapter of my life: the life of a student in INTEC. Well, unluckily, I don't have any photo to share with all of you. Don't blame the 2-megapixel camera of my phone. It would not look good here even if I did take any picture with it. Let's just hope that any of my friend would upload a decent photo of us in the nearest future. Looking forward for it.
Getting back to the graduation, I didn't feel that sad about getting separated from my friends. We have chosen our own paths. And, Allah's willing, we will met again one day. There would be a lot of chances to meet each other when we are in the states later. One of them will be during the muktamar in Texas this coming November. And we will have a lot of other program in the future. Even if we do not have a chance to meet later in our life, insyaAllah, we will meet in Allah's jannah later in the hereafter. And for that, we really have to work hard, mates. It wont be easy but it will worth every single effort that we put here.
Ending my chapter in INTEC, I think that a reflection wont hurt me much. When I first entered INTEC in July 2010, all of us had to take a test before we were streamed into our respective classes. I was selected to be in Austin, where I met a bunch of crazy but intelligent people. They were so smart, so much that I thought I was in the wrong class. When I first entered the class, there was no lecturer but all of them were chatting with each other in English. Being a student who never spoke in English except in English classes, I was perplexed. But, in the end, I manage to survive the semester with some improvements in my confidence and my language.And, oh yeah, more than half of them ended up, or rather will end up, in UMich, Ann Arbor. It would be a good reunion when Yusri, Syamil and I managed to set our foot in UMich later.
Well, at first I thought I would continue with the next five semesters but suddenly i feel lazy. So I will shorten this post and  just skip to my reflection. I DO APPRECIATE ALL THE MOMENTS AND FRIENDSHIPS THAT I HAVE HAD IN INTEC. PEOPLE, IF WE ARE NOT DESTINED TO MEET AGAIN LATER IN OUR LIFE, DO PUT OUR BEST EFFORT SO THAT WE CAN MEET IN THE HEREAFTER, THE JANNATUL FIRDAUS, INSYAALLAH.

Friends

Assalamualaikum to my dear brothers and sisters in Islam
Peace and blessings be upon our prophet Muhammad ibni Abdullah

Once, during my holiday, I read Batu Bata Kehidupan by Hilal Asyraf
In one of his post, he wrote about a question, a question about couples and relationship.
His answer stays in my mind till this very second.
To avoid our friends from involving in boy-girl relationships, we should be the ones who develop good relationships with them. We are the ones who should be responsible in filling the empty space in their hearts. We should be the ones who fill their lives with love and friendship.
Then, there is no other to be blamed except for our own selves who fail our friends.

That is exactly my feelings right now.
I have been thinking a lot about the free-mixing of boys and girls around me.
And each time I see them, I know I am the one should be blamed for not being a good friend for them.
A friend that can fill in the empty space inside their hearts.
And it is not only about couples.
Even seeing boys and girls being friends with each other without paying much attention about the do`s and dont`s in islamic terms also makes me think that I am failing.

I am not being apologetic here. This is just a feeling that I would like to share here.

Peace be upon you my dear brothers and sisters in Islam.

And to others, a very nice day.

All praise be to Allah, the lord of the world

and peace and blessing be upon Muhammad, His final messenger.

Dear brothers and sisters, 

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. 

This proverb is very beautiful in the sense that we are actually taught the basic principle of life. 

To master a skill is necessary for us to gain full benefit from it. We are, to use common words, fully in-charge of our life only when we have all the important skill. 

Lately, we have been bombarded with social problems such as baby-dumping, adultery, robbery, bribery and many more. You name it. These problems have create a great ruckus among the society. We are greatly concerned on the solutions of the problems. However, these are not the real problems that we are facing today. The real problem that we have actually lies in the understanding of our deen, Islam. 

For example, the issue of hijab is a famous topic among muslims. People talked a lot about tudung, asking the women to wear tudung and cover their head. However, as we can see nowadays, women do cover their head but they do not wear a proper attire. They wear tight shirts or tight jeans. They expose their arms. As we manage to solve a problem about covering women`s head, we are facing another problem with other parts of their body.

Why? One of the reason is due to the fact that people do not understand their actions. They do not understand why they have to wear hijab. They do not understand that covering aurat is a part of muslim`s obligations towards the deen. Undoubtedly most of them do know, but they do not understand.

While prayers, charities, fasting, pilgrimage and hijab are important components of Islam, there is actually bigger parts that we do not pay much attention to. The real foundation of Islam is not ritual. If we do not pay much attention to these foundation, then we not getting anywhere. We will face the same problem again and again.