Aku banyak dosa, taubat aku diterima ke?

Salam.

Antara persoalan berkaitan Islam yang selalu berlegar dikepala aku adalah, banyaknya dosa aku ni, macam mana nak bertaubat. Diterimakah taubat aku sedangkan aku mempunyai kesalahan yang banyak? Dan aku sangat khuatir yang setelah bertaubat aku mungkin akan mengulangi kesalahan aku semula menjadikan taubat aku ni seolah-olah permainan dengan Allah. Nauzubillah minta dijauhkan dan dipelihara Allah.

Dan kemudian aku ditakdirkan bertemu denga video tazkirah di blog ini.

Baru aku sedar. Yang selama ini, tatkala aku nak bertaubat, syaitan mendatangkan perasaan was-was dalam diri aku. Pemikiran negatif berkaitan sama ada taubat aku akan diterima oleh Allah atau tidak sering menjadi 'demotivator' untuk diri ini bertaubat. Walhal sudah disebut dengan jelas dan nyata dalam Al-Quran bahawa Allah menyukai hamba-hambaNya yang selalu bertaubat.

Mengambil contoh Rasulullah saw yang maksum. Walaupun mendapat perlindungan first class oleh Allah daripada melakukan dosa, maksiat dan kesalahan tetapi Rasulullah bertaubat lebih 70 kali sehari. Jadi aku ni, manusia biasa, yang sudah memang pasti akan melakukan banyak dosa dan kesalahan, mengapa susah sangat mahu bertaubat?

Sebenarnya aku rasa, rata-rata kita ada salah tanggapan berkaitan taubat, terutamanya aku. Aku selalu beranggap bahawa taubat ni untuk apabila aku dah buat dosa-dosa besar a.k.a. kesalahan ultimate. Tapi sekarang baru aku tahu dan Alhamdulillah dapat melihat taubat sebagai salah satu method ibadah untuk 1)Lebih dekatkan diri dengan Allah dan 2)Lebih menjaga diri sendiri daripada melakukan dosa-dosa lagi.

Jadi marilah kita sama-sama bertaubat kepada Allah setiap hari. Buangkan perasaan was-was dalam diri kerana kalau kita tak bertaubat sekarang, bila lagi kan? Kot mati kejap lagi, rugi kita.

Selamat.

How to master English Language?

Salam.

Since it's still winter break here, I want to be able to make use of it by sharing my knowledge on how to be able to master English Language. Being a candidate for TESL course here made me see and realize that lots of us back home have got issues with mastering English language especially the Muslims in Malaysia who generally have Malay Language as our mother tongue. This is normal, we tend not to strive out of our comfort zone when we are in one. Not until the reality hit us at our faces. Well guys, reality is to be able to become a proficient speaker, English language is needed for us to spread our messages. For example, without English language, da'wah in Malaysia can only be reached towards the malays but with English language, the effort of da'wah can be extended to friends of other races who do not really prefer to communicate in Malay. Here I'll share 3 simple steps to master English.

First step: Pre-process

a) This is called pre-process because before we even start the 'process' of mastering English, we'll need to understand why do we want to learn this language. Why? Because humans need motivation especially with things we are not really sincere with. Example, why do we want to learn how to recite the Quran? Because with reciting Quran will bring us more knowledge and tranquility. Examples of aims - to be able to write English articles for muslim magazines, or to understand the talk or forum by excellent Muslim speakers like Dr Zakir etc etc. So, find out and write down our aim as motivation for us right now.

b) After knowing our aim(s), now we need to look at ourselves, what level are we in now. Write down these four skills (writing, speaking, reading, listening) and try to judge our capability. Give ourselves a rating from '1 until 10' with 10 being the best. Why do we do this? It's because if we know our capabilities, it'll be easier for us to work on area we are worst with and make us of skills we are good with. Example, if our reading skill is better than our speaking skill, then make us of reading skill to help improve speaking. Reading aloud a text is an example of this.

Second step: While-process

So now we've listed down our aim(s) and rating of our 4 skills in English. Here is where we can address our weak skills. This phase is called while-process because we are enrolling ourselves in a process to better our skills. Usually the biggest weakness we have is in speaking. This is because speaking is a different skill that requires 'at the moment' thinking and doing at the same time. So my suggestion is, to master speaking, we'll need to reach the state when speaking in English is something natural for us and does not require hard thinking. How to achieve this? It's easy!

a) Improving speaking and reading skills: Read English stuffs. Books, newspaper, articles, songs etc. Choose your area of interest and read on it. And read it ALOUD! Example when we read the star newspaper, read aloud the articles and pronounce each words with effort. Why do we do this? Because English is about a set of grammars and a little bit about habit. How do we become a master of our mother tongue? Because when we're a kid, we read stuffs in Malay language again and again and the words become like a habit in our head. By doing this, indirectly we'll learn the grammar implicitly and add up our vocabs if when we come across a new words, look up for its meaning in a dictionary. Do this everyday. It's the same like trying to memorise the Quran, recite all over again and we'll memorise it. If we read aloud English articles everyday, our tongue will get used to English way of speaking, we'll implicitly rehearsed English grammar (so choose articles with less broken grammar) and we can learn more vocabs.

b) Improving writing skills: Read good and well-structured articles. If we do this, we'll learn many examples of good articles. Example, reading a good speech, a good letter can give us an idea of examples of good articles we can follow. Read lots of well-composed stuffs. When we read articles written by good writer, we'll learn more phrases, sentences and way of writing too. So find interesting articles that are well composed, and read them, take notice of the way its written.

Secondly is to have many ideas. To become a good writer, we need many and many ideas so we know what to write at the right time. So reading again is the best way to gather more and more ideas. Iqra' is the first word revelated to Muhammad saw from Allah, hence this stress the importance of reading.

Thirdly, make use of a thesaurus when you're writing. Using same words again and again will make readers bored. Hence here comes the function of a thesaurus. Get a printed or an online version thesaurus. Everytime we write and come across difficulties to use the best word for the sentence, thesaurus can help a lot. I personally make use of thesaurus lots of time while writing any articles, moreover if I'm writing essays to be passed up. But make sure the use of word is in the right context by checking the meaning of the words first. This takes experience and time practicing.

c) Improving listening skills: To improve this skill, listen to lots of English songs, movies (without subtitle), radio etc. Movies at first can use subtitle but then slowly try to not look at subtitles while watching and figure if you can understand the dialogue. When listening to songs, sing along. Get inspiring songs like the ones by Maher Zain etc and sing along. InsyaAllah our listening and speaking skills will be smoother.

Well all of these suggestions are informal ones, for us to learn English in a way that is fun to us. In a way that does not require much effort and time. We do not need to learn grammar in an orthodox way, do all of these and insyaAllah we'll be able to learn the grammar implicitly.

Third step: After process

For the after process, now we've known ways to improve our English. Start doing them and practicing. In the after process is for us to find more motivation to help motivate our learning process. For example, get a bunch of friends to communicate in English with. This is the best way to improve fast. Or we can start blogging in English. Write articles in English and communicate with other blogger in English when commenting them. Whatever it is, find ways to practice your skills in real life situation. This is to make sure we realize there are ways for us to practice in real life situation and help us not to get bored practicing on our own. If you're shy enough to talk in English with real friends, find cyber friends. Chat, blog, comments etc. Anyhow we can think off. Maybe ordering food in English? Or you can start commenting in this blog in English too, I welcome that! ;)

Don't get demotivated! What ever it is, the most important thing is don't give up! Remember why we are doing this, we are doing this to become competent speakers, writers and defenders of Islam. To be able to spread the messages of Islam to others. To show people Muslims are good and knowledgable people. To revive the golden age of Islam again, insyaAllah. If people laughs at our mistakes, take it as a challenge to better ourselves. And make Dua' to Allah to help us learn and master English language.

I hope this helps us to get started learning and improving our English. I would like to quote Mehdi Hassan, a Muslim UK journalist who once said in his talk in Warwick that the muslim world lacks competent speakers. That's one of the biggest reason on why Islam is being 'demonised' and ridicule by the western in general.

So folks, what we need is not just knowledge, but also communicating skills. Be it speaking to the public, or writing blogs and articles about Islam etc. Do what we are able to. Right now, English is the lingua franca of this world, hence make use of it to spread the love of Islam in even better ways.

Selamat.

Jasad itu hanya sementara,

Jasad duduk terkaku dipinggir sekelompok tanah yang membukit. Keresahan, berita yang didengari masih terngiang-ngiang ditelinga. Segala disekeliling dirasakan seperti tidak bernyawa. Betapa kejamnya takdir kepada aku. Mengapa ditarik saat aku masih memerlukan.

Terus berjalan melalui denai kecil didalam taman ini. Disinilah tempat kami selalu bersama. Terlihat didepanku gelak tawa kami, gelak tawa ayah seperti ceria. Namun keceriaan yang suram. Seperti potret-potret tidak bewarna. Tiada jiwa-jiwa yang menemani kehidupan disekitarku ini.

Terasa panas dipipi kanan. Oh betapa lemahnya jiwa aku sehinggakan pabila takdir menguji dengan serentap kebahagiaan, aku telah berserah kepada kesedihan. Ayah, hadirlah kau semula bawakan senyum aku yang telah hilang.

"Menangis anak abah?" Suara kasar menerjah dari belakang lantas aku menoleh. Susuk tubuh yang amat dikenali sedang berdiri melihat kearah aku, tersenyum.

"Bah!" Hanya kalimah itu yang keluar seraya kaki aku pantas berlari untuk mendakap tubuh yang dirindui itu. Getar hati semakin laju tatkala lengan merangkul pinggang abah.

"Kenapa anak abah menangis ni? Kan dah besar? Bakal pendidik anak bangsa." Tangan abah mengusap-usap aku. Amat menenangkan. Aku mendongak, mengamati wajah yang selama ini tak pernah gagal memberi aku kekuatan disaat aku lemah.

"Saya rindu abah." Pelukan semakin erat seperti tidak mahu melepaskan. Abah ibarat memahami.

"Semua yang jasad akan terlepas daripada genggaman kita. Kecuali kenangan." Jari ayah mencuit daguku, aku mendongak. Memandang wajah abah dengan penuh kekaguman. Tak pernah sekalipun lelaki ini gagal menyentuh hati aku dengan kalimat-kalimat yang dituturkannya.

"Hari ini, kita lihat keliling kita, apa yang ada semua hanyalah bayangan. Udara, dedaunan yang jatuh berterbangan, air yang mengalir, hanyalah bayangan didunia yang disajikan untuk mata kita oleh Allah swt, sebagai ujian buat kita sama ada kita akan lebih melihat bayangan dunia ataupun apa yang lebih nyata diakhirat nanti." Ayah terus merangkul aku rapat sambil dia mula melangkah, begitu juga aku.

Jiwa yang tadi dilanda rintik kegundahan mula terasa nyaman. Angin yang menghembus bagai berkata padaku,usah risau semuanya kembali menjadi seperti biasa. Ketenangan menelusup masuk menenteramkan degup-degup jantung yang tadinya kencang.

Langkah abah kemudiannya berhenti dihadapan tasik. Angin yang bertiupan melalui atas tasik kelihatan seperti tangan pelukis yang membuat keindahan diatas kanvas air. Lukisan demi lukisan berganti aku saksikan.

"Ingat anakku, kita adalah pinjaman sesama kita yang membuktikan kasih sayang Allah. Justeru kita harus redha dengan segala keputusan. Yang batil adalah dunia ini, dan yang nyata adalah akhirat. Teruslah anakku. Simpan semua kenangan bersama abah, manfaatkan yang baik. Seru abah sudah sampai, tamatnya tempoh tugas sebagai khalifah dimuka bumi." Suara ayah terhenti. Aku merasakan genggaman tangan ayah makin erat dikedua bahuku.

"Teruskan tanggungjawab kita. Jadilah manusia yang baik. Dan berilah kalimat-kalimat yang baik untuk orang tuamu ni." Ayah mendongakkan kepalaku sekali lagi dan merapatkan mukanya. Aku menutup mata. Satu kucupan oleh ayah didahiku. Terasa kehangatan kucupan ayah disebalik kesejukan angin yang mengelilingi kami.

"Abah selalu sayangkan kau." Serentak tamatnya kata-kata itu, satu deruan angin kuat menolakku sehingga jatuh. Aku tersentak, membuka mata tetapi jasad ayah telah hilang. Yang tetap hanya kelompok tanah yang masih merah dihadapanku.

Tangan mengenggam erat tanah merah itu sehingga terasa keperitan dicelahan tapak tangan. Nafas dilepaskan kuat dan balik tanganku digerakkan menggosok air mata. Esakan ini perlu dihentikan.

"Abah, aku bersyukur kerana Allah telah meminjamkanmu kepada aku untuk tempoh masa ini atas kasih sayangNya. Perginya abah sekarang, aku pasti akan menyusul nanti. Ya Allah, berilah aku kekuatan untuk menjadi segagah ayahku demi menjalankan tanggungjawab yang telah engkau amanahkan kepada kami, umat manusia."

Al-Fatihah.

*Kisah ringkas dikarang buat dua orang rakan yang baru saja kehilangan orang tersayang mereka, begitu juga buat saudaraku yang telah dipanggil kepangkuan Allah setelah hampir setahun bernikah dengan isteri tersayang, dan buat rakanku yang kehilangan atuknya sewaktu masih belajar jauh diperantauan. Akhir sekali buat semua jasad-jasad tersayang yang selalu kita-kita sayangi tetapi telah pergi. Dengan harapan kita selalu ingat bahawa jasad itu hanya sementara, yang pasti adalah janji Allah diakhirat kelak.

Semoga tahun baru 2011 yang datang mengingatkan kita bahawa kematian kian menghampiri setiap detik.

Selamat.