Cosmic Dust: May 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Dengki

Bismillah,

Ibn Mas'ud (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (PBUH) said, "Envy is permitted only in 2 cases: A man whom Allah gives wealth, and he disposes of it rightfully, and a man to whom Allah gives knowledge which he applies and teaches it."

[Al-Bukhari and Muslim] no 1377

Looking at nowadays scenario, do we actually tend to get "jealous" with the two types of people in which Rasulullah SAW had mentioned in the hadith? Do we even care about this?

By now we shouldn't compare ourselves to be less fortunate than those who be able to spend their money over some expensive gadgets, while we are working so hard just to have a better lunch once in a month. By now, we shouldn't complain when our neighbors are hanging their new curtains on eid, while we are just could afford to hang the same curtains for 5 years. And, by now, we shouldn't be keeping everything on the back of our mind, the beneficial knowledge that could someday saving us from hell fire.

I envy those who able to refuse luxury,

when their minds are after the world,

but their hearts are after the akhirah.

And, their hearts won.

I envy those who erased the term "afraid" to the worldly obstacles in their life's dictionary,

which dictated their minds from spreading the words of God.

I truly envy

you.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Price Tag

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Ini bukan sebuah lagu

Bukan juga sebuah puisi

Apatah lagi kata yang berbasa-basi

Price tag. Jessie J kata "seems like everybody got a price tag". How much you worth for sale? What do have to offer? Harga tinggi, tinggi juga martbatnya? Harga rendah, rendah juga martabatnya? manusia manusia. Look down on other people, believing that yourself is better and know more than other people do. Just because you feel that something is not right in accordance to your usual way doesn't necessarily make your decision the right one. In fact, labeling others with bad names too, doesn't make you any better than those bad names. We get angry, as the Sunni Muslim when the Shi'a condemned our khulafa' al-rasyidin to not be the righteous successors and the commanders of the faith. However, we are now, to the "best" of our knowledge, condemned the righteous ulama' when they came up with the truth. Too bad to be true huh?

"When the sale comes first and the truth comes second" - Price Tag.

"You" - is especially dedicated to myself.

Astaghfirullah astaghfirullah astaghfirullah -

Biosphere 2

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I was helping a new revert Muslimah to memorize al-fatihah and correcting her pronounciation the other day. To my surprise, she pronounced "bismillah al-rahman al-raheem" into al-rajeem, which will deliver totally opposite meaning. She's a Panamas. Understood. Then I told her to write in whichever way works best for her to prounce "raheem" not "rajeem". Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is better to read it from the original scripture, not the transliterated one :)

Thanks to the super long intro, today's post is to share my great experience in Biosphere 2, a mega experiments facilities which is one hour drive to the north of Tucson. Let's see what Tucson has to offer other than our magnificent cacti:

Biosphere 2 was actually an attempt to imitate natural biological processes on Earth through a smaller and reachable scale. Everything here seems like another world for me, especially when this facility is built in the middle of desert! Under one roof, these scientists tried to imitate the actual climate, accommodating for tropical region, sub-tropical and desert, of course. I was really excited, I missed the tropical breeze, the odor of the waterfall, the green jungle.