Reminder from a brother (it rhymes)

This reminds me about the beauty that I already have in my hand.

The Garden vs The Telly

After Maghrib prayer in Tauhid Mosque today, Imam Basit announced that there will be a talk by Sheikh Abu Muadz, as usual. I was in a quandary. There is Saturday night telly and there is the garden of Heaven. Surely, you’ll say the garden of Heaven is the easier choice, but after not attending this kind of talk for quite a while, I hesitated in choosing that option. After all, this is the Saturday night telly that we are talking about.

I have always known that Saturday teaching is mainly about Fiqh. I still remember when I used to join them in my third and fourth year. It was mainly about wudu’, solah and the likes of them. Not that I have all the knowledge about them, but it was probably not on top of my knowledge quest list at the moment.

And by the might of Allah, the Almighty and the Merciful, that momentary session of balancing and questioning myself, ended without me realising that Allah has chosen the garden of Heaven for me. Saturday night telly is actually nothing compared to these gardens. After all, I have watched quite a lot of telly since I finished my exam, and quite frankly, I’m sick of it now. Apart from Wimbledon, and a recent documentary of the Mumbai incident, there was not much of interesting thing going on the telly.

Alhamdulillah, Sheikh Abu Muadz and his double act (Imam Basit who translates), gave us a talk about the Heaven. Allah has certainly arranged this to happen as I was craving for something like this. It was a session of motivation. Everybody was listening in awe about the ni’mah that was promised by Allah through His book and His messenger. I could certainly see (or I thought I can see) the sparkle in everybody eyes, at the sound of Sheikh’s voice describing every single ni’mah that was promised. It was in Arabic. Although I could understand it a bit, I can’t help but to regret my five years of minimal improvement in Arabic.

He started by mentioning an ayat from the Quran that says, roughly, people who believe in Allah and his Rasul, and lead their lives according to the Islamic teaching, for them is the good life (toyyibah) and in the hereafter will be the reward which is better that what they have been doing.

The first part of the explanation was mainly to reflect that having Iman will give you a good life. People who have wealth, health and status will not find the ultimate satisfaction of life if there is no Iman in their heart. Then Sheikh followed it by describing the reward of the Heaven. Every single explanation, one after another, paints a picture of a life beyond description, of unaccountable blessings, and of the Merciful God who loves His servant who obey Him. Each explanation, manage to make me feel, that restraining myself in this world, controlling my nafs, is worth all what Allah has promised for me in the end. Truly at that time, there was nothing that I hope but to be given even a momentary opportunity to taste this ni’mah that He promised.

I learned two interesting things from the talk. Firstly, Sheikhul Islam Ibn Taimiyyah said that there is a gap in human heart and this gap can’t be filled except by Allah. And this gap can only be filled with Iman. That is an utter beauty (the saying is). Secondly, Sheikh mentioned that people who has done good deeds, during Sakaratul Maut, they will see the glad tiding in front of their eyes which makes them feel that they can’t wait to leave this world. How I wish that I’ll be given that level of ni’mah.

He concluded by reminding that this ni’mah is promised for people who lives their life in according to the Hududullah (the boundary that is set by Allah). These ni’mah are for people who eat halal, restrain themselves from any prohibited sexual act, people who amasses the wealth through halal way and all that is in the category of a soleh and a musleh person.

Through the teaching, I realised that these were the things that I missed since I moved down to Middlesbrough. Classes like this are priceless and opportunity like this should be grabbed by everyone. I’m hoping that Allah will give me the strength to keep going to this kind of classes when I’m back in Malaysia. And for my friends in Newcastle, I would say that if you are blessed with free time, the effort to spend an hour for knowledge of the Deen, will definitely give you the strength to carry on further in this life. Sheikh Abu Muadz is going to talk about the punishment next week. Hopefully, Allah will give us all the opportunity to be there.

The Exam and The Doctor

Alhamdulillah. I have passed my exam. I felt relieved and that was it. Honestly, apart from that, I was numb and do not actually feel that much. Anyhow, this is a good news and I have to thank Allah firstly, and my family and friends for the dua. Especially to my parents who woke each other up at night as to pray for my success.

Honestly, there are nothing in this world that can top your commitment and your love for me.

This exam was the worst period of my life. I have never felt anything like this before. I struggle to find the deeper reasons for sleepless night, mood swing, panick attack and many other things that happen in the span of three weeks exam period. I had a lengthy discussion with Ahmed, and the conclusion was, the exam was nothing more than a trial from Allah. At times in the future when the pressure become unbearable, we will certainly remember how we got through this exam period.

I learned the meaning of friendship, the meaning of being hopeless, the feeling of being alone, the feeling of scared. All of this happened in the three weeks time. I still remember how tired I was at 11 am in the morning just before the MOSLER after having two and half hour sleep. I will definitly engrave that feeling in my mind as it serves as a reminder when I will have to work 36 hours shift at home.

Seriously, there was a lot to learn in the past three weeks of exam. I can certainly write a book from it. Alhamdulillah it's all over now.

I'm spending the rest of my time in Middlesbrough, packing and arranging plan for the next month. I've also watched 'Band of Brothers'; the miniseries. It put everything back in perspective. I will write more. It keeps me occupied.

I miss the time when Yaasir, Ahmed and Kammy were here. All the jokes, the time spent together.

Anyway, life has to move on. I'm going to start my new life soon. For the time being, I'm going to grab as much as I can from the balance of time that I'm here in this country.

The Last Stretch.

It's 5.16 am in Middlesbrough. Today is the start of the last 3 weeks stretch before the first OSCE paper.

The complete timetable of plan has been made and the next task is to muster all the remaining strength that I have to prepare mentally and physically to get through this last weeks.

I'm certainly hoping for the help from above and the dua' from below.

Blogged from my mobile. (p3600i)
Yusuf Shamsi

Three weeks before exam

Three weeks before exam and I am distracted by blogging. I reckon it wouldn’t last that long like how it happened to my other blog. I supposed because I have been writing for such a long time that it doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I spent a lot of time blog hopping lately as a break between my surgical and medical revision, hence, the sudden need to write again.

Yesterday, was the first time I’ve been to the gym after 3 weeks hiatus. Revision is the reason for such a long inactivity. I joined the gym early this year, as I promised many of my friends after the embarrassing trip to Kelantan. That trip taught me that my abdomen had excess adipose tissue in it, and I had to do something before it get worse.

Alhamdulillah, I have lost 6kg after hard work in the past months. I have eaten healthily and regularly do cardio and sometime weight exercise. And I start to wonder how did I get to nearly 70kg before, despite the emphasis on Tarbiyah Badaniyah that being hammered in my head and more importantly the 4 years learning of medicine.

I now realise that Tarbiyah Badaniyah is something that is quite forgotten by the members of Islamic Movement. As duly said by the great Imam Al-Banna, we have the physical side of being a human that we have ignored. We never care about the food we eat, whether we do any exercise at all, and how careful we are at choosing the right food.

Alhamdulillah, this year, I learned to eat healthily. Try to portion my food carefully to take care of all the calories, and making sure that I eat enough vegetables and fruits. We do need to take care of our body as it is an amanah from God. How often do we see, Imam or even scholars who talked about Islam in its entirety who themselves has a BMI that is well over the obese side.

Experience on the ward: You don’t want to be obese my friend. To be honest, although the doctor might not say they dislike you, in full honesty, obese people causes more trouble to the doctors and nurses. Firstly, the care: ulcers, diabetes, heart problem, DVT and what not. Secondly, the problem when we try to get blood sample from these people. I supposed some of them are quite big that even the vein are too shy to appear on the skin , as not wanting to associate themselves with the owner of the body.

So, this is an ongoing advice to myself and to the rest of my brothers. Do take care of your health. Eat healthily, take up sports, go swimming. Go to British Heart Foundation web site for advice on getting slimmer and healthier. I pray that Allah will give me the strength to keep myself healthy and active so that at least when I come back to Him, I have shown that I do pay attention to the ni’mah of health that was given to me. I do not know the future, but I certainly know it is going to be harder in the future.

This is a simple guide on how to get healthy in the UK:

1. Just take up sport. Group or interactive sport are more fun that jogging alone. (badminton, football etc.)
2. Go for a run. It summer now, the weather is nice. Have a go at running. You might like it. Just listen to your i-pod while you are doing it. It will take the boredom away.
3. Swimming. This is a good exercise. I enjoyed it. It doesn’t cost much. There are a lot of public pool in the UK.
4. Joined a gym. For Uni student, trust me, your Uni gym is the best option. JJB gym cost £20/month for student user. If you don’t have that, join the council gym like I did. They are much cheaper, and sometime you get a good deal with it as well.
5. Eat healthily. Stop eating rubbish all the time. Once in a while, chocolate, crisp and chips are OK. Use the guideline given by the BHF, for the portioning of your food. Eat more vegetables and fruits. Trust me, it helps your bowel as well.

This is what I found worked for me. You might have things to add. And for my dear members of any Islamic Movements, we need to get this in our head. Big time.

Adieu. Wassalam.

Pray for my exam please…..

Test the blogger mobile

Salam. I'm trying the mobile blogging stuff from my dear p3600i. One thing though, all this talk about erdogan and pro muqabalah is nonsense. Malaysiakini.com just mention that ustaz nasrudin nomination means that the pro muqabalah team is winning. As far as I've listened to him, he hated working with umno like the rest of the so called erdogan people.

BlogJet Trial

Salam

Trying blogjet for the first time..If it is nice, might consider to buy it after my plan to write a book like Trust Me I’m a Junior Doctor

Definitely this is cool