false promises

Just because once upon a time, the founder of a company provided good service and/or products - it doesn't mean that as it gets bigger and well known and starts charging exorbitantly just based on their brand, that you'll get the same level of service and quality. When a company gets too big, it is almost impossible for the founder to instill the same values in ALL their employees. It only becomes another passionless money making monster company (eating up all the sincere and passionate smaller businesses).

A service or product can only maintain it's quality if the founder or person who is the good one in the first place, is able to personally oversee it's the delivery & production of the service or goods. Unless he is blessed with a good subordinate who shares his passion and objectives and mission. Even then, once this get's passed on to another person, or worse another place or country - it is as good as another person's business, just riding on the good name created in the first place.

But of course, most of us are blinded by advertisements with trash poetry and false promises. We just want our company to look good, because we hired a well known company.

Which suddenly reminds me of a friend, A. She is rich, masyaAllah. So she was telling me, her old friend came over to tell her about a pyramid scheme. I didn't know this thing still exists. At first, A was just saying, about a business. I asked her what product her friend is selling. She said, she's not exactly sure. There are no actual products.. just some sort of a virtual shop house. WHA???? She said, you can buy different standards of membership packages, and you can make easy money. The lowest or cheapest one is only SGD374.00 (to buy nothing concrete) + a SGD17 membership fee. Then you only need to get 2 more victims down-line members, and that's it. You'll start making easy money. The next level package is only about SGD1000 plus and the highest level about $2000 plus (let me remind you again, to buy nothing concrete). So basically, you make money when there are others who are willing to pay for nothing also.

A told her friend she is not good at selling ideas. Her friend told her of a few tactics, like enticing working people by explaining how she herself is not working, making easy money through this. She being a real person example, will easily convince people and therefore get customers. Another way is to ask the person straight in the face if he cannot afford the small amount - usually the person will want to maintain his...ego? and therefore buy just to prove they have the money. That is SO NOT NICE! But I wish her friend can tell me that in MY face. yes, I'll tell her - like I always tell bankers who force me to take a loan.. if I cannot pay how?

The two stories are related only by the 'false promises'.

Dunia!!! What a sad state we are in now. Need to be alert.

I don't know.

Truely, I do not know much.

Most of my blabbering on this blog or on FB or wherever, is just about things that goes through my head.
Are my views right? Maybe. Maybe NOT. Allahu'alam.

Because as you and I know, everything happens for a reason.
Sometimes we plan and do all we can to achieve success and a good thing, but failure or bad things greet us instead - still it could be a hikmah. We learn much better through falls and failures, rather than constant success and praises.

Falls & failures & heartbreaks will only make you stronger and better - if you allow yourself to be, insyaAllah.

And that reminds me of something Babur the Emperor said (as I read in The Places in Between).

Every good and evil that exists
If you mark it well is for a blessing.

the ant and the man

Leen said I've been having a LOT to say lately. Actually it's more like I've been thinking a lot. But it's not just lately, I think a lot all the time, but never penned down. And the other day, I was reading my old blog posts and it reminded me of my state of thought at that time, and it teaches me something about myself or it reminded me some things that I have forgotten - about how I thought or felt.

Ok, so anyway, I was cleaning the kitchen (Rus is having her day out, I saw her outing pictures on FB just now :p ) and as I wiped the kitchen top, I noticed that I have half killed an ant. So as not to put it in further suffering, I said 'Bismillah' and pressed hard to kill it. (I wonder if I've sinned..) Then, it occurred to me, how insignificant it's life is to me. I killed it without thinking thrice (twice, I did). As God mentioned in the Quran, all animals have communities like us. It may have a brother waiting for it to return.

Is that how insignificant some leaders of the world think of their men's lives? These people who are of about the same size, same looks, same make up (a family unit) - do they consider all that, before they send them out with the high possibility of being killed, not to save their country, not to protect other people either - but for power and wealth.



On the other hand, we are even smaller than that ant, to God - considering how tiny our earth is in the Universe.
But Allah loves us and listens to each of our prayers, and tells men not to destroy ourselves - body and soul.

Seeing is no longer necessarily believing.

Seeing is no longer necessarily believing, especially when seen on the screen. Only seeing with your own eyes, in person can more safely constitute believing. Why?

The news as most of us are learning now, is most times political. What is reported in the News, or everything on TV for that matter, is in accordance to the agenda of the ruling party - whoever that may be. The TV company owner(s) or the government. The images chosen to be shown on TV would of course support their agenda.

Example, depending on the motives, a TV crew be asked to find a corner that looks normal to shoot an interview in a house that is mostly run-down - and all audience will see is that, the interviewee is in an acceptable condition place.

Or, artistes are most of the time, seen on TV - happy, contented and living a life that's out of this world. Behind the screen, just few seconds before the shoot, they may be shouting at someone or sad over something and audience don't see those.

If people spend too much time learning what's on the screen, they loose their sense of what reality is, what matters more in life, the real problems and issues, and always feel that their life is inadequate - for they can never match the images of their favourite artistes that is appearing on the screens.

Even 'Reality TV' is not real. Producers show what they want to show or may even coax participants to act in a certain way or say certain things to create 'drama' or make the episode more interesting.

As such, seeing is no longer believing, especially when seen on screen. Nothing beats experiencing a situation, or a place or someone, in person.

We need to go out to see and to live.

my own reflections

And do thou (O reader!) bring thy Lord to remembrance in thy very soul, with humility and in reverence, without loudness in words, in the mornings and evenings, and be not thou of those who are unheedful.

Al-Quran (translation by Asad) 7:205

Side thought : The best way to grasp the message of the Quran is through the Arabic language itself. I've been shown how intricate the Arabic words are, how rich the language is. MasyaAllah. God help me.

So, today we spoke of the above ayat and the virtue of zikir (remembrance of Allah). The easy zikir being 'Subhanallah' and the essence of zikir is not in how long or complicated the verse you want to use for zikir is, but how it touches your heart and mind with remembrance. The best of zikir, to me, is reading the Quran (and the meanings, for people like me who don't fully understand Arabic.) Because there is a message in the Quran - it's like listening to what Allah has to say to us - paying attention to it.

Of course remembrance of Allah can be in many other ways too, such as reciting the names of Allah & extra solats, among others. But one of my favourite ways of zikir, is to observe nature - these natural things around us which Allah has created, the trees, the ocean, the birds, the bees, the ants - for us to observe, to learn and think. Subhanallah.

Then someone asked about zikir - 3 questions :
1) Can one have his own 'collection' of zikirs?
2) What are the ulama's opinions about the use of melody in zikirs?
3) What about zikir in own language?

Basically the answer provided was : yes, yes and if you can say it in Arabic, why not in Arabic? why in Malay e.g. 'Yang Maha Besar, Yang Maha Besar? It was added that the Salafi would of course disagree - because everything must have reference to the Quran or the Sunnah, if there is no reference, then it's bid'ah. But in the teacher's humble opinion, he thinks it should be ok.

I don't know if I'm a 'Salafi' I don't like labels. But in any case, I can understand where the Salafi may be coming from. Although I may not violently disagree with him, that it's ok for him to have his own 'collection' of zikir - ( wouldn't it be better if he just followed the Sunnah?) - but it's still ok. However, the answer cannot stop there. A person having his own collection, for whatever good reason, may be fine - he is sincere, perhaps he finds that he remembers Allah better, it moves his heart more this way etc

But once that gets passed on to a lot of other people, especially 3rd hand and above - that is where the problem may arise. Not long after, some people may believe this to be a part of a most recommended ibadah (more followed and revered than the sunnah itself) Even now, we can see many examples of doas and zikirs and rituals passed down or learned, that are already confusing people between what's mandatory, what's really just optional, or what is even non-existent in the religion.

And as for no. 2 and 3 - why don't we go back to the essence of remembering Allah. If a person sincerely finds that melody's help him remember with his heart..well, who am I to say. If a person really feels that he grasps the meaning and feel of 'Allah Maha Besar' better than Allahu Akbar - errm..well, ok. What we want to achieve is to remember in awe.
But again, as in the first case, if this gets passed on the 2nd and 3rd person onwards - people may lose track of the real reasons and place more importance on method over objectives - cause it was not emphasized enough.

Risky.