Hari Raya bakal menjelma
Manis senyum makin melebar
Buang duka buanglah lara
Moga bahgia meranum mekar.
#423 Tentang Kerambangan Mata di Bulan Ramadan
Gulai daging dan ayam kurma
Ayam goreng berdamping sambal
Kari ayam dan kuah dalca
Ikan keli dan ikan bawal
Pulut panggang, karipap daging
Gado gado berkuah kacang
Sayur kacang dihiris ramping
Kari kambing merbak terhidang
Kueteow goreng dan macaroni
Nasi lemak dan asam laksa
Rambang mata tercuit hati
Pilih satu, pilih semua?
On the Test of Ramadan
In hunger and in thirst are we tested In solidarity with those deprived To have our baser natures now bested This glorious trial for us has He contrived In Ramadan against ourselves prevail To win His favour in this tearful vale.
On This Ramadan Evening (Thoughts on the 20th of Ramadan)
As I am writing this, it is the 20th night of Ramadan, and I have just completed my Tarawih prayers for the evening.
“Would you say this is the best Ramadan you’ve ever had, yang?” Kat looked up at me, asking casually.
I thought about that question, and I am compelled to answer: Yes. I am not sure if this is the best ever, but certainly the best Ramadan that I can remember in years. I am keeping to the Tarawih prayers, every night, mostly at home. I have been keeping pace with my Quran recitation, and I feel calmer than I have felt in a long, long time.
The Quran recitation, I think, has a lot to do with the latter. This year, like most of the Ramadans I can remember over the past decade or so, I made the promise to myself that I would try to recite the Quran in full – to khatam the entire Book by the end of Ramadan. And most years, I would keep pace for maybe the first week, before the full blast of work deadlines and buka puasa invites and moreh gatherings would derail me by around the second week of the fasting month.
This year so far, Alhamdulillah, it has been good. It is the night of the 20th, and I am halfway through the 24th juz of the Quran. And more than just the momentum – I feel a serenity and a palpable sense of flow these nights of Ramadan as I recite the Quran. My Arabic is barely serviceable, but I know enough to make a guess of what it is I am reading – but even when I don’t, the very act of reciting the Quran fills me with a sense of wonder and grace.
As I recite each verse, I feel myself almost floating on a breeze, my tone rising and dipping and rising again to a crescendo as I reach the end of this verse, or at the start of that other verse. At times, my recitation feels like a horse at a brisk gallop, my enunciation almost breathlessly trying to keep up with flow of His Words. At other times, I whisper the words in a low hush, just luxuriating in the melody of the words, many of which sometimes I can barely understand, with my rudimentary command of the language. Sometimes, I hear myself reading the words and I try to imagine how it must have been for the earliest Muslims, to hear this strange music and to know, in their heart of hearts, that what they were hearing was something truly Eternal.
Every year, I am told that we are supposed to make the best of the final ten nights of Ramadan – a final coup de grace to this most revered of months. I am seeing now, though dimly as if through a haze, that feeling of bittersweet embrace, knowing that I am here in the final ten nights and that the sands of Ramadan will soon run out, not to return for another year. InshaAllah, the hope is to make the most of it, before Ramadan comes to an end.
On Mercy and Compassion
During Ramadan, I think a lot about how, of all His Ninety-Nine Names that He has claimed for Himself, it is The Merciful and The Compassionate that takes centre stage.
Ar Rahman. Ar Rahim.
Almost every chapter in the Quran would be prefaced with Bismillahirrahmanirrahim – In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and the Most Compassionate.
Given how so many of our religious functionaries can spew fire and brimstone over His Justice and His Punishment, it is curious that it is Mercy and Compassion that is central to the Muslim conception of God. The satanic desire to elevate oneself, to inflate one’s ego – I was made out of fire, unlike that other puny creature made merely out of clay – can often lead to a sense of misplaced grandeur, and has certainly led many to believe, probably erroneiously, that they speak with His authority.
If the Christian God is said to privilege Love, then the Muslim God puts the relationship between the Creator and the human in its proper place: the makhluq are humble creatures who depend on Him for everything: for our wealth, for our success, for every breath of air that we take. We need His Mercy and His Compassion for our survival, for our very existence.
I believe that by putting Mercy and Compassion at the very centre of Muslim ritual and practice, God is modeling the way for us to exist in our own everyday life and in our dealings with our fellow humans. Prioritise mercy and compassion with your loved ones, with the ones you meet in your everyday.
If Mercy and Compassion are at the heart of the nature of the Divine, then by being merciful and compassionate ourselves, we too can strive to touch the Divine in everything that we do, and everything that we are.
On Tarawih
I was well into high school before I had known that it was a thing to be praying 20 rakaat for Tarawih prayers during Ramadan.
For most of my childhood years, I was living with my mother in my grandfather’s family home. It was a sprawling bungalow complex at the edge of the city centre, just several minutes’ walk away from Taman Tasik Titiwangsa. For Umi and me, we were living in Kuang and Sri Petaling, before moving back into Titiwangsa after Umi’s divorce. Six of my grandfather’s children lived within this complex, most of them well into their thirties.
For Tarawih, Atok would be leading all of us in prayer: his wife, his six children and their spouses, and a flock of granchildren who numbered in the teens while I was growing up. It would be eight rakaat of Tarawih, three of Witir, then we would adjourn for the evening. Some would turn to the TV, some would be having some snacks while chatting.
We were a universe unto our own.