Category: Daily Whatevers

Posted on

Dogs In Islam

An Alsatian

When doing my A Levels in the UK, I used to take my neighbour’s dogs for walkies. I even pat them. My fellow Malaysian Malay Muslims would cringe and ask if I am a Muslim.

Dogs are being labeled as najasah (dirty impurity) by Muslims who take the words of so-called scholars (Ulama’) as something inscribed in stone, without once refering to what God has said in the al-Quran about dogs. The fact is God reated every living thing on this earth as belonging to an ummah (community). So human beings, cats, dogs, pigs are all of one community that was created to be subservient to the One God. There is no distinction between these creatures as to whether a pig is more pure than a human being, or if a cat is better than a dog. The fact is, dogs have been mentioned in the al-Quran several times…5 times if I read correctly.

The concept of a dog being dirty came about with false hadiths claiming that the Prophet (pbuh) ordered the killing of dogs and that dogs can only be kept for the purpose of guarding and hunting, due to their dirty status. If Muslims are able to read the Quran, then such hadith should be decreed as lies fabricated to ridicule the Prophet (pbuh).

God tells us in the Quran about the story of the dwellers of the Cave (Surah 18)……in verse 13 God tells us that they were good believers and that God guided them. In verse 18 God tells us that they had their dog with them. Now if dogs are prohibited and dirty, would God speak of those dwellers of the Cave (who had a dog) as good believers?

In 5:4 God tells us that it is OK to eat what the trained dogs catch (dogs are used in hunting)……….if dogs are dirty would God say that it is OK to eat what they catch with their mouths.In 5:4, God said:

“They consult you concerning what is lawful for them; say, Lawful for you are all good things, including what trained dogs and falcons catch for you. You train them according God’s teachings. You may eat what they catch for you, and mention God’s name thereupon. You shall observe God. God is most efficient in reckoning.”

Islam is a way of life. It is when it is being given the brand of a religion that its followers have gone bonkers and come up with lots of ridiculous hogwash taboos. Imagine this: in the Shafie school of thoughts, a dog is impure and therefore anything that it touchs requires a massive cleaning operation that is 6 times with water and one time with dust/clay-water. Now…if the Arabs have hunting dogs and a dog retrieves a bird that has been shot, imagine what clay-water would do to the taste of the bird. According to Imam Malik‘s school of thoughts, a dog is not impure. You can touch it, you can hug it, it will not affect your wudu’ (ablution).

So whose Islam is right? Malik’s or Shafie’s? Don’t we all pray to the same God? And what did God say about who is a Muslim? Isn’t it about abiding to the five pillars of Islam (Rukun Islam)? And what about the six pillars of Faith (Rukun Iman)? What do they say?

The first is to believe in God’s Lordship,Oneness (Entity concept) and Attributes; second is to believe in His Angels; third is to believe in His books (the al-Quran, the Bible, the Torah and Zabur (Psalms of David); fourth is to believe in all His Messengers…25 main ones in all; fifth is to believe in the Day of Resurrection; and lastly, to believe in Fate and Divine Decree.

But as “believers” we chose not to believe in His books; what we choose to believe instead is in the sayings and writings of certain scholars whom have intepreted the Quran and hadith according to their own whims and fancies.

Back to dogs, one laughable taboo is the dog is so impure that if you were to allow dogs in your home, the Angels wouldn’t enter your house to bless it..much like garlic is to Count Dracula, or cats to Imhotep, the Mummy. But to my surprise, one Angel seems to have some kind of immunity towards dogs and still enters the home of believers and non-believers alike to take away their life.

Because we, the Muslims, have rejected God’s Quran, therefore we live in obscurity and backwardness. And we blow people up, treat women like slaves, and tell people how great we are.

Posted on

Goodbye, Old Friend

RMN's PASKAL

I was with a friend from the Royal Malaysian Navy’s Diving Center the other day and was told that an old friend of mine, Warrant Officer Sahak (I never knew his real name) from the Navy’s elite PASKAL passed away late November 2006 after seeing his mother-in-law off for her Haj pilgrimage.

Sahak and I go back a long way, if I remember well, at least since 1991, when we were involved in joint-exercises. Sahak’s a pious guy, reserved, but is not afraid to speak his mind whenver there are issues concerning the safety of his men when carrying out tasks. The PASKAL guys beside him who were almost always involved with my unit were Komander Malek, Komander Anuar (who was awarded the Pingat Gagah Berani), Komander Ramli, Lt Mat, Akbar (has left and is now doing very well outside), Idros (who went with me to the North Pole in 1998), Ali (who managed to deploy his reserve chute in Lumut 3 seconds before impacting the Dinding river), Yusof (whom I taught how to deploy parachutes real low), Michael (a rigger from Sarawak) and Ginde (I call him Ninja Turtle because his chutes are always bigger than he is).

Rest well, my friend.

Posted on

Almost 2

Nisaa now
This is Nisaa now: 3 days before her 2nd birthday

One-year old Nisaa
This was Nisaa when she turned 1 last year

Posted on

PADI Members Forum

PADI Logo

I was running a fever of 39C but I still went to the PADI Members’ Forum for the latest updates. More questions unanswered until they tie-up loose ends.

Anyway, Jim, Katakpink, Mephisto, Putradiver and Commander Saufi were there too. I also learnt that one of my PASKAL buddies, Warrant Officer Sahak, passed away at the beginning of the last Haj season after he was involved in a motorcycle accident after seeing his mother-in-law off.

Another one bites the dust…

Posted on

This Old House

Farhan inside the little hut

This house was completed early last quarter of 2001. I did some renovation to it, then did some DIY stuf like putting up the wooden panels, lighting etc. All bulbs, save for the lounge and kitchen, are energy-saving bulbs…even outside. I see a reduction from the usual RM5xx electric bill back at Bukit Rahman Putra using conventional lighting and two airconditioners to just around RM50 per month with the lights outside remaining on for the whole night every night and three rooms using airconditioner.

My next project is to complete the fence lighting, and another pond behind the bonsai tree.

You can view more of the house HERE.

Posted on

Pampered

Thai massage

Two days since the end of the 28 dives plus underwater assembly and moving of scaffoldings etc. Whole body still aches. Well, pay was good…received a 4-figured pay for 2-days work….food was good, free-flow and free. So I shouldn’t complain.

Anyway, at 7am today I sent my daughters Hana and Iqa for their co-curricular activities at school. Picked them up at 10am. Then at 11.30am sent my mom to the Honda Service center for her to pick up her car.

Went back home, sent a text message to The Cute One. Then fell asleep. Woke up, body was still aching. So went to get a good massage. The last thing I remembered was asking forgiveness from the masseuse if I fell asleep. And that I did. I must have snored away while being massaged for a good two hours. Woke up and asked why had she stopped. That was when she pointed to the clock.

Imagine sleeping through the back-breaking, neck-snapping process, and pressure points being elbowed and knuckled etc.

I still wonder how I managed that.

Posted on

2 Days and 28 Dives Later

Me and Brigette at the underwater set

For two days I was part of the safety diver team, the underwater grip team, counsellor to a talent, for a commercial shoot for a Lebanese company. I was in-charge of the safety of namely the Malaysian talent, Brigette. There were two other talents, Francine from Brazil, and the main talent from Russia whose name I did not get.

On the first day we did rehearsals, mainly for the respective safety divers and their charge to have somekind of understanding on hand signals and safety. I did 8 dives on the first day that lasted from 10am through 9.30pm. We also assembled the scaffoldings underwater and moved them to the correct positions.

On the second day, we did more rehearsals while waiting for the shooting of the spa scene at another location to complete before the director could attend to our location. The day started at 8am. We only began shooting at nightfall to get the correct ambience. We wrapped up at 4.30am the next day, and I logged 20 dives (with lots of bounces). And remember, 20 dives means all dives were of 21 minutes or more, not including the bounces where I spent less than 5 minutes on the surface while assisting the talent I was in-charge of with safety.

It was a good experience, albeit a very tiring one. We divers finished up 3 bottles of 100% oxygen to minimise inner-ear decompression sickness or any other decompression sickness that may affect us due to the nature of the dives.

Many people forget that every dive, even those in pools, is a decompression dive.

You can view more pics by clicking here.

Posted on

Farhan’s First Day Away

Farhan's first day at school - 8th January 2007

This is Farhan on his first day away from home…that was yesterday. And for the first time in 35 years, I had to spend a full day at a kindergarten. Today, I sent him there again and left him. He cried and yelled and whacked his class teacher…but I was advised by the Principal to leave him there and let him “grow up and grow out of being too attached.”

It was sad watching him there…apart from the stupid deployment in Langkawi, and my occassional dive trips, he’s never really been separated from me. Well, the deployment in Langkawi wasn’t stupid. The people who had wanted it there were stupid.

Although he’s just turned 4, he’s really 5 this year. He’s a grown-up boy now.