THOUGHTS OF A BELIEVER

      Growing up, people around me are rather confused by who I was. A petite girl with a fair skin, sharp nose and a bindi on her fore head would almost be mistaken as a Malay. Where I come from, Malaysia is known with is diversity encompassing 3 major race. The Malays which originates from the land of java, Indians from land of the Pandavas and Chinese from the land of great dynasties, all brought in over by the East India Company. Me and my sister, well we look Malay but we are actually, well this may surprise you, a mixture between Indian and Chinese. Actually in this 21^st century, it’s not a surprise for us Malaysians with all this mushy mixture going on! One can have so much of race in them but yet we need to choose between this major three to be called a Malaysian. Quite ridiculous but that’s a something we’ve all kept inside our hearts.

    I could only trace my ancestry back to when Malaysia was hit by the Japanese occupation back in the 1940’s. The Chinese couldn’t stand a chance to survive back then. So my grandmother who is a Chinese was given away to an Indian family. She grew up embracing her lighter skin tone being in the midst of strong, rough, build dark Indians. Of course, to this people, she is the most beautiful women they have ever seen. Every women in the village envied her, so she said! But I could not stop thinking why and how is she envied being flat chested, with a tiny eyes and flat nose? Ah! It’s probably her skin! Yea, the fair ones gets away quite easily!

     She married my grandfather at such a young teen age, a rubber tapper and found her happy ever after surrounded by kerosene lights under the rubber trees. They bore 5 children and the second from that lot is my father. Ah yes! My father was a lot like my grandmother and a lot Chinese. He was a proud, calm and collected, wise, stingy when it comes to money but he was so in love with his Indian culture. Growing up, he made sure we stayed strong to our culture. Every Diwali is celebrated with new beautiful, colorful clothes and singing hymns to the god and goddesses. Yes, and that includes not wearing anything black as it is not auspicious for the Hindus.

    Growing up, I learned a lot from my grandmother and father, taking up their eastern values before I moved onto my path discovering Islam and being a Muslim. I married my husband who is a Malay and by the grace of God, we have one daughter now who screams 1Malaysia inside her, though I secretly think she’s more Indian! It’s beautiful in the Quran, Chapter 49 Verse 13 God says “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made people and tribes that you may know one another”. 

Few days back, I was strolling down with my stroller on the way to my husband’s university. Walking down the streets and down the pathways of the houses, I was awed by how beautiful autumn is going to be and how it is to be living in that particular neighborhood. Having one big olden English house with a huge yard, sipping tea and looking at the children play. So dreamy right?!

For a split second, memories rushed down to back when I was a teen. It was a Sunday ritual for my family to go to the temple early in the morning and have breakfast in Bangsar. My dad would drive us around the neighborhood for us to admire the houses and how we could imagine life be if we ever get to live there. I guess it was a form of motivation for us to study, get to a good university, work, marry a rich man and live in one of those houses.

Then when I snapped out of that memory, I looked at where I am today and I could only say Alhamdulillah. No, I didn’t get into the top universities in Malaysia, an animation graduate who left her job years back, not married to a rich man, I’ve got 2 Chanel bags under my eyes thanks to my toddler and definitely NOT staying at one of those houses in Bangsar!

Honestly, my dad could turn to me today and tell me that, I didn’t achieve any when I had the time to achieve it in Malaysia, what more in England! But nope! When I told him what I saw here and how beautiful it is, he said, nothing is impossible for a human mind. Dream and work hard for it and if it was meant to be for you, God will surely bless you with it and if it is not…well, Islam says it clearly, Allah is saving the best for you. Alhamdulillah ala kulli hal.

See, human imagination is wonderfully so powerful and that is why we have achieved so much. Technologies revolves around our imagination and dream and the drive one has to achieve it makes it more unbelievable. At times, we imagine things that no one could see, we dream of achievements that others regard it as “Are you hearing to yourself?!”

Rasullulah SAW said that if we were to ask for paradise, we should ask for its highest level: Al-Firdaus Al-A’la. Why so?

Don’t you want to be there? Don’t you want to be at the best place? Under the throne of Allah? To be seeing His face for the first time? Even though your still struggling in perfecting yourselves, your imaan, you still wanna be at Al-Firdaus because it itself is in our inner fitra, wanting the best, wanting the perfect one!

Allahuakhbar! Allah is the Most Merciful and Most Forgiving. He sent us a Prophet who would only give us so much of guidance, love and hope. Never have he failed in his job as a Messenger of Allah what more than encouraging us to be the best believer achieving the best so that we could all be together even though he knew what state this Ummah will be after leaving us. Dream and making du’a for Al-Firdouse is just not it. He encourages us to work hard for it, follow the Quran and Sunnah and ask for Allah’s mercy and forgiveness.

So now I tell you my friends, dream and imagination is so powerful that it should drive you and those around you to the better! Be it for the dunya or the aakhirah, dream and work for it and make plenty of du’a to Allah SWT to grant you the best of this world and the hereafter. If He doesn’t, than know that Allah has your best interest and He will grant you more than what you imagine for yourselves.