Sembang Ramadhan

Last night helped my Aunt to prepare some small mementos for jamuan in her school tomorrow. Since it's Ramadhan, no luncheon and all the food will be packed. We spent over two hours cutting the cakes and wrapping the dates and placing them into their packaging. Mengalahkan nak siapkan hantaran kahwin.

Ninth day of Ramadhan. Tenth night of tarawih.

How did we fare in the month of Ramadhan during our campus's life?

Apparently, I'm the only person that's very teruja about waking up for sahur. I just didn't want us to miss the pahala waking up for sahur, besides we need those carbo to sustain us throughout the day. I do have side-kicks taking turns coming down assisting me with the onions and all. I won't wake them up because that's one thing I never know how to (i.e waking people up), instead I'll just fry the salted fish first thing and minutes later someone will come join me in the kitchen. The whiff of the well-preserved salted fish can even wake the whole neighbourhood if we were to open the doors.

Sahur is always very simple. That's why I prefer to let the rest of my housemates sleep away for that few precious minutes. Besides the salted fish, we usually fry some popodum and cook veggies or soup. There's always sufficient stock of meat floss delivered by air-mail by someone's mother.

One morning, I remembered our next door neighbour tung-tang-tung-tang with their pestle and mortar. Pagi-pagi buat sambal belacan! heheheeee... things some people do to buka selera anak tekak pepagi kan.

As for iftar, I rarely cook since I'm sort of assigned to cater for sahur. Sometimes I still have to be the bidan terjun if everyone's having classes till the evening. Everyone will get their turn on what they want to be served for iftar. Chef of the day will ask the lucky one what she'd like for iftar. While three, four of us are busy with their pots and pans boiling and frying away; the rest of us will go down to the various stalls set-up and shop for some cakes and murtabaks. Ice is always a must to prepare the thirst-quencher.

By Maghrib everyone will be seated obediently whilst eyeing on which juadah to grab first. Rezeki orang berbuka kot, we are never lacking of food as the neighbours will exchange some iftar dishes they prepared themselves too. Sometimes we have guests coming over from other housing colleges. Memang meriah la time berbuka.

Those of Peninsular rarely miss home cooking since we can cook. We'll prepare pajeri nenas, bubur pulut hitam, singgang, variety of curry, kurma, tom yam etc.

There was one occasion where we combined an iftar project between three houses. The shopping took us a good half day! We prepared BBQ, laksa penang, mee curry, masak lodeh and nasi himpit. Cooking was segregated between three houses. Imagine if an item is missing kecoh tiga rumah nak cari menda yang hilang tuh. Walking back and forth between the three houses into their kitchens and front yard and back again memang riuh. It was fun though. By that time we all yang tak sabar-sabar nak raya akan pasang la pelita and lagu raya jugak.

I sure miss those times.

A discussion on concentration whilst performing the solat on IKIM.fm got me listening. Personally, I feel that kekhusyukan dalam solat adalah suatu nikmat yang amat berharga kerana ia adalah inayah yang tidak ternilai dariNya. I'm often lacking of it too. I find lotsa good reminders here. Ramai antara kita yang masih kabur tentang rukun solat, antara yang wajib dan sunat hai'ah @ ab'adh, dan dari pelbagai aspek lagi.

Ada satu ketika bekalan air dicatu dan seorang rakan bertanya bagaimana dengan soal wudhu as the water we have stored won't be sufficient for all. We then told her that dalam berwudhu wajib bagi kita untuk membasuh wajah dan kedua tangan, dan mengusap bahagian depan kepala dan kedua kaki. Perihal yang lain adalah sunat termasuk perbuatan membasuh tiga kali. It's just that at times bila 'darurat' as such, this sort of knowledge (read:antara wajib & sunat) comes in handy.

Puasa pun adalah antara amalan yang pahalanya ditentukan Allah sendiri. Orang tak tahu kita puasa ke tak. Yang puasa maybe nampak segar bugar, yang tak puasa nampak (buat-buat) lemah longlai. Puasa ibadah yang dinilaiNya, personally. Back to perihal solat tadi.

Imam Al-Ghazali menyatakan bahawa orang yang tidak khusyuk solatnya adalah dikira sia-sia belaka, kerana tujuan solat itu selain untuk mengingati Allah SWT, ia juga berfungsi sebagai alat pencegah dari perbuatan keji dan mungkar.

Ngeri jugak ya bila baca. Solat adalah ibadah utama yang akan dihisab terlebih dahulu berbanding amalan yang lain. Dan sekiranya solat itu sempurna baru lah dihitung pula amalan yang lain. Firman Allah:

"Peliharalah segala sembahyangmu dan peliharalah sembahyang utama (Asar, Subuh) dan berdirilah untuk Allah (melalui solatmu) dengan khusyuk" [Surah Al-Baqarah : ayat 238]

“Tidak Aku (Allah) jadikan jin dan manusia melainkan untuk mengabdikan diri kepada-Ku. [Surah az-Zariyat : ayat 56]