Br. Malkawy Part 1

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

Sesungguhnya aku rindu kat Br. Malkawy ni for the sake of Allah.
Siapakah beliau? Just a scholar who's been transmitting 'ilm and sharing experience with ummah.
Dengan berlatarbelakangkan Engineering, somehow, dengan nikmat dan kehendak Allah, he was granted wisdom and the opportunity to study Islam and spread it. Although that wasn't in his degree, master and PhD field.

Bila aku fikirkan sejauh mana ilmu aku tentang agamaku, I'd say, just only on the surface. Kalau Islam itu adalah suatu subjek, then, wouldn't it require a teacher to pass down the knowledge from? Funny. Amal pon tak pass2 lagi, tapi yang didahagakan adalah teori, teori dan teori. Mungkin dengan ilmu teori tu, kita harap kita juga boleh mengajar manusia. Bolehkah mengajar dengan amal? Kadang2 dirasakan amal tu tak cukup sbb ilmu teori tu sebenarnya yg tak cukup. Orang kata, tak kenal maka tak cinta. Kalau boleh, nak kenal Islam (dlm teori) tu sedalam2nya supaya actions (amal) become easy. Easiness of submission through love from knowing why you do what you do, so you want to. And not merely fulfilling requirements because you're told what to do...so, you have to.

But that's never really the intention, is it? Kita nak ilmu sbb ilmu tu macam duit. There are two things that when we acquire them we feel like spending them right away. Money and knowledge.Oh the excitement is unbearable. Bila dah cukup bulan, rasa macam kaya tak sangga, "I must treat myself". When we get ilm that hits hard in hour heads, we'd feel like "I must share/do something abt this". Right away. Why? Because the longer we peram it, the lemau it gets. You forget all your feelings about it, and in some cases, you forget totally about it.

So a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally "restored" my iphone. Whatever that means, right. Oh apparently, it means reformatting. Whatever that means, right. Oh, apparently it means DELETING You know, it's like when you want your things and stuff to be ERASED. Aiyo. You see, I don't get this world. Isn't restore supposed to mean you're re-storing i.e. putting stuff in storage, again? and isn't reformat supposed to mean you're re-setting formats, again? I learned the definitions of both words the harder way when all my 3 months worth of pics in Malaysia in my iPhone and all my Europe family holiday photos with in big boss' camera, were deleted. Subhanallah I do wonder about myself and how ridiculously silly I can be sometimes. Men, I'm such a Dee Dee. You know Dee Dee? She is the Dexter's Laboratory's sister. Always saying to herself "Uuuuuw... I wonder what this button is for".

A couple of months ago, it felt it was a long wait until my precious books worth years of sharing, pengisian and usrah, arrived. And yet, I still didn't get them until now. I thought to myself, "Ok, so you want and need to share something with adik2, but think you can't do it without your resources i.e. the books. So now, how?" The thing that I learned and really preserved from years of sharing culminated to one understanding - to share. Although I may not remember precisely the details of sharing by my sisters and the alims, but the basic core boils down to one important thing, that is to instill feelings from sharing. Feelings for knowledge. And that is the most enduring. That's what Br. Malkawy had done. In his share of knowledge, he instilled feelings.

Having said that, there is a point I wanted to make. I don't just tell my deep dark secrets to the world without a reason. With the loss of precious photos incident and the longing book that never arrived, I invoke myself to think what the hikmah may be. I depended on them so much to help me reiterate and recall sweet memories and ilm. When those photos and books are gone, it felt like part of me was gone too. I got a panic attack thinking what's gonna remind me of my friends and family at special occasions, at that moment in time. What's going to help me recall the ilm that was learned?

I invoke myself to think again, what the hikmah may be. Maybe because I've wasted too much time looking at those photos, reminiscing at old memories and being too attached to them. Maybe the presence of the book had made me feel too secure in the comfort zone that I can just open and close it when I need something.

I invoke myself to think again, what the hikmah may be. Maybe because Allah wanted to teach me something. The imagination on Imam Al-Ghazali who was once set out on a long journey, came rushing in my mind.

On his way back to Tus from Jurjan where he had just completed his studies, al-Ghazali's caravan was robbed by highwaymen. When they left him, he followed them but was told, "Leave us or you will die." 

He replied, "I ask you for Allah's sake to only return to me my notes, for they are of no use to you." 

The robber asked him, "What are those notes?" 

He said, "Books in that satchel, for the sake of which I left my country in order to hear, write, and obtain their knowledge."  

The robber laughed and said, "How can you claim that you obtained their knowledge when we took it away from you and left you devoid of knowledge!" Then he gave an order and the satchel was returned to him. 

Al-Ghazali said, "This man's utterance was Divinely inspired, Allah caused him to say this in order to guide me. When I reached Tus I worked for three years until I had memorised all that I had written down." 

This episode highlights the priority of memorization in the obtainment of knowledge not as a goal but as a means — sine qua non. 'Abd al-Razzaq and al-Asma'i said, "Any 'ilm that does not enter the bath with its (bare) owner, do not count it as 'ilm."

So, here, maybe, I don't need to keep the tangible photos to remind me of the memories. Memories are supposed to be treasured in my heart and mind. And if they slowly wither away, it's OK. I'd only forget the details. I'd never forget how the moments made me feel...and that is what lost photos can't take away from me. Something that I've cherished :)

That goes hand in hand with the 'ilm that I've cherished. The most noble manifestation of ilm is amal. And that what matters in my religion. I should honor the the tiny bit that I know, and epitomize it in magnitude. That, in and of itself is sharing and spreading. Learning the theories is important, being able to talk about them and teach them are important. But the level of mastery shouldn't stop me from doing them. Allah has given everybody their fair share in the ability to spread the good and restrain the bad. We've been entitled with that position since we were born. Although I may not be able to sit down with a scholar to master Islamic theory (Qur'an, hadith, fiqh, shariah, Arabic etc), that's because Allah knows my potentials and limitations. With little that we know, Allah knows we have the potential to run with it and fly. That is more humbling. With tons that we know, maybe Allah knows that we won't be able to catch up and cherish them in amal. It's like singing and dancing all at once! We need stamina, otherwise they won't synchronize, man. Allah knows best. We desire for one thing and Allah desires for us another. And He is the Most knowing of what we need.

I'd like to remind and urge myself and others who managed to bare with me this far, in the path of seeking knowledge, seek for the sake of seeking love to 'amal (practice) the 'ilm. Part of memorizing is to embody. So there's correlation between memorization (by heart through awareful mind) and practice. The more we know, the more we should memorize. The more we memorize, the more of a practice it becomes, inshallah.

True knowledge is practice. And true practice is constant remembrance (memorization).

Ok, I think I've made  a long mukaddimah (too long) that I have to stop writing and cari lebaran lain to talk about Br. Malkawy. Haha. Sad :( What can I say, when something has bottled up for so long, they're going to have to spill out, one day. And today happened to be the day.

Ateeqa Nasha did it again.
Take care :)