Purification from Inside Out.

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

Subhanallah..menarik3. Ada kenalan saya ni menangis sbb tak dpt pergi kelas almaghrib. ee kenapalah kenapalah kenapalah. macam budak2. tolonglah. every single time. hampir2 dia nak sewa Ford 250 sbb dah takda kereta lain dah. lol. i don't even know anymore ya Allah. yakinlah sesungguhnya ada hikmah. Allah nak bantu kome meet deadlines dan siapkan assignment dengan tenang. Asek2 gelabah je. Berikanlah kami hikmah ya Allah. Janganlah desire kami melampaui rational dan kewarasan kami (although to be honest, renting Ford 250 is not insane). Senyummmm!

Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah...
Dah selesai baca buku Purification of the Heart by Hamza Yusuf. I bought this book at Muktamar 2013. Teruja sbb authornya adalah favorite scholar saya. Lagi satu sebab saye beli buku tu adalah sebab pada ketika itu, image book cover buku tu macam sanggggat familiar. Sangat sanaggggat familiar. Oh, baru teringat the gambar was exactly the same gambar yg saya gunakan dlm blog post saya suatu ketika zaman purba dulu bertajukkan Sedarilah sifat-sifatmu.

Subhanallah. hehe. Allah is suchhh a teaser!

My Poor Battered Books

Ok. Buku tu dah nampak battered sebab sesungguhnya for every book that grabbed hold of, I used and abused them. Sangat tak tercapai dek mind saya macam mana orang boleh keep their book looking brand new after reading hundreds of pages of them. I mean, betul2 tahniah lah. Wa tabik sama lu. You see, the most effective way I was taught to read a book was how I'd read my textbooks. Macam mana buku tak ghelai. Sikit2 nak highlight, garis, buat side notes, bintang2, contiang some more. Kalau buku English, banyak kena tulis definitions. Jadi, saya sentiasa make sure bila nak baca buku kena ada pen/pensel dan cellphone untuk refer kat Dictionary.com. Kalau ada apps lg best. Sebenarnya, baca buku Bahasa Malaysia pon patut mcm tu especially yg sastera. Tgl lagi, tak larat nak bawak Kamus Dewan kesana kemari. Pada zaman SPM dulu, minah dan kawan beli buku Agama Islam latihan SPM yang sama. Beberapa hari selepas tu mereka duduk semeja dan buku agama kami tercampur. Kawan tanya, "Masa satu buku hampa?" Minah "Senang ja nak tau. Mana buku yang lagi lusuh dan kepam hat tu la yg kami punya." "Ha, kan betul..." lol. Don't get me mistaken ya. Everyone has their own style of digesting information from reading a book. 

Good Question

Basically, saya bawak buku tu kemana2. Carry dlm bag, handbag, tidur. Pada suatu hari, kawan saya bertanya (pretend nama dia Mickey Mouse)...

MM: Untuk apakah buku ini? A self-help book, is it? (teasing)

Then saya terreflek, hak ah...macam self-help book la buku ni. Salah ke? Bermasalah ke aku?

Minah: Noh..but yeah but no, well, yeah, it's a little bit like that but it's not like any ordinary self-help book where I go from depression, unmotivated, a bummer seeking to be a CEO or inspirational figure and whatnot. This is a book for someone who're already up there climbing the ladder but doesn't want to fall into traps kinda book. 

MM: Oh so you're saying you're already up there lah? (always finds a way to provoke)

Minah: *gelak* haha. errrr.  Eh, noh lah...cammana nak ckp. Someone who thinks he is already stable, someone who has grip of his/her life, someone who's already a CEO, even. It's not about how be a CEO. It's about how to be a good CEO. For example, kita ada CEO yang well off, berilmu, highly educated and influential tapi oppressive, fat, exploits people, quick tempered and excessive in spending, puncanya sebab ada masalah hatilah. The pain we see in the world today is mostly caused by penyakit2 hati. Jadi, buku ni sesuai untuk orang yg mcm "doing well" la...or not. err. Basically untuk sesiapa yang nak rawat hatilah. 

Asrar Al-Taharah

Sebenarnya saya nak share dan cerita pasal buku lain ni. Haih. ateeqa nasha has done it again. The Mysteries of Purity - Being a translation with notes of the Kitab Asrar Al-Taharah of Al-Ghazzali's "Ihya' Ulum-al-Din". Ha, ok la tu...pasal purification jugak. Nabih Amin Faris (translator from the American University of Beirut) translated Imam Al-Ghazali's (rahimahumullah) words;

"Purity has four stages: The first stage is the purification of the body from excrements, impurities, and bodily growths and discharges. The second stage is the purification of the bodily senses from crimes and sins. The third stage is the purification of the heart from blameworthy traits and reprehensible vices. The fourth stage is the purification of the inmost self (sirr) from everything except God. This last stage is that of the Prophets and saints."

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا

وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا

"Sesungguhnya berjayalah orang yang menjadikan dirinya - yang sedia bersih - bertambah-tambah bersih (dengan iman dan amal kebajikan). Dan sesungguhnya hampalah orang yang menjadikan dirinya - yang sedia bersih - itu susut dan terbenam kebersihannya (dengan sebab kekotoran maksiat)." Ash Shams 91: 9-10

 قَ‍‍‍دْ‌ ‌أَفْلَحَ مَ‍‍نْ تَزَكَّى‌

"Sesungguhnya berjayalah orang yang - setelah menerima peringatan itu - berusaha membersihkan dirinya (dengan taat dan amal yang soleh)"  Al-'Ala 87:12

Religion was founded on cleanliness. Surah Muddasir 1-7, ada kena mengena dengan these stages of purity. Subhanallah. Whether it's perintah ataupun larangan, kedua2nya mengajak kita ke arah purification (tazkiyyah). Kenapa aqidah tu penting? Sebab kita nak reflek luaran Islam kita menggunakan cermin Islam dalaman kita. Sering kali kita nak repair diri kita dari luar, forgetting yang kat dalam.

Donning Islam From Inside Out

Contohnya, nak pakai tudung (as a sign of modesty) tapi bab aqidah tak setel lagi. Kat situ kita nampak ada kecacatan. Baik batiniyah mahupun lahiriyah. Mengupat, dengki, suka complain, nak berlebih-lebihan etc. Kat mana modesty dlm itu semua? That's when modesty is donned from outside (and toiling to penetrate) in. Hijab is supposed to be donned from inside out. It starts with our aqidah which mirrors our character. From there diperhiaskan lagi arahan Allah untuk physically berhijab. Kat ayat perintah hijab, Allah kata "And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts... (24:31). 

Allah tak refer to just any group of women...but believing women! Mukminat. Wanita yang beriman. Subhanallah. Sebab apa? Sebab sebelum mereka donned the hijab, mereka dah donnedkan iman kat dlm hati mereka dahulu. Itu maknanya donning the hijab from inside out. Subhnallah. Imagine the state of society ketika itu. Allah ckp sekali ja....tak perlu coercion dari mana2 pihak. Sgt viable dan reliable iman mereka. Barulah berkualiti hijab kita.  At the end of the day, hijab is just a piece of clothing, kan? Dan bukankah pakaian yang terbaik adalah pakaian taqwa? Tak ke taqwa itu lebih dekat dengan penyucian hati? Bukan nak kata buat outside in is invalid. In fact, I'm a living example of that. Perhaps they go hand in hand. Different ways of iman entering our heart? Sambil kita nak sahihul amal (amalan yang sah), kita nk saliimul aqidah (aqidah yang sejahtera)...dan vice versa :)

Tafsir Malay at Quran.com best sbb dia perincikan firman Allah, "Orang-orang "A'raab" berkata: " Kami telah beriman". Katakanlah (wahai Muhammad): "Kamu belum beriman, (janganlah berkata demikian), tetapi sementara iman belum lagi meresap masuk ke dalam hati kamu berkatalah sahaja: ` kami telah Islam'. Dan (ingatlah), jika kamu taat kepada Allah RasulNya (zahir dan batin), Allah tidak akan mengurangkan sedikitpun dari pahala amal-amal kamu, kerana sesungguhnya Allah Maha Pengampun, lagi Maha Mengasihani". Al Hujurat 49:14.


The Purified Hearts, The Eternal Souls

To summarize, the stages of purification ni make sense jugak la. It's a constant challenge and sometimes we're jumping around; dlm kita sibuk nak repair stage 3, rupa2nya stage 1 tak sempurna lagi. kadang2 kita nak repair stage 2, rupa2nya stage 3 pulak tak bereh lg. By donning Islam from inside out, kita nampak efek iman dan the purified heart tu. We can only treat our physical hearts so much through medical aids. It's for our temporal lives. It's going to stop beating anyway. But at the end of the day, its the treatment of the spiritual hearts that are more imminent and enduring because these kinds of heart are for our eternal lives. They are the hearts that we are going to present before Allah nanti. Tak lama lagi dah. Itulah dia tazkiyatun nafs. :) May Allah help us purify our hearts and souls. Amin.

Wallahualam.