Nuzul Quran

Tomorrow will be a public holiday for us in Selangor.It's Nuzul Quran.Happy Nuzul Quran to you and yours.

The day ended on a high note for me.First it was a meeting on the Alumni Trust Fund.Later on, it was on the German youth orchaestra.The team managed to sort out some key issues. After that it was on strategising our coffee table book sales.We gotta sell all copies by year end.The team was confident we'd be able to make it.I hope.I pray.Sebab nak membuatnya penat betul.

Zul came to discuss how to get more sponsorships for next year's Nov. event.What a big help.I hope our plans work.Lepas tu I can retire in Cyprus.Haha.

Read surah 21 (Al Anbiya') on the plights of a few Prophets. How inspiring to read about Prophet Ayub (Job) and Prophet Yunus (Jonah). Ayub was tested to the maximum.He lost his family, servants, friends, health, wealth, etc.The footnotes said he cursed his life and only repented later but this was not what I read of him in other secondary sources.Anyway, his prayer is beautiful (even more in the Malay translation):

And (remember) Job when
He cried to his Lord
"Truly distress has seized me.
But Thou are the Most
Merciful of those that are Merciful." (al Anbiya' : 83)

But when I got to read about Prophet Yunus and the whale, I began to understand what Prof Syed Naguib Alatas meant when he used Nabi Yunus' story to explain why he would never migrate to another country no matter how bad Msia would turn out to be (this I heard years ago). Reading the footnotes of`Yusuf Ali's translation of the Quran, I began to compute what Alatas meant.Nabi Yunus left his plight out of frustration (yeah..that 'I quit' thingy).It's like he had no faith in Allah (he didn't think/believe that Allah had the power to make things right no matter how bad).Listen to verse 87 same surah (Al Anbiya'):

And remember Dhu al Nun ("the man of the fish or the whale")
When he departed in wrath:
He imagined that We
Had no power over him!
But he cried through the depths
Of darkness, "There is
No god but Thou:
Glory to Thee: I was
Indeed wrong!"

Footnotes detailed how after Prophet Yunus left the Assyrian capital Nineveh, he took a ship but the sailors threw him out as a man of bad omen. And the rest is history (he was swallowed by a big fish, cried and admitted his weakness in the depth of darkness, Allah forgave him, cast out ashore and continued his mission, relying on the power of Allah)

How inspiring indeed! No one should quit! AI never! Neither would Pak Lah.Haha.Kantoi betul.