Knowledge seeker / educator is like a mirror. Reflecting the sun light to the community / students.
Yesterdays maulid was a blast at our house. 50 Azhari student attended and we had a great spiritual time. The thing that strike me most was when sharing knowledge session. Ustaz Nasrullah Rifa’e was sharing about an analogy by Habib Ali Jufri.
A knowledge seeker is like a mirror that acts as a reflector to the community from the sunlight. If the mirror is shiny an in good condition it will reflect perfectly. If it was rusty mirror, it will not reflect any of the sunlight.
The sunlight is the knowledge or teachings and the mirror is the knowledge seekers spiritual condition.
It’s a very good analogy by Habib Ali to reflect ourself why our community still doing wrong things and wrong causes. It’s because we as the knowledge seeker and educator still doing wrong things and wrong causes that cause our mirror to become rusty and weak.
Let’s clean up our mirror
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The power of “Explaining your Idea in 60 sec”.
Since I’m in cairo, I meet some few of our fellow Singapore students. And we talked about some interesting stuff. And they will share their idea that is really cool and innovative. But the problem is. They talked a lot.
In the real world. People are busy. People have so many things to think of and most important, People don’t care about you.
But how to make your Idea stickier?
Step 1
Explain your Idea in 60 secs. Meaning concise your idea into one sentence. This can be applied to your students, co-workers and also your boss.
This will give the challenge for you to really understand you Idea / content and pick the most and only important inputs.
Step 2
What is the input for your 60sec “pitch”?
To me the most important is
a. What is the thing?
b. What is so different about it?
c. Who is this for?
This 3 elements is the key for any of your Idea at the beginning level. So as the person whom you talked with get excited. Then you explain it as you go along.
Make your Idea stickier!
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Love is indeed an intriguing phenomenon
How do we profess our love for Allah?
The Holy Quran tells us that Allah loves intensely those who believe in Him. The depth of this love is directly proportional to the amount of faith a believer has in His Lord, and is inversely proportional to how strongly a believer will feel the difficulties he faces in his life. This means that a believer will be able to tolerate more difficulty and obstacles, the greater his love for Allah, and vice versa.
This brings me to a case of a woman who has great desire in her heart to become a mother. My sister recently gave birth to her second daughter. She willingly went through the tremendous hardship of carrying the child for 9 months, suffering morning sickness, dehydration and all sorts of ailments. However all these became tolerable because she keeps her goal in becoming a mother in perspective. My sister went through all sorts of tests to ensure that the baby is normal and not suffering from any kind of disorders. But then again, we will never know until the baby is delivered.
A mother may be aware of the possibility that complications may arise during labour that may lead to a lifetime of suffering. In addition, she also knows that for the first few years she will have to be entirely devoted to the child, sacrificing rest and food for the sake of her baby. However, her intense desire of becoming a mother and love for the child overshadows all this and makes her burden easy for her to bear.
Hence love eases pain, so much so that we do not even consider a burden to be a difficulty or an inconvenience. Likewise, all difficulties, be they physical, financial, or otherwise, become easy for the believer when he has love for Allah in his heart.
I then chanced upon this article which I learnt about the 3 types of love.
1. Love of a Person : When in love with another individual, one becomes oblivious to any shortcomings in the beloved, as this kind of love renders one blind and deaf. The lover does not pay any heed to any negative reports he received about his beloved because he is so completely in love.
2. Love for the sake of traits: This is lesser degree of love than that mentioned above. It implies a love for the sake of the beloved’s fine character, good habits, and pleasing manner. This is lesser in intensity than the former because the love is will exist only as long as the good characteristics are maintained, and so the relationship is weak.
3. Love for the sake of favours: This is weakest form of love in that it is hypocritical and exists only as long as the beloved keeps extending favours to the one who claims to be the lover.
We should all strive to move from the weakest form of love to the strongest, where happiness and sorrow become one. Nothing can break the bond of love at this point and it is most delighful stage to be at.
Once we place Allah and love for Him foremost in everything we do, then all of our difficulties will seem to vanish and doors of opportunity will open up for us. All this is achieved by obeying the commands of Allah, frequenting the mosque, and submitting ourselves fully to our Creator.
Love is indeed an intriguing phenomenon. (:
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3 most used Google tools that will enhance your productivity for working.
I have always been a fanboy of Google with all the tools that they created for free. For this post I will highlight and recommend the top 3 tools that I’ve always use for my works.
Let’s drill down.
1. Google Reader
Google Reader is the all-in-one reader from your favorite choice of websites. It’s like your custom newspaper/magazine on your computer. It is the first thing that I will do before jump into any work or opening facebook 
.
Learn more about Google Reader by watching this video below
2. Google Doc
Google Doc is like your microsoft office complete with words, spreadsheet and presentation but online. It’s good because you can collaborate in real-time with your co-workers or student.
Learn more about Google Doc by watching this video below.
3. Google Calender
Google Calender is the same calender tool but intact with your gmail and your contact. The cool thing about it is, Google enable to notify you thru SMS/email. So you won’t miss a thing.
Learn more about Google Calender by watching this video below
There are more Google products that I would love to share but i guess this 3 is enough for now. Keep your productivity going.
Use it wisely
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How far do you understand about the 3rd Pillar of Islam, Zakat?
Short, visually simple videos are really helpful to explain complex ideas. That has been always our method creating Syukran right from the beginning.
Zakat (Muis) contracted us to make a video explaining the Introduction of Zakat. Below is the video we produced to educate Singaporean Muslims about what they need to know about zakat. To learn more about Zakat, click here.
Explanation of 8 Asnaf by Ustaz Firdaus Yahya
Zakat and Sedekah by Ustaz Firdaus Yahya
Hikmah Zakat by Ustaz Firdaus Yahya
We love to hear your feedback and suggestion by commenting on this post thank you.
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Do You Work for Blessings or Work for the work?
I was reading the book Linchpin, written by Seth Godin and one of which he talked about was ‘He Works for Blessings’.
Something to ponder about.
There’s this guy David who works in a mini-chain of high-end coffee shop in New York which is doing pretty well. High turnover over 6 years. Seth met David while having coffee. He saw David cleaned the tables energetically, straightening things that didnt seem particularly crooked. Above all, he did with a smile. He greeted people, helped without asking, offered to watch a table…in a coffee shop. When Seth asked David, he replied with a smile and said “I work for blessings”.
How many of us would work for the blessings, with a smile? Anyone would have seen this job as a grind, a dead end having spending 6 years, a job with no vision. However, David sees as an opportunity to give gifts. He contributed emotional labour and his compensation was the blessings he got from customers. His art was the engagement with each person, a chance to change an outlook or brighten his day.
Now, can everyone do this? Many who can do this, choose not to. David refused to wait for instructions. He lead with art.
In doing something, we try our best to make sure that it is an act of goodness, be it in work, studies, sports or ibadah, with sincere intentions.
“Indeed Allah loves one who does work, he does it with itqan.”
Our responsibilities are not towards Allah only, but towards our employers, teachers, students, and all.
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Who will you be following? an Instructor or an Idol?
Superhero was created as an idol for kids, to act as the justice and creating peace for the world.
Even though it is a fictional character but still it’s an idol for some people. People tend to follow/learn from idol.
A hero doesn’t give instruction for you to follow.
A hero act and practice it, then you will follow.
Sounds familiar. Our prophet is the true hero as well as the sahabah, tabi’en and those who do good deeds and practice it.
Allah S.W.T said: “By the time, verily man is in loss, except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and join (together) in the mutual enjoining of Truth, and of patience and constancy.” (103:1-3)
It’s the nature of human to naturally follow an idol and use it as guidance.
Stop giving instruction and start being an idol
Update: Even Superhero have limitation, as mention from a friend of mine Nazeeh, Almost all superheroes have a human element of frailty or weakness. For some it’s an Achilles heel (like kryptonite for Superman) but for others it’s a personality behavioural issue that they’re always dealing with. But there is no weakness for Our prophet Muhammad S.A.W.
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Re-Thinking about the work we do. It should be real, don’t fake it.
I was reading Seth Godin’s latest post called phoning it. He said:
This was sort of shocking, at least to me:
I was talking to a religious leader, someone who runs a congregation. She made it clear to me that on many days, it’s just a job. A job like any other, you show up, you go through the motions, you get paid.
So i was thinking, is being an asatizah just a job? Like any other job? Is teaching Islam a job? Like any other job? Show up and get paid?
Then he said.
I guess we find this disturbing because spiritual work should be real, not faked.
But isn’t your work spiritual?
This brings me to the first hadis in every Hadith Book. Which is about intention.
Rasulullah S.A.W said: “Actions are (judged) by motives/intentions (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended.”
And this also reminds me of a video from Sheikh Hamza Yusuf about intention.
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Syukran featured on a documentary called Misguided by Channel News Asia
Here is a couple videos at channel news asia.
P/S: You need to use headphone to hear sorry for the audio
Videos
Photos
CNA logo is copyrighted under it’s respective owner
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The art of Listening. A Lesson from Hadith Nabawi.
If we look closely to the Hadith that narrated from a person to another. The common thing that appears is they mastered the art of listening. Brenda Ueland has written a great piece of article about the art of listening.
We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.
And the true listener is much more beloved, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and does more good.
To be a good teacher/students listening is a basic and effective act ones should practice.
Prophet Muhammad said:
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه : أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم قال : ( من كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر ، فليقل خيرا أو ليصمت ، ومن كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر ، فليكرم جاره ، ومن كان يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر ، فليكرم ضيفه ) رواه البخاري و مسلم .
Abu Hurairah, radiyallahu ‘anhu, reported that the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, said:
“Let whosoever believes in Allah and in the Last Day either speak good or be silent. Let whosoever believes in Allah and in the Last Day honour his neighbour. Let whosoever believes in Allah and in the Last Day honour his guest.”
For more explanation click here.
This lesson is about Listen and Speak Good.
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