Kewajipan Seorang Isteri

Saya pernah berbual dengan seorang kawan perempuan seketika waktu dahulu perihal kewajipan isteri pasca perkahwinan.

Andaikan seorang wanita berasal dari latar belakang keluarga yang susah, sesudah dia berkerjaya dan berkahwin, adakah patut untuk dia mengabaikan keluarga sendiri dan mementingkan keluarga suami/mentua walaupun keluarga suami/mentuanya sudah stabil/senang?

Jawapan yang saya terima sangat pelik -

"Wanita tersebut wajib taat pada suaminya".

Setuju...tapi tak semua perkara. Ibu bapa kandungnya susah, kenapa nak tolong keluarga mentuanya kalau dah senang? Takkan duit gaji sendiri nak bagi pada mak ayah kandung yang susah, suami boleh tahan?

"Kalau suami tak izin, tetap tak boleh"

Saya terfikir sejenak, agama yang agung seperti Islam takkan mungkin ada peraturan tak masuk akal seperti ini, kecuali jika ia telah disalah-tafsir oleh pihak-pihak tertentu secara sengaja atau tidak sengaja.

Mana mungkin mak ayah yang telah susah payah melahir dan menjaga kita sedari kecil, boleh ditinggalkan begitu saja setelah berkahwin, dan semua ini suruhan agama?

Saya telah baca banyak perbincangan, namun berikut merupakan jawapan yang terpilih.

Lapangkan dada, bukakan minda.

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KEWAJIPAN SEORANG ISTERI: BERKHIDMAT KEPADA MENTUA?

Assalamualaikum.

Tersebar dalam masyarakat bahawa apabila seorang Muslimah sudah berkahwin, maka secara automatik ibu bapa suami iaitu mentua kepada si Muslimah tadi menjadi lebih utama kepada Muslimah tersebut berbanding ibu bapa Muslimah itu sendiri. 

Benarkah hal ini.

Jawapan:

Di sini, diringkaskan fatwa daripada www.islamqa.com yang diketuai oleh Shaikh Salih al-Munajid:

1- Tiada sebarang dalil menunjukkan kewajipan seorang Muslimah untuk berkhidmat kepada mentuanya. 

2- Seorang isteri hendaklah melayani mentuanya dengan baik atas dasar ihsan selagi mana ia di dalam batas kemampuannya.

3- Suami hendaklah sedar akan hal ini bahawa dia tidak berhak memaksa isterinya untuk berkhidmat kepada ibu bapanya, dan si isteri tidak wajib melakukannya walau disuruh oleh si suami. Ini kerana ia bukan kewajipan yang terhasil apabila akad nikah berlaku.

4- Dalam masa yang sama, Muslimah juga dinasihati untuk memberikan khidmat yang mampu kepada mentua kerana satu masa nanti mereka juga akan menjadi ibu, dan akan mempunyai menantu, dan akan tiba saatnya mereka pula memerlukan bantuan menantu mereka.

5- Seorang suami hendaklah sedar bahawa hubungan mereka adalah hubungan suami isteri, dan bukannya hubungan seorang tuan dengan hambanya.

*Di atas merupakan kesimpulan daripada fatwa Shaikh Muhammad bin Soleh al-Uthaimin, Shaikh 'Abdul Aziz bin Baz, Shaikh Abdullah bin Qu'ud, dan Shaikh 'Abdullah bin Ghudayan, Shaikh 'Abdul Razzaq 'Afifi

Wallahua'lam.

Sumber:

http://islamqa.info/ar/120282

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Soalan:

UNTUK ISTERI: MERTUA LEBIH UTAMA DARIPADA IBU BAPA KANDUNG?

Kalo isteri suami no1, ibu bapa mertua lebih utama dari ibu bapa sendiri kan? kalo suami plak ibu lebih utama dari isteri kan? tp nafkah tu mmg isteri la yg mst diutamakan.. kan? tp kebajikan ibu bapa takleh diabaikan..

Jawapan:

Tiada dalil menyatakan sedemikian rupa. Yang banyak ialah keutamaan ibu bapa kandung untuk ditaati si anak.

Bayangkan jika sepasang ibu bapa hanya ada seorang anak perempuan atau semua anaknya perempuan dan mereka sudah berkahwin. Bayangkan jika semua anak perempuannya lebih utamakan mertua berbanding ibu bapa kandung sendiri.

Usah kita mengajar ajaran-ajaran mengarut sebegini.

Suami ada tanggungjawab sebagai anak kepada ibu bapanya.
Isteri juga ada tanggungjawab sebagai anak kepada ibu bapanya sendiri.

Ya, kita perlu berlaku ehsan kepada mertua kita. Akan tetapi menyatakan mertua isteri lebih utama daripada ibu bapa sendiri adalah sesuatu yang tiada asasnya.

Wallahua'lam.

Admin - Dr Ustaz Rozaimi Ramle

My Precious Circle of Friends

I was reading light articles on obesity (my supposed research interest) when I came across this light-hearted joke.

Malaysia was rated as the highest among Asian countries for obesity (2014). 

Yes...Malaysia was the heavyweight champion among Asia's heavyweights. This was statistically proven, even by reputedly international journal.

Five out of ten Malaysians (5/10) suffer obesity (BMI more than 25).

Then came the comment. If five out of ten Malaysians suffer obesity, does that mean the other five actually enjoy obesity?

This single-handedly made my day.

This may be quite true.

From time immemorial, we have seen that obese people are actually the most enjoyable people. They enjoy themselves and are a great company to enjoy with.

Maybe obesity and suffering are not a match made in heaven...enjoying obesity seems to be a more fitting match.

As I was enjoying the light nature of the article, Syaher, who was sitting in front of me (obviously boredom was slowly killing him) abruptly asked me a question.

Mi, do you ever feel bored? How do you escape from it?

Of course I feel bored. I'm always bored. I never escape from it. I just lived with it.

Actually the company of him (Syaher) and Syafiq every night, in front of me, in this lab, was the influence that helped me tolerate my boredom.

Without them, I don't know what would become of me.

I really enjoyed being with them.

The Day I Failed Everyone (part 1)

1. It was March 10, 2016. Our team will be facing the mighty Nurani for a spot in the final. We had just squeezed through the group stage albeit losing a final group match against Jaya (we sent out a weakened team against them for the final group stage match).

2. After our opening victory against Lembaran (I won the first match against their first player Fahimi), and after watching Jaya trounced Lembaran, I figured out that Jaya was too strong for us.

3. So to reserve our energy (we would be beaten anyway by Jaya even if we fielded our strongest squad), I told Syaher to prepare our fringe players for the match (no disrecpect to anyone, but it was tacitly understood that our core players would be composed of mainly from last year's squad).

4. This rotation was also to give everyone in the team a chance to play, even though I was completely sure they would be roasted alive by the likes of Amir, Jack & co from Jaya. There was a a wide gap of class between them. I just hope that they (our players) didn't drop dead in the court due to shock.

5. Surprisingly, Aliff played well above my expectation. I was not really sure how good Aliff was, because I rarely played against him. But he did rattle Amir (former USM player) a bit. Aliff's intensity of play and his willingness to chase out every ball were his most precious attributes.

6. But Amir was a class of his own. I knew Amir only last year. I was told he was from Sabah and trained with USM team. We didn't speak a word back then, not even exchanging greeting, but I knew he also heard about me from somebody else.

7. As predicted, Aliff was beaten. For me, it was a successful failure, because he gave his best. As I sat down to referee the next match, I realized I was paired with Jack as the marker (squash requires a referee and a marker to run a match. As USM were running out of budget to hire external umpire, we were forced to referee each other).

8. I didn't have a very good relationship with Jack. Last year in this same tournament, he was the sole umpire for our final group match against his team. I won the first match but lose the second, partly because Jack was deliberately trying to tilt the match to their favour.

9. I counted THREE (3) occasions when the ball was out but Jack called it in. One or two is okay, but THREE? It was absurd. Dalilah, who was watching upstairs, told me afterwards that she thought the umpire was grossly unfair.

10. Of course I agreed with her observation. That was not counting the moments when "let" was called "stroke" and points awarded to my opponent (people familiar with squash would understand these technical terms). I was losing my temper when I finally shouted for Jack to explain his awkward decisions.

11. But we patched up when the match was over (I won the third match). Jack was just anxious for a win, because he thought my dear friend Syairazie, who was training with us beforehand in the same court, was to be our last player. He knew what he saw that he was no match for Syairazie.

12. Syairazie, a hard-hitting ball player with monumental stamina, was there because of my invitation. I introduced him to squash during my stay in Unimas, in which he picked up the game very well, as duck to water. I showed him the basics of squash, and the rest was history. He improvised his technique on his own.

13. Syairazie wasn't even in our team, he was just there to train with us. But he did send shiver down to Jack's team spine due to his manner of play. Syaher, our last player, was roundly beaten by Jack afterwards.

(To be continued in part two. Time for sleep)  

What is Our Excuse?

I read a recent post by Dr Rozaimi, which claimed that Ibn Qayyim, an influential Islamic scholar from the medieval period, wrote some of his books when he was travelling (musafir).

I did a simple research on my own, and found out that the said books were Zad al-Ma'ad, Rawd'at al-Muh'ibbin, and Bada'i al-Fawa'id.

I never read those books, never even heard them before. But it makes me marvel how Ibn Qayyim managed to pull off such a feat.

Nowadays, people rarely write (let alone writing serious stuff) when on travel. We would rather play with our tablet/smart-phone than pouring our thoughts on a script of paper.

What makes Ibn Qayyim's feat more remarkable is his ability to draw largely from his memory and distinguish facts from fictions from the tip of his mind. 

I read a short memoir of him which states that Ibn Qayyim possessed a library full of books in his house.

But I highly doubt he brought that many books during his travel.

With today's technology and convenience at hand, logically we should be producing more books (or at least write more) and becoming more adept in discerning facts from fictions.

But sadly, that's not the case.

Today, we did indeed write more, but most of what were written are rubbish. 

See the comment section from any particular popular facebook sites for example, it is full of garbage.

But some of us had the tenacity to go through all the comments. 

Looking for jokes, they said. 

That precious time was better spent somewhere...reading good articles/books, for example.

This is a self reminder to me, not to waste any more time.      

The Perils of Our Scientific Inadequacy

I just came back from a tiring (but truly memorable) squash tournament in Kelantan. I have no mood to write anything just yet, but this poster changes that. 

This small poster is making the rounds in my whatsApp group. Not one, but two unrelated groups are discussing the matter.

I didn't give it much attention at first because I believed they will eventually crack the trick and discover the truth by themselves. After all, they are all educated young men who know how to use Google. 

How wrong was I.

When two of my friends (both are currently doing their Master's in science) were seriously discussing the matter in lab, in front of me while I was busy having my dinner, I've had enough.

I asked them to search the true definition of "dihydrogen monoxide" online. But they were not yet thoroughly convinced. It made me wonder, how can they be confused by the term "dihydrogen monoxide" when in fact they were fully taught science & mathematics in English? (I studied science & mathematics in Malay, because PPSMI was implemented after my time).

After a brief explanation, they started to see the light (or, in today's hippy term, to get the drift). In the above photo itself, on the bottom right corner, they cleverly placed #h2okills. That alone is suffice to clear everything and put the matter to rest.

Is this scientific inadequacy confined to a select few, or is it contagious, even to people who were trained in chemistry?

I forwarded the image to one of my friends, a chemist, who holds a master degree in chemistry, asking for her comment. Surprisingly, she fell for the trap.

I fear for the future of Malaysia.

Then, trying to defy the odds (I didn't want to go to bed fearing the future of Malaysia), I forwarded the same image to a pharmacist graduate. Luckily, she spotted the trick and decipher the hidden message straight away.

A sigh of heavy relief emanated from my chest. The future of Malaysia is still safe. For now.            

Sukad 2016

1. It was to be our last ever training session before the real tournament kicks off. It sure left a very big memory to the furthers corner of my mind.

2. I arrived quite late, after the session was already under way. I just came back from Sedim, where for the second time in a week, I immersed myself in the coldness of the renowned Sedim river. It was a very refreshing outing out in the wild.

3. Suhana greeted me with her usual playful manner - "Just coming eh?". "Nope...been a while already", was my short reply. It was a full house affair...all three courts were fully booked. The more the merrier.

4. There were plenty of girls, a rare sighting given the usual all men affair that was the norm every other day. I realized one of the girls was the same girl that went to Kelantan last year. Not sure what was her business there this time around, but I had no desire to ask.

5. All six of us were present. And they were training hard to build their momentum for the upcoming event. I placed no hope for us to advance even from our group stage this year, given that Faiz and Alamin are part of the defending champion's (Restu) team.

6. Faiz and Alamin are giants of squash in USM. Watching them play is already a feast to the eyes...what's more to challenge them in court? Not even in my wildest dream that I dare to imagine defeating them in their favourite playground.

7. I noticed Sarah was among the girls playing in the other courts. She came to me afterwards, smiling and greeting me in her usual jovial manner. She was part of Fajar Harapan's squash team.

8. When it was about time to dismiss, Suhana asked for team's photo. I refused, claiming that she needed to be there in Kelantan, then we all can have a picture together.

9. Honestly, that claim was just an excuse that I made up. My time was over a long time ago...I didn't want to spoil their moment of joy. Although superficially okay, but deep inside, I was deeply broken. A broken man like me in their young and peaceful photograph would only ruin everything.

10. Syaher unexpectedly joined me to refrain from taking the photo together. He might have his reason...although he didn't mention why. Maybe he was not keen on taking picture.

11. So there it was. A memorable picture full of youth and vigour. It captures the spirit of the moment. Every time I see this pic, I remember my youthful past...full of excitement and passion. I have lost all of this now.

12. This may well be my last ever Sukad. I hope I will enjoy every minutes of it.

Beyond Death

1. Some time between 2001 and 2002 (when I was in form 4 or 5), my Malay language teacher, Mr Kipli, taught us about the need to use a suitable Malay translation for English expression.

2. Mr Kipli used the word "beyond death" as an example. What would be the perfect Malay translation for that?

3. He recalled having seen a movie the other night, the translation provided was "hampir mati". It drew a good laugh from all of us.

4. Syazana Sofia, daughter of Dato' Seri Mustapha Mohamed (Tok Pa, now serves as MITI Minister, but was then the Education Minister), quipped that it should be translated as "nyawa-nyawa ikan". This drew a stronger laugh from us.

5. Mr Kipli went on to explain that the most appropriate translation should be "di ambang maut". All of us seemed to agree with his answer.

6. Almost 14 years later today, I came to realize that Mr Kipli's answer was a bit off the mark. It was not a precise translation, it was precisely a wrong translation.

7. "Beyond death" doesn't translate into "di ambang maut". "Near death" is "di ambang maut". "Beyond death" is what happens when we cross death. Not before it.

8. This simple example illuminates the importance of continually re-educating ourselves. I read somewhere yesterday that re-education is more important than education.

9. Never stop questioning. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

The Potato Paradox

"You have 100kg of potatoes, which are 99% water by weight. You let them dehydrate until they're 98% water. How much do they weigh now? 

The surprising answer is 50kg"

The above problem is known as "Potato Paradox", a mathematical calculation that yields a counter-intuitive result.

Who would have thought, by dehydrating the potato from 99% of water by weight to 98%, the potato would lose half of its weight (from 100kg to 50kg).

It took me a while to really comprehend this mind-boggling example of an otherwise ordinary looking mathematics problem. But further calculations that were done to explain this paradox prove that this is indeed true.

Mathematics is insane. But that what makes it beautiful.

The Question of Biology

"Mie...you really wanted to be a lecturer from the beginning?"

Nora suddenly asked me yesterday, when I was busy indulging in my Batu Kurau's donut. I just came back from a fieldtrip to help with Fakhrul's on-going Master's experiment.

"What?"

"You wanted to be a lecturer right? Do you really love biology?"

"Not only biology...I love all sort of subjects...chemistry, mathematics, physics, all of them...although biology now is my favourite. But I’m kind of suck in maths".

"Really? I thought you excelled in maths?"

"Not exactly...I could do with reading subjects, such as biology...but maths is no reading subject. You cannot read maths. That's why I cannot go further with maths as the core subject. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing really. I thought maybe I had made a mistake by doing biology. Biology is leading me nowhere...not much interest, no job. After graduating (Bsc), I wanted to leave biology altogether...but now I have to take up biology again (sigh)".

"It's ok...it's an interesting subject actually. I took up biology quite late...I was 26 by the time I learned about Kreb’s cycle and the such. I never looked back since...no remorse either".

It's a bit difficult to do something that defies our interest, such as what Nora was doing right now. 

But I think it was just a temporary lapse in her passion. Knowing Nora all this while, she is surely a very hardworking and passionate person.

Her dip of interest in her current research will definitely dissipated when her research kicks into full gear. Biology is about life. Learning about life is akin to learning to live life to the fullest, to experience life, to explain life. What's more interesting than that?

Fawwaz arrived moments later. He was full of energy for our scheduled ping pong match.

For all I know, at 6.00 p.m every Thursday, ping pong is a far more important subject than biology. 

No question about that.