Alhamdulillah, thankfully there are still friends from the UK who remember me :D. This morning she called me. Actually and technically it is 12.30am. If someone from abroad called my mobile using a phone card, it will appear as 'Unknown' on my mobile. I think I must have been deeply asleep. I went to bed around 11pm and read a few pages of a book written by Muhammad Asad - The Road to Mecca - which is given by a sister during my farewell, before I closed my eyes. The last thing I remember that I have read was when Muhammad Asad talked to an old Palestinian Arab man about why he has to pray with certain kinds of movements.
I woke up and picked up the phone. A very familiar voice but I couldn't recall maybe cause I was still confused. I finally realised who she is and I was fully conscious to talk to her. She was smiling and laughing over the other end of the phone... I miss it. Then she apologised when she realised that I was asleep before that. I really wanted to talk to her but she preferred me to sleep so she hung up. I felt like a dream and went back to sleep when I realised the time was midnight. I felt like I have been sleeping for a few hours already.
This is not the first time she called me and every time she called, I learn something new from her about myself. She doesn't let me call her. UK is 7 hours later than Malaysian time. At 12.00am here, it is 5.00pm there. It is quite difficult to find the right time to talk to each other especially in this month. I have a daily schedule - 6.30pm I'll be at the college, helping the students to prepare for iftar and waiting for maghrib. This will continue until the end of terawih which is around 10pm. I might do something after that and usually go to bed at 11pm. I wake up at 4.45am and stay awake most of the time until I go to work around 7.30am then finish work around 6.00pm. Whereas in the UK, the fajr time is around 4.30am (which is 11.30am in Malaysia) and maghrib is 8.30pm (which is around 3.30am here in Malaysia). It must be tough for them in this month. It is not a big problem to fast for a long period of time in the day but the struggle to wake up at night for suhur. By the time they finish praying terawih (in the UK it is usually 20 rakaah), it must be around 11.30pm or near midnight and then they have to wake up for suhur say around 3.30am. The most one can get to sleep at night is 3 hours or so. In the next ten years, this kind of pattern will persist. The worst is when Ramadhan fall in June which has the longest days of the year. Imagine maghrib at 9.30pm and fajr at 2.30am. Say isha' is at 10.30pm, by the time terawih finishes, it must be over midnight and suhur time is around 1.30am. Might as well just not sleep!
Anyway, if ALLAH has created such an orbiting of the sun and moon, and the rules for men to observe their obligatory worships, there must be ways to overcome everything or that ALLAH alone will give strength to those who struggle on HIS path. Ultimately, it is ALLAH who has created humans and HE alone knows what is the best for HIS creations and to what limit humans can go as far.
ALLAHU'alam.
Wassalam.
No comments:
Post a Comment