Food is a fairly consistent topic here at BGP, but I’ve just run across a site that does it full time, based right here in Kuching! It is mum-mum::eat-eat, and if you are into Malaysian cuisine, you really should have a look. The pictures are great, and are all taken right in the restaurant. That gives me courage; I’m always too shy to snap away in public – you know, the whole obnoxious tourist thing. Check out the entry on Green Tea with Sago Pearls. I was SO intending to put a picture of that up here, and she’s beat me to it! (I found this link, and probably any other Malaysian site I link to from here on out, through Project Petaling Street. More on that in a minute.)
Money from Heaven
Thinking about dua reminded me of an old joke. Go ahead and groan, you probably have heard it before. A guy goes to church every week, and every week he kneels in the pew and says, “Lord, please let me win the lottery.” Week after week he returns and makes the same prayer. Finally, one day he hears a reverberating voice say, “Come on, buddy, you gotta at least meet me halfway – go buy a ticket!”
As stale a joke as that is, I swear I had almost the same thing happen to me in real life. I was a guest at the home of an old broke-down dervish in beautiful Sri Lanka, and almost every day he would say to me how he wished he could win the lottery. He assured me it was not out of greed or some other base motive; he just wanted to build a small masjid in the corner of his property, so he could make his prayers in a clean and sanctified place, and so his guests would have better lodging than his old palm fibre mattress or a sheet spread outside on the sand. Finally one day when we were out at the market, I asked him if he’d ever bought a lottery ticket. No, he confessed. So I insisted to buy him a few tickets right on the spot. If God willed, I told him, he’d win right then, and if not, then he knew it was not meant to be and he could quit grousing. He wasn’t all that happy about when I bought the tickets, and he was a lot less happy than that when we scratched off the silver and he hadn’t won a thing.
Sahifat As-Sajadiyya
The dua, or supplication, is perhaps the most personal aspect of muslim prayer, but it tends to get overlooked in favor of the striking movements of the Salat, or daily prostration. Unlike the salat, which allows for only a limited amount of modification, and must be done in Arabic, the dua is almost entirely up to the discretion of the worshipper and may be done in one’s native tongue. Thanks to Metafilter, I found a great site cataloguing many famous duas. And people say Mefi is irreligious! Among others, it contains the complete collection of duas by the great Imam Sayyidina Zain Al-Abideen (ra), entitled Sahifat As-Sajadiyya. Sayyidina Zain Al-Abideen (ra) is the son of Hussain (ra) the son of Ali (ra) the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The dua brings up to the surface each individual’s relationship to their Lord, and it is for this that the duas of Sayyidina Zayn Al-Abideen (ra) are so special. His duas show us the highest stations of good manners in front of our Lord. Although it is acceptable to ask our Lord for what we need, this can lead to us asking for what is not good for us or asking for the fulfillment of vain desires. Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz! is a crass example, but the “multimedia dua” linked to in the Metafilter article reeks of this, and God knows best. For this reason, there are those who feel the best manner in dua is to ask for acceptance of God’s will, and the duas of Sayyidina Zayn Al-Abideen are replete with this kind of piety. For me, his duas epitomize Surrender to the Will of God, which is the root meaning of Islam. Here is a segment from the Dua of Sorrow:
I have no command along with Thy command.
‘Accomplished is Thy judgement of me,
just Thy decree for me!
I have not the strength to emerge from Thy authority
nor am I able to step outside Thy power.
I cannot win Thy inclination,
arrive at Thy good pleasure,
or attain what is with Thee
except through obeying Thee
and through the bounty of Thy mercy.
O God,
I rise in the morning and enter into evening
as Thy lowly slave.
I own no profit and loss for myself
except through Thee.
I witness to that over myself
and I confess to the frailty of my strength
and the paucity of my stratagems.
So accomplish what Thou hast promised me
and complete for me what Thou hast given me,
for I am Thy slave, miserable, abased,
frail, distressed, vile, despised, poor, fearful,
and seeking sanctuary!
Hidupnya Insan
My favorite definition of poetry is “Compact Emotion”. So when I found that my translations are mulitiplying the word count at least three or five times, I knew right there I’m losing something. This is the last of the lyrical pieces on the “Pelita Hidup” album, and for me it was the hardest. I think I’ll go back to nursery rhymes after this; it’s more at my level. Anyone know where to get lyrics for “Bangau O Bangau”?
Hijjaz – Hidupnya Insan
Hidupnya insan
Tiada yang abadi
Menunggu saat panggilan azali
Hilanglah nafas tak bergerak lagi
Tanah perkuburan kita bersemadi
This worldly life
Is not forever
Waiting for the moment of the call to eternity
Lose your breath, no more movement
In the cemetery soil we rest
More Nasyid Translations
Continuing on with translations from Hijjaz’s wonderful Pelita Hidup album, here is the next in the series, Kala Subuh:
Hijjaz – Kala Subuh
Kala subuh telah bersinar
Daku datang untuk berdoa
Kala sang suria bersinar memancar
Daku datang sujud dan memuja
When dawn has begun to gleam
I come to supplicate
When the sun is pouring out its radiance
I come to worship and prostrate
I come to supplicate
When the sun is pouring out its radiance
I come to worship and prostrate
Mata Hati
Hijjaz – Mata Hati
Pandangan mata selalu menipu
Pandangan akal selalu tersalah
Pandangan nafsu selalu melulu
Pandangan hati itu yang hakiki
Kalau hati itu bersih
The vision of the eye always lies
The vision of the intellect always errs
The vision of the ego always strays
The vision of the heart will be true
If that heart is pure
A Little Steep
OK, I’m still loving MT and all, but let me tell you: The learning curve is a bit steep. But after reloading the site from scratch for the third time, I think I’m finally where I want to be for a while. The four posts previous to this one were manually cut-and-pasted back into MT, so they may differ ever so slightly from how they were first published. Their file names have also changed, unfortunately. Still on the to-do list is to restore the great comments I got on the AIDS posts after Build 1. Thank you for your patience!
Pelita Hidup
One of my favorite Nasheed albums is called Pelita Hidup, by the Malaysian group Hijjaz. It is filled with beautiful duas, zikr, and nasheeds, very much a meditative album. Many of the songs deal with the certainty of death and the life of the grave. I’ve translated them and passed them on to Nasheed World. I will reproduce them here as well.
Hijjaz – Pelita Hidup
Hidup ini bagai lampu dinding
Yang dinyalakan dimalam hari
Apabila minyak sudah kering
Ia kan pasti padam sendiri
This life is like the lantern
That burns through the night
When the oil has dried out
It must surely extinguish itself
That burns through the night
When the oil has dried out
It must surely extinguish itself
Demikian juga hidup manusia
Selama hidup di dunia ini
Bila dah cukup umur usia
Putuslah hubungan disana sini
So also the life of Man
As long as he lives in this world
When enough of his lifetime has passed
Every relationship is severed
As long as he lives in this world
When enough of his lifetime has passed
Every relationship is severed
Setelah kita tinggalkan dunia
Alam yang lain pula menanti
Apakah kita dapat kurnia
Itu melihat amal danbakti
After we leave this world
Lo! Another world awaits us
What will get us good favor
That we show our good work and devotion
Lo! Another world awaits us
What will get us good favor
That we show our good work and devotion
Di sana insan cemas dan bimbang
Tak dapat lagi buat alasan
Buruk dan baik akan ditimbang
Kedua-duanya dapat balasan
There Man is fearful and nervous
No more excuses can be made
The bad and the good will be weighed
Together they give the answer
No more excuses can be made
The bad and the good will be weighed
Together they give the answer