Breathe

Yesterday evening (around 6.30pm), our youngest son experienced difficulty of breathing and caused a slight panic at home. Ihsan, who was still at home immediately brought him to a nearby clinic in Centrio, S2 (Klinik Al-Ansar). Me and my other half, moments later, went to check on his treatment. He was given an inhaler to help him breathe. The doctor told us his oxygen level had dropped to around 95% and it had slowly increased to 97% (when we were there). My other half told me that earlier his feet was bluish showing the lack of oxygen. He was still having difficulty breathing after the inhaler treatment, then the doctor gave him a steroid injection as further treatment.

(Source: https://www.cosinuss.com/en/measured-data/vital-signs/oxygen-saturation/)

Our youngest son Izzuddin was having a slight fever before this but his difficulty in breathing began after he ate some Raya gift cookies that had bright purple colouring. There was a suspicion then that it might be an allergic reaction due to the food dye but it was rather immediate I thought. His breathing had not improved when we reached home. Thus, we decided to bring him to Columbia Hospital for a closer inspection. Over there, he was given an adrenaline shot and he was put under observation for a few hours. Blood samples were taken to run some tests (e.g. Covid, influenza) and X-ray was also done (to check blockages). We were tolf that he might be warded if his condition did not improve (I was already thinking of the hospital expenses).We waited until way past midnight when the doctor called us back. His blood test results mostly were normal apart from white blood cell count i.e. there is certainly bacterial infection. We were asked whther if we want him to be observed at the hospital (warded) or we can do that at home. We opted for the latter. The bill comes to excess of RM700 but if warded, it would easily be a few thousands.

I was still puzzled by what happened because he was breathing fine in the morning (apart from the fever). I thought about what other food he has taken besides the Raya gift cookies. Then I remembered that I bought him some food for his lunch since we were fasting that day. I pulled up this article just to check but of course nothing is confirmed, just mere suspicion. Showed this to my family just to let them know. If that is the cause, then it would have been my fault (and serves me right in paying the hospital bill). As I said, nothing is confirmed and my son is still resting. The suspected raya cookies? Well, I have it in my room for me to eat ....

Added mischievous note (just to add the mystical element): Today, just before Ihsan went back to JB, one of our teapot (another one?) broke a hole on washing ...

... probably due to thermal stresses.

Eid Weekend Visits

Early Saturday morning, my second son Ihsan came back home from JB simply because he wanted to make visits to my side of family (in the past years, he was unable to do such visits due to work). This visit was spontaneously planned by my other half and Ihsan with my sisters-in-law in Kepong, wives (Maimunah and Raja Faridah) of my two late eldest brothers (Aminuddin and Zainal Abidin). It is actually convenient that both of them live in the same neighbourhood separated by only several houses.

Ihsan actually began his journey home way before Fajr prayers and he arrved in Seremban aroung half past eight. After getting some rest, we headed off to Kepong around 10 am. Here are the pics from the visits:

For my other family members, we will have to do the visits at another time. During this visit, I was reminded also of my late third eldest brother, Ahmad Tajuddin. So today, I took out the following three books which I have 'pinched' from my late brother's collection, in the hope of reading them in memory of my late brother. 

May Allah forgive my late brothers and place their souls among the company of the Blessed.

Today, we went to visit my brother-in-law (the elder brother of my other half) in Sikamat.

After the visit today, I saw that Mehdi Hassan had interviewed Prof. Jiang in my FB feed. Unfortunately the post was only video snippets of the full interview, but I already saw that Mehdi was asking questions rather aggressively, almost bordering on disrespect. One snippet showed Mehdi questioning the professor title of Prof. Jiang and I could not see Jiang's full response to this (I have addressed this before in an earlier post). The one snippet I was really interested in seeing Jiang's response was during Mehdi's retort to Jiang's remark of academia being overly focused on facts and rigour. I'm very much aware that Jiang tend to use (loose) narrative tools in building up his predictions and as such is open to hidden assumptions and imprecise notions. Much of his allusion to game theory are essentially qualitative but yet includes a sense of ordinality in his game-theoretic parameters. Thus framing him as Nostradamus of the East is rather inappropriate. I also saw that some have expressed ridicule about him and dismissed him altogether. For me, I have learned several new things from him despite the speculative arguments. His appeal to 'eschatological' and 'conspiracy' elements certainly would have been dismissed by default in academic circles (see this fair criticism by Prof. Tim Wilson), but such elements also made him 'unique' (or 'entertaining' in the words of Prof. Wilson). Reality check: some of the events of the world e.g. the war, are indeed propelled by eschatological elements (see this post). Making such elements available in his 'predictive framework' may indeed be logic defying but it can approximate better a reality that involve irrational players/agents. On top of the criticisms expounded by many, I would raise another 'personal criticism' on Jiang's work: he placed too much emphasis in 'creativity' in his work and this may lead to a delusional path (note this defect is also seen in some hard sciences). Misplaced creativity or not, one could always be open to 'alternate realities' without necessarily believing in them.

Here ia an alternate reality where my three-legged cat being surprised in the appearance of an extra limb:

Peering Into the Shadowy World

It seems that the world is currently at a dangerous phase with war being (partly) motivated by the desire of hastening the end times. Recently, there was even a crusader-like call, (almost) demonizing Muslims perhaps in justifying the current war. There was also a podcast that questions which of the Abrahamic faiths is the most violent and the interviewee answered Islam. He went on to say something disrespectful about the Prophet and the Companions. He even questioned that the Prophet Muhammad pbuh can't even be traced back to Prophet Abraham pbuh. I guess the ignorant audience might be bought in with this claim. I'm no religious scholar but this is indeed false since the ancestral tree of the Prophet is known (see pic below) and this is further backed up with the strong science of chain of narrators in Islam.

In a way, the interviewee is either uninformed (ignorance) or simply disbelieve in the given literature (usually out of arrogance). The former is perhaps more acceptable because to be informed, one has to invest some time and energy to dig up and read existing literature. In a way, many fall in this category since the commitment is not there. Even Prof. Jiang is guilty of this when I heard in one of hs lectures, he claimed that not much is known about the early life of Prophet Muhammad pbuh. While the primary literature is in Arabic, much of these has been translated.

At this juncture, one could raise the point of one's predisposition from one's upbringing and environment in deciding whether one should further invest time in digging up the needed literature to realise one's thought is faulty or not. I certainly agree to this but with the additional reminder that thoughts are dynamical. Just like Prof. Jiang's belief has changed from an atheistic position to the position he is taking now. Note that the discussion here is about one's predisposition in deciding to check one's thought is faulty or not and not about faith itself. On faith, Prof. Jiang's position on Islam is that it is too simple and maybe he will reexamine this in the future. In Islam, there is no compulsion in religion (see Al-Baqarah verse 256) and Allah guides whom He pleases (see Al-Qasas verse 56). To show even for muslims, the faith itself is dynamical and we are recommended to recite the prayer as mentioned in Yusuf verse 101. Again, by stating all these, I am merely reminding my own self and those who wish to listen.

When I started to listen to more of Prof. Jiang's lectures, I was surprised to hear him touch upon secret societies. In normal (innocent) times, the default reaction would be dismissed as conspiracy theorist. But then came the release of the E*stein files that would make some of the conspiracies seem mild. I have not bothered to look at those (don't have the stomach for it) but one can find them in jmail (probably need a vpn, I think) or an AI-driven website which I personally have not tried using it. For me, it is enough for me to listen to some podcast of others who had gone through some of the files (there are 3.5 million files that have been released and God knows how many more that have yet to be released). Why should one be interested in them is partly to understand the alluded shadowy world by Prof. Jiang.

Through his lectures, I get to know about some faith (not of the Eastern ones or of the materialistic beliefs) do not have the idea of the hereafter and that everything is being played out in the present world. This was indeed considered as an 'interesting' question itself by the scholar Dr. Ali Ataei who also cautioned us not to generalize. This takes me back to the years before I go to Cambridge. Having some overseas experience in Adelaide, I thought I should prepare myself for the trip to Cambridge. I started to read and listen to comparative religion; one of the persons I listened to is Gary Miller. From him, I learned about the Red Letter Bible and after a while I was there, I bought the bible just for keeps. No, I'm not going to be a scholar in any sense (I decided that way before arriving in Cambridge, having not known Arabic) but I would like to be in the know. I still have the bible at home somewhere. During the stay there, subject of religion sometimes is brought up in conversation. I remember at the time, the world is prepping up for the Iraq-Kuwait war and I had a Part III friend making somewhat derogatory statement on religion. Later, he came to my room in Darwin College and had told him I'm a Muslim and read the Qur'an. He asked for me to open up a random page in the Qur'an and it so happened to be Surah An-Naml describing ants communicating with each other. I can't remember what discussions happened thereafter but I think it took him by surprise. 

Back to my newly found knowledge of a faith (derived from an Abrahamic faith) that has no hereafter, it is 'no wonder' that there are efforts to hasten the end times. Indeed some even believe in the idea of redemption through sinning. Some transgressed into forms of sex rituals that I would in the past attribute to devil worshipping. Deep diving into some of the stuff 'led me' to existing literature in black magic. It got me scared even to see these materials; the same feeling when I bought a locally written book of the known names of djinns (bought mainly to be careful not to invoke such names but in the end I did not 'read' it). I rather not write any references to these to save readers from jumping into the rabbit hole. I'm reminded of the Qur'anic ayat 

The Cow (2:102) 

وَٱتَّبَعُوا۟ مَا تَتْلُوا۟ ٱلشَّيَـٰطِينُ عَلَىٰ مُلْكِ سُلَيْمَـٰنَ ۖ وَمَا كَفَرَ سُلَيْمَـٰنُ وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱلشَّيَـٰطِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ يُعَلِّمُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ ٱلسِّحْرَ وَمَآ أُنزِلَ عَلَى ٱلْمَلَكَيْنِ بِبَابِلَ هَـٰرُوتَ وَمَـٰرُوتَ ۚ وَمَا يُعَلِّمَانِ مِنْ أَحَدٍ حَتَّىٰ يَقُولَآ إِنَّمَا نَحْنُ فِتْنَةٌۭ فَلَا تَكْفُرْ ۖ فَيَتَعَلَّمُونَ مِنْهُمَا مَا يُفَرِّقُونَ بِهِۦ بَيْنَ ٱلْمَرْءِ وَزَوْجِهِۦ ۚ وَمَا هُم بِضَآرِّينَ بِهِۦ مِنْ أَحَدٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ وَيَتَعَلَّمُونَ مَا يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلَا يَنفَعُهُمْ ۚ وَلَقَدْ عَلِمُوا۟ لَمَنِ ٱشْتَرَىٰهُ مَا لَهُۥ فِى ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ مِنْ خَلَـٰقٍۢ ۚ وَلَبِئْسَ مَا شَرَوْا۟ بِهِۦٓ أَنفُسَهُمْ ۚ لَوْ كَانُوا۟ يَعْلَمُونَ ١٠٢

They ˹instead˺ followed the magic promoted by the devils during the reign of Solomon. Never did Solomon disbelieve, rather the devils disbelieved. They taught magic to the people, along with what had been revealed to the two angels, Hârût and Mârût, in Babylon. The two angels never taught anyone without saying, “We are only a test ˹for you˺, so do not abandon ˹your˺ faith.” Yet people learned ˹magic˺ that caused a rift ˹even˺ between husband and wife; although their magic could not harm anyone except by Allah’s Will. They learned what harmed them and did not benefit them—although they already knew that whoever buys into magic would have no share in the Hereafter. Miserable indeed was the price for which they sold their souls, if only they knew!

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran

Thus, I refrained from reading too much on these (at the time it was almost Ramadhan) and limit myself to Prof. Jiang's lectures and other commentaries. Besides these, videos of commentaries on E*stein files and interviews of ex-intelligentsia agents keep popping up on my feed. Now, some may say why bother with these (commentaries on) E*stein files. For me, some of these have bearing on major world events and learning from these commentaries is like learning on how some things in the world works (just like physics). Is it something definitive? To muslims, God is the Best of all planners and evil is NOT as powerful as some might perceived them to be. Allah knows best.

I end this post with praying that we be protected from all forms of calamities that may befall upon the world due to all these fasadists.

1 Shawwal 1447

Yesterday was our 'Eid celebration marking the end of our fasting month. As I have mentioned in my previous post, there are less reasons for us to celebrate, Not much has changed amounting to some form of frustration. I decided to stay home (and not go anywhere) to babysit the cats (all cat 'hotels' were fully booked - our mistake for not making early bookings) and to keep company our third son who has things to do. The rest of the family went back to Segamat for my other half's family gathering.

Before they went back to Segamat, we took some pics (see below).

For 'Eid prayers, we initially went To Masjid Hussain but it was full with scores of people waiting outside hoping there will be additional spaces as people stand up for the prayers.

We decided to turn back to our local surau, Surau al-Qudwah and ther we manage to get some space outside the main prayer hall.

Today, I have yet to plan what to do.

27 Ramadhan 1447

It is already 27 Ramadhan and we have at least another two days to go (if 'Eid is on Friday). We are experiencing some problems this year (it could have been much better). Nevertheless, I accept this as fate. In many ways, we have less reason to celebrate this year but celebrate we must as it is an obligation at least for one day. We are hanging on to our prayers for some things to change, there is still a chance for at least the forthcoming two days.

This month, finance is tighter than usual; I just renewed my road tax and insurance for my Malibu last Thursday. Also, food spending tend to be higher this time but no regrets. I will be waiting for the next pension pay after paying my regular bills. It will be this way from now on, waiting for one paycheck to another, alhamdulillah. Next, I will have to pay my youngest's semester fees. In my head, sometimes I wish I was a tad more 'richer' than I am (if only I had a professorship pension but then we are reminded not to say 'if' as it opens the door to evil desires - no real regrets). With the war going on, don't expect it to get better financewise. Reminding myself, rezeqi comes in many forms. 

Some changes for my cats though; we have placed a cage just on the balcony such that the cats can slip through the balcony grill into the cage. In that way, my cats can have some whiff of the morning fresh air before the weather gets too hot outside.

Keeping myself updated on world affairs, muslims have been barred from performing prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque since the beginning of Ramadhan and the news over the weekend said that it will be extended even after 'Eid. Pray that nothing bad will happen (note the prediction of Prof. Jiang in my last post). There is much evil in this world (I am avoiding to post some of the things I have learned on this matter during Ramadhan). 

Speaking of Prof. Jiang, I know some speak unfavourably of him. Among these is the question of the title 'professor', but I take this as merely as simply what people has called him out of respect for his knowledge. In a way, I experienced a similar thing when people call me 'professor' despite not having a full professorship. In the beginning, I tried to explain it to people who do so but after a while one just got tired of it and let it go. I think Jiang has no qualms if people had called him simply by his name. In a recent interview by Gita Wirjawan, he was simply addressed by his name; the interview also gave his humble beginnings and how he had struggled. I was surprised that at some point he was into particle physics (his idol being Richard Feynman) but later changed to English literature.

One small happy note in this post, is the (in-press) publication of Dr. Mohammed (former PhD student) which was worked on months before the new year. During Ramdhan, we worked on another possible publication and has been submitted to a journal.

Grave

This morning, we visited my mum's grave at Tuan Haji Said Cemetery. This has been an annual practice (during or before 'Eid). We did some cleaning of the grave (see pics below). Thereafter, we recited some prayers. May Allah blessed her with His Grace and grant her jannah.

This cemetery is now already closed since it is full. So possibly if I go, I will be buried at the new location in Senawang.

I have not touched in my previous posts, the grave situation of the war in middle east. It has entered the 15th day and it has already impacted the oil prices. Locally, there is already petrol price hike and naturally, soon there will be price hike in other goods. I have been updating my family on the war all this while. I have been listening to many podcasts and commentaries on the war in order to understand what is going on. Despite all the cover stories being given, the objective of the war is to initiate a 'regime change'. But as Scott Ritter has remarked, 'regime change' can cut both ways and we will see how the war unfolds. The other disturbing (hidden) objective is to hasten armaggedon. No muslim would really want to do this as this would mean everyone is subject to a great tribulation. I have also been listening quite frequently to Prof. Jiang whose rising fame for his predictions have made him being sought after by many. I saw many dismissed his ideas as being presumptuous but with all the uncertainties and hidden information, one is simply curious on what his predictions are. I have seen his second interview by Sneako and Sneako's review of his recent lecture and saw how his flow of 'detailed' reasoning and I find it interesting. One of the new things that I have learned is the universal law of game theory:

winning is determined by (mass × energy × coordination)

where mass translates to number of people, energy translates to the motivation or commitment, and coordination is simply how people work together. Prof. Jiang applied this to the current war and some of his predictions are counterintuitive. Like many things, one should only take such predictions with a handful of salt. One prediction that I find disturbing is the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque (God forbid), the third holiest site of Islam. As far as my casual search of this matter, there is no authentic hadith that mentions this.

Having touched upon armageddon, I have bought several books on Islamic eschatology in the past. I have dug out this one 30-page booklet a long time ago and left it visibly on my pile of books at my work desk. The book was written in the early 80s and it had this picture.

As I have said before, no sane person (Muslim) would want to see the End Times during one's lifetime due to the great tribulations that come with it. Thus, I would not want to see the current war to initiate the End Times. Nevertheless, a Muslim will usually be on the lookout of major events in this world that might point to the end of the world. Let is be reminded of this hadith:

Even if the Resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it. (see here)

May Allah help us all.

The Loss

On 18 Ramadhan, The Royal Professor Tan Sri Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas has left us. I am making this post just to put this on record in my blog.

I did not have the luxury of meeting him and neither am I directly a student of the late professor. But I have read about him and have read some of his books. I will not say much about his work and let more qualified scholars to do this. I will paste the pic below as a quick info about the late professor.

Note that I have pinched the above two pics from social media postings of the Prime Minister's Office and Bernama.

When I first saw the news, I was about to rest in bed. I got up and went to pick up one of his book from my library and post the pic below on FB with the wording "Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we shall return". I chose this book in particular (I have others) because it might not be that known to the local readers.

The book is published by Mansell Publishing Limited and I bought it while I was in Cambrdge (I think). I can't remember precisely where I bought it, but I think it was from a small bookstore of Islamic Text Society, (where I have bought other books Of Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Gai Eaton) and the book costs twenty pounds.

This edition of the book compiles his earlier monograph "Islam and Secularism" (I don't have this book to compare the contents) and additional materals from his papers in Chapters 6 & 7. This edition of the book is probably hard to get nowadays and hence the decision to post this.

I can't remember precisely when I first heard about the late Prof. Al-Attas. In the mid 1980s, after my BSc studies, I undergo some form of religious awakening and I start to buy many books on Islamic topics. Naturally, before I went to Cambridge for my Part III of Mathematical Tripos, I have already accumulated plenty of Islamic books. If I'm not mistaken at that time, I have subscribed to Afkar Inquiry magazine. It is within some issues of this magazine, I get to know that the late Prof. Al-Attas was a famous scholar revered by many particularly the columnists of the magazine (they called themselves as the Ijmali school with names like Ziauddin Sardar, S. Pervez Mansoor, Merryl Wyn Davies, Gulzar Haider and many more).

And it is from this knowledge, that I bought the above book "Islam, Secularism and the Philosophy of the Future". Coming back to Malaysia, I began to buy more of his books and monographs.

With his passing, the Islamic world has lost a great scholar. May his students, both here and abroad, continue his legacy with deep sophisticated writings, respected by the international community.