Suara Hati Ayahku

Salam. Saya menulis dalam B.Inggeris ni berkenaan dengan hak tuntutan hak seseorang termasuk jiran tetangga. Haq- haq ( the man’s own rights?) Every day we hear people talk about their hak ( their individual rights). All walks of life talk about hak. The ladies (muslimat) ask for their hak ..and so does the muslims. This involves about food, shelter, clothings, transports, biological needs etc etc. In short it is about money. Life while managing our money. If any party cannot fulfill their hak, islam allows the partners to ask for divorce. As easy as that! (if you like). Example, you marry an old man age 90 years who fail to walk to all kinds of ceremony while you are just 20 years old. There is a 70 year gap between both of you. Of course there won’t be any hero – heroin resembling to any Hindustani film once you have that huge gap in your age. The children talk about their hak. Their education, food, clothings, pocket money, hand phones, ipads, i-talks, notebooks, tuition, excursion, holidays, and many more. The animals talk about the hak too even though they go very quiet about this. They need food to live. The tigers eat on the goats and the goats eat the grasses out there in the free world. The neighbors , the relatives , our friends .. they invite us for wedding and death occasions. Islam enforce us to attend this invitation for social obligations. The employer talk also about their hak. Once I employ you, I want you to give your maximum effort helping me getting the most returns (money) from this business. I demand you to work honestly, professionally and productively. The employees ( Bangla, Nepal, Indonesian workers) demand their hak also. They want you to pay them their due at the right time. You must pay them correctly else they kill you and your family. Many stories in the daily papers talk about this. In fact every body ask about their hak. Similarly , Islam also demand its hak. In this short writing I would like to relate to an incident where I was invited to attend a ratip occasion (read the kitab Yaseenan - the death of my neighbor). Ratip is a time where we read some verses of Quraan , zikir subhanallah, alhamdulilah, allahu akbar, la ila ha illah llah, salawat Allah hum ma soli ala Muhammad s.a.w. we can read this in a big or small group of local people . Usually the people come from the nearby mosque/masjid. Average age of these people is 50 years old. Since I am in that age zone, I cannot escape being invited so politely by the neighbour. In fact masjid people are perceive to be those who have retired for good. In other words, if you join the masjid, you can take part with any Islamic activities all the times. You are a free man. They say. I could not make the invitation because I want to spend some time reading a report from my PSM2 student. It was written 100 pages long. Since tomorrow is an important day where the student has to present his 1 year work to the external examiners, then I think I must spend more time reading his work. As such I failed to attend the ‘ratip’ occasion. After subuh prayer in the masjid today, somehow, I felt a bit guilty regarding not fulfilling the rights of my neighbours last night. As such I began to talk to myself. He..he.. For your information, well, I cannot do many things at one time. Attend the ratip and reading project work at the same time. The ratip is all Arabic while the project report is done in English. There is no word that sounds parallel in regarding these events. So decision has to be made. If I attend all things, there is a big chance I would not be able to help my student who has worked very hard in his project. If I help my student , his future work , future income, I am thinking at least I play some part on his life while that ratip .. I can read al fatihah to the dead man anytime and at any occasions. The best today , I will meet the man who invited me and give some food (biscuits, condensed milk, bread, sardine) to compensate for my absence. Wallahu aklam. May I have some comment plz? Am I going to be thrown into hell for that?