Tanahairku Countdown 1: Food and Home-schooling

Food

 

I hope to return to Malaysia for good some time around end of February or March, Insya Allah. It must be very delighted to be able to see the loved ones after having left them for almost four years now. Some of them have already returned to the Abode of the Mercy. Everyone is eagerly asking about our departure date. As for my wife, she has started thinking of all her favourite Malay delicacy that she has been missing for the last four years. I can't really be bothered too much with food. After all, its delight is only when it touches your tongue. Once it slides in the throat, the pleasure has diminished and gone forever. It is now, at least partly,  in the form of bodily excretion.  

 

Great scholars and saints do not place much emphasis on food. For them food only means to keep them alive or what they said, 'to ensure your backbone is straight'. If they could live without food, they would love to do so. The sufi saint of the twentienth century,   Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawi, may Allah sanctify his soul, has no appetite at all to eat. His daily diet consisted of no more than one litre of milk, a few dried dates, one or two bananas and some tea until he was too skinny like 'an organism' according to his private doctor, Dr. Marcel Carret.

 

Talking about food, yesterday, Sheikh Abdel Aziz reminded us of a story of a Sufi who was asked by a King to give him a piece of advice. The Sufi asked, if you were dying of thirst, would you be willing to give up half of your kingdom in exchange of a glass of water? The King replied, yes. So the Sufi said: the value of your kingdom is just a glass of water and urine that came out from the water you just drank. So he left. Contemplate yourself on the moral of the story!.

 

It also reminds me of an observation made by a Sufi who according to him, that all great Saints shared these three features in common: they eat less, talk less and sleep less. O Allah! please grants us these three attributes that we have been struggling to inculcate.

 

Home-schooling

 

Thinking about returning to Malaysia scares me very much (they say: scare like hell). There is a long list of issues, that since the past four years I have been having 'peace of mind', as they say it here, began to resurface. Thefts, drug-addicts, bag-snacthers, car-breakers, traffic-jams... you name it you have it!

 

Anyway, that is life in Tanahairku, and I can't run away from them forever but to face them all. May Allah protect and help me.

 

But what worries me more is my children's education. They are all well-schooled here. No heavy bags to carry, no list of homework, no 'lion-like' face teachers that they are going to see everyday for any slip-up, no... All my three kids said, they have enjoyed schooling here. From the experience of my colleagues  who have returned, most of them complained how the schools in Tanahairku failed to accommodate these young kids returning from abroad to their homeland .

 

Even before I came to the UK, I protested the way our schools are run. Children are burdened with lots of subjects to study, memorised all unnecessary information and dates which they are not going to use them anyway. Not all of them. Never have they been motivated to think and reflect, on the contrary everything is spoon-fed. As for Islam, it is not properly taught in schools. Parents wishing to have Islamic education got to send them to evening classes or private schools. Why can't the government integrate the two systems, Islamic and national vernacular systems? Isn't it ridiculous to have as the present?  J-Qaf is far from sufficient to impart Islamic knowledge to the students. After all it is not compulsory for them to attend, as I was told. The separate but pertinent issue is on the deteriorating level of discipline in our schools among the students which is also alarming.

 

The integrated Islamic private schools, I was told are mushroomed now because of the high demand. But these schools are charging exorbitantly and it has become very commercialised and profiteering. The government should step in and revise our education system if the people now have shifted to private schools and have lost their trust in government schools. If you want to have Islam plus English, then send them to International Islamic schools. Again, the problem is with the fees which are unbearable. It is very unfortunate that ISLAM is not given much emphasised in Islam-Hadhari schools.

 

It is a fact that many businessmen, politicians and even some VIPS or Ministers send their own children to International schools and abroad. The leaders themselves have looked down on our school systems, how could one expect the opposite from the members of the public?

 

Having said all this: i.e my distrust of our vernacular education system and my financially incapability of sending my children to the International Islamic school, we have been thinking seriously now of home-school them. I do not want to gamble with my children's future. Their future is not just in this world but even after that. I don't think government schools are capable of educating my children the manner I want them to be.

 

My children's education is my priority now. The first thing they must comprehend very well is ISLAM. Other things can come later for they are all secondary. It is crucial for the parents to save their families from the Hellfire in the Next World, as God says. And that's only possible if and only if they are good Muslims. It doesn't matter what my children are going to be in this temporary world, I don't care. Even if they are not engineers or doctors, ALlah will take care of them if they are good obedient Muslims, Insya ALlah. Hopefully we shall be together again as a family in the paradise, Insya Allah. I hope I will make a correct decision to home-school them, Insya Allah.

 

May Allah help us and make ease our path to Him.