Pinocchio and Mubahalah

My youngest son Ali this morning narrated to me a story about Pinnocchio and how every time he lied, his nose grew longer. I laughed to myself how wonderful if the story was a real one, especially in the context of Malaysian politics now, with too much lies, accussations and counter-accussations every day. If the nose grew everytime we lied, then we would not have to make a 'mubahalah' every now and then. The punishment is instant, cash - growing nose for the liers!

We have never experienced the challenge of 'sumpah' as it is happening now. Sumpah is of no value and has no effect on the people lack of taqwa. He could not care less whether the wrath of Allah will befall upon him or not if he lied in the sumpah. Only the muttaqin that fears Allah and His wrath takes sumpah as a grievious matter. There was a time, when a drug addict was spotted wondering around our compound. When we came out, he said he just wanted to drink the water from our tap at the compound. And he sounded like making a sumpah too that 'kita orang, [sumpah Kak] walau macam ni pun kita tak curi barang orang, kita orang nak, kita minta'. I laughed when my wife told about the incident and began reflecting how much of our metal stuff left outside the house had gone missing because of these addicts. And they never requested them from us!