Ustazs stories

The picture above is from flickr.

At last after so many presentations, many “burn a midnight oil” nights.. yours truly get to start that much–awaited operation.. drilling two wells (back to back) to determine the presence of oil leg.. hoping to turn two proven gas fields to two proven oil fields, InsyaALLAH… I am so excited about all this that I am going to show you a part of the digital copy of the approval that allow the drilling rig at the location..

Psst ..in all my 30+years in this business.. this is the first time I see this kind of approval ;)

I have not been updating this blog since first Ramadhan and thought I would like to share with readers some of the not so good stories gathered at the surau tazkirahs.. I am not putting these stories to ridicule anybody, they are recorded here just to remind us the condition of some of our brothers-in-religion.

The ustaz(teacher) was going to a mosque about 40 km from his place in Penang. He started at 6 p.m. hoping to reach the mosque in time for Maghrib (sunset) prayer. Somehow there was a massive jam on the Penang Bridge - a car has turned turtle and he only managed to reach the mainland at about half past 7 p.m. After travelling for sometime, he told his friend that they have to stop for Maghrib prayer. They finally stopped at a small madrasah, a small building used by Muslim to conduct their Jumaah (congregational) prayer.

There seemed to be some confusion as there were men who have completed their prayer, some who were in the middle of doing it and others who are talking (rather unhappily) about it. Somebody in the group came to ustaz and said “you are wearing a headgear that is rather tall.. may be you can solve our problem” The ustaz said he do not know much.. but the man said “you see.. our imam (the one who lead congregational prayer) stopped his prayer in the middle of sujud (prostration) and we waited and waited until somebody raised his head from sujud and quipped - the imam has ran away!”. They stopped their prayer and searched for the imam and found him to be sitting on madrasah’s verandah smoking his cigarette.

The man (who is supposed to be imam) said “I told you all that I do not know how to lead the prayer (be an imam).. I could not control my fart in the middle of my sujud.. so after I farted.. I did not know what to do.. so I jumped out of the window that was two feet away from the imam's place of prayer and sit on the verandah to cool off..

The ustaz told the crowd that they have no other choice other than to do the congregational prayer again.

This story was related by Chairman of surau committee after a very futile effort of getting ustaz to give a tazkirah at our surau.

Then there was a young man who has fallen for imam’s beautiful daughter.. he came to the mosque for most of prayers wearing nice dress with a piece of cloth (normally used as turban) on his shoulder. After months of befriending the imam, he managed to get the permission to bring his parent to ask for the hand of the imam’s daughter. A marriage quickly followed and on one fine day, the imam told all his children and spouses that they will perform congregational Maghrib prayer at the Imam’s house that day.

The young man brought out his newly married wife to go somewhere and managed to come back to the imam’s house some 10 minute after the Azan (call) for Maghrib prayer.. when he reached the house he noticed that the Imam was leading the prayer.. he joined them and stopped when the Imam finished his prayer..

Somehow his brother in law noticed that the young man prayed only two rakaah instead of the obligatory three rakaah for maghrib prayer.. this fact was relayed to his wife and the wife went to their room to tell her husband..

On hearing that his in-laws were concerned about his two rakaat maghrib prayer .. the young man said “ all of you are the same.. so petty.. I performed a prayer with one rakaat less and you all were making so much noise” ;(

Have a nice search for the night of power.. Lailatul Qadr and Selamat berpuasa to all who fast.

Have a nice weekend to all.