Kota Marudu; Mengayau 18 Nov 2011

I always wanted to spend more time with my colleagues after office hours. But having family and school friends around made it difficult to spare time for activities with them. I often miss the outings; may it be due to work or I've already made plans on the suggested date. So for this BBQ, it was me who chose the date and thanks to my colleagues because it was their jubilance that made it a reality.

I've never been to the Northern part of Sabah before. The farthest I've ever been to would be Tuaran and I've no idea of what lay beyond that. So our first destination was Nadia's house in Kota Marudu.

Honestly, in this naive mind I'd imagined Kota Marudu is a very remote place with only a few blocks of buildings, small dusty road with live stock let loose on the roadside, small wooden unpainted houses and condense untouched greenery.

Okay.. I got one thing correct, Kota Marudu is rich with greenery but there were more buildings than the ones I'd imagined and the roads were not dusty and no live stock was let loose. I happened to be fond of it right away. Such a peaceful place it was.

So that night we had a very pleasant BBQ at Nadia's backyard. Nina marinated the chickens and prawns while I'd volunteered to marinate the mutton. Nina's recipe was excellent; the aroma of the roasted chickens and prawns was tentalizing. She really put a lot of effort to make them. You can see it from the perfection of their presentation and taste! I was working night shift the night before, so I just pour the marinating sauce on the mutton and that was it :P

I really love the atmosphere that night. We shared stories about our new working environment, reminisce some memories during PRP and had hearty laughters too.

Rajin kono.. haha

I slept right away after we'd finished cleaning up. I was too tired since I only slept for about 4 hours after the night shift. In the morning, it was Adah and Nadia's turn to prepare the breakfast. Aan and I was the first to reach for the food when they were served.

Kota Marudu was flagrantly hot during the day. I was sweating profusely and just can't wait to get into Nina's car when it was time for us to go to Kudat that Sunday morning. Adah and I were the only one who haven't been to that famous place. It was a shame on me though since I'm a Sabahan...

We reached the tip of Borneo at around 3pm. We's stopped for lunch and prayer on the way.

Honestly, I immediately fell in love with that place. The white sandy beach with the gentle wave hitting the shore; it was pure tranquility. When I stepped out of the car, a gust of gentle breeze was blowing then I noticed that the sound of waves were muffled by the sound of wind; again tranquility.. It was quite cloudy that evening thus there were only some trace of sunlight but still the aquamarine water glistened to its full glory..

We walked towards this part where there were sand stones and boulders. The waves there were more violent than that on the beach. I stood on the rocks to capture some pictures of the waves but later was scared of the waves. But I think I manage to get a good shot here hehe

Some people say, there are times when you can clearly see the point where the two oceans meet; the South China Sea and Sulu Sea. They say, you can see waves from opposite direction clash with each other in the middle of the sea. I didn't get to see that though.

We actually wanted to visit some other places like the Rungus long house and the bee farm, but then it was already late and suddenly it drizzle so we decided to call everything off and head back to our respective places

It was a short trip but I really enjoy spending times with my friends. And.. I love them very much :)

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Spread the Beauty~

Friend: Hey! How was your Maal Hijrah?
Gg: Good :)
Friend: O.. What's Maal Hijrah anyway? I don't know...
Gg: Hijra is actually the migration of our prophet from Mekah to Madinah to spread Islam. So that marks the starting of the Islamic calendar. So Maal Hijra is actually like a New Year to the Muslims
Friend: So what do you do during Maal Hijra?
Gg: We recite prayers in the evening. Some make resolutions..
Friend: So what's your resolution?
Gg: Wo! haha You wanna know?? Hurm.. to be a better person than I was last year, I guess :P

This brief conversation is the one that compelled me to write this post tonight. The conversation lasted for about a minute and then she was off to settle something elsewhere. Not so much info for her there. But that was the most concise definition of Hijra that I can give her in that short dialogue.

I was aware that dakwah is a resposibility of every Muslim since childhood but I was always having this mindset that I'm in no position to do so. Maybe it was due to my brash demeanour. Others seem to advocate my thinking as well. I was always nagged by the Naqibahs for things I didn't do. My tazkirahs were lame and I know nobody was listening. I was the only one in the prefect board who didn't have any position in BADAR, this Islamic society for students. And I remember very well how my ustaz have to stand beside me before class when the whole class recite the verses that we have to memorize for SPM. That time I refused to recite the verses infront of him. Even as he stood beside me, I stood there with my lips pursed together.




As I grow I learn that there are many ways to contribute in the path of dakwah; and it's not necessarily about being able to convert someone from a non-Muslim to a Muslim. Amr makruf nahi munkar is the most common in my life. But of course I was almost always at the recieving end lah! But what I want to write today is about spreading the beauty of Islam itself..

Recently I was disturbed by news that I know will somehow invoke hatred among religions. I was thinking, what if all of this are not true? then it'll be on us for spreading Fitnah.. but then only Allah knows for He is the All-knowing.

But from my personal experience whereby I have a lot of non-Muslim friends and some are even my best friends, I was never preached. Dialogues between us were always about understanding each others' beliefs just like the one above. I remember one night when I was in form 2, when the lights were already switched off in our dormitory, me and my friend exchanged holy books and we read them as we lie on her bed; me reading the bible and her browsing through a tafseer of mine. So in 2007, there was an interfaith talk in UIA, actually that wasn't my first time browsing through the bible.


Throughout my life, I travelled a lot. I met a lot of people and since I can converse in English quite fluently, so I have no problems communicating with foreigners. I love it actually because that's how I can pratice using proper English without adding any lah and avoid using broken English. They always ask about my faith since it is clear that I'm a Muslim from the scarf that I wear on my head. The most common questions..

Why do you pray 5 times a day?
Why do you have to cover your head?
Why does Muslim accept polygamy?
How you find time to pray 5 times a day?
Why do you fast?


See the pattern of their questions? They are trying to seek the justification of Islamic practice. They know that Muslims practice this and that but they don't know why. And when they understand, they accept it and show their respect. And to some who don't seek to understand, these are the people who ridicule, belittle and say all those bad things about Islam in the internet.. Which finally induce hatred.

Okay.. What I'm trying to say here is..

Firstly, if you hear or read anything that you think provocative and can induce hatred towards another religion, find your facts!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't take it as it is. If it happen to be true, act accordingly. Don't be engulfed by rage because excessive anger will always , ALWAYS bring about regret


Secondly, SMILE~ :D who knows if that beautiful smile of yours can make someone greet you and start a conversation and even ask you about your faith. *That actually happen to us in Bali. We smiled and the American girl asked "Where are you from? Are you Muslim faith?" she didn't ask anything about Islam lah. We were on this very small boat*


Thirdly, Islamophobia has been around for too long already. Those fallacious bad image of Islam is too well broadcasted that the only way that we can prove that we are not as such is by treating each and every human in this world with equal kindness and compassion.


Finally, Islam is beautiful but sayang the beauty revolves only in our Islamic world and doesn't go out beyond that. Now lets spread the beauty, let it radiate all over the Universe (^^) Let all the inhabitants of planet earth know that Islam is beautiful (^^)/ Chaiyok!!!!!!!!!


Okay ini post sempena maal hijra :)

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Stanley and Sam.. :)

Lately, I didn't have time to finish any fiction. But I've been reading these thin books; <300 pages. Lessons from Stanley the Cat and Letters to Sam.

I bought Lessons from Stanley the Cat first and finished it in mere minutes. It's very simple yet the messages are clear and concise. It tells you of what life lessons you can learn from a pet and I deemed all in it are undeniably correct but are the things that I've failed to notice all these years of having cats in my house.

The author have been observant alright. I love the way how she connects the behaviour of a cat to our daily living. Like this part that I love..

Pursue your goals like prey. Take time to make a good plan and have patience to follow through a number of times. Failure is simply another opportunity to create a different strategy. Do not take mistakes personally

And with these words there is an illustration of a cat in a pouncing position. This is very true, you see. My cats never give up when it comes to getting something that they want. Like if they're hungry, they'll be pestering you by rubbing their body against your feet endlessly. Or they'll just annoy you with their high pitch mewing or just bite your toe and that's when I finally give up and give them what they want.

Letters to Sam~ Hurm.. I've been flipping through the pages of this book in different bookstores for so many times already. Too expensive for its small number of pages. But I finally dicided to buy this book because I needed a book that contains a collection of short stories during my travel. So, this book suits my preference since the letters are divided into several parts.

Daniel Gottlieb, the author, is a Jewish psychologist who'd been a quadriplegic for so many years due to an accident. Sam is actually his grandson who is autistic so he wrote these letters to convey his message about love and life.

In this book, we can see the world from the eyes of the disabled; how he had to deal with sudden changes, heartbreaks, acceptance and finally starting anew. My favourite part in this book would be the part when his wheelchair tires got stuck in a gopher hole. No one was home to assist him so he got stuck there for hours and got frustrated. He yelled and yelled to his frustration. When he got tired, he stopped, and start to notice the singing birds and suddenly he found peace. The birds have been singing all along but he didn't notice it because he was too busy fighting to be 'released' from the gopher hole and was too frustrated when he failed.

The moral from that part of this book is that life can get hard sometimes and we'll cry and rage over it that we can be blinded of the things that give us peace although the things have always been there all along...

So that's it for Books~ Highly recommended for those seeking motivation and inspiration :)

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