aterrarium

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Umur 20 tahun adalah umur dimana saya mulai bekerja formal di sebuah kantor. Saat ijin mau berkarier, alm bapak memberikan wejangan khusus, wejangan klasik yang saya pikir akan selalu relevan.

Kata bapak saat itu "Kalau kamu ingin karier yang hebat, ada beberapa hal prinsip yang harus dipegang"

1. Jangan pernah tinggalkan sholat demi pekerjaan.

2. Selalu keluar rumah dengan niat ibadah dan baca bismillah.

3. Jangan keminter. Mending dianggap bodo daripada dianggap pinter.

4. Jangan meludahi piring makanmu. Jangan menggigit jari orang yang memberimu makan. Artinya: jangan pernah menjelek2an tempatmu bekerja dan orang yg memberimu pekerjaan. Seburuk apapun, di sana kamu pernah mencari ilmu dan mencari nafkah.

5. Kalau sudah cukup ilmu, jadilah pengusaha. Buka lapangan kerja, perbesar pintu mencari pahala.

Yang no 5 ini kontekstual ya, artinya bapak ngasi nasehat itu karena beliau latar belakang keluarganya adalah entrepreneur. Bukan berarti semua orang tujuan akhirnya harus kesana.

↪ 𝗬𝗢𝗥 & 𝗧𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 + 𝗗𝗢𝗨𝗕𝗧𝗦

Hikmah Berbagi

Aku mengingat sebuah nasihat dari ustadzku, bahwa salah satu keberkahan harta ialah semua orang bisa merasakannya. Semua orang punya harta, tapi tidak semua orang mampu lapang untuk berbagi apa yang mereka punya.

Sebagaimana kebaikan akan melahirkan sebuah kebaikan yang lain, begitu pula dengan pemberian. Akan menularkan yang lain untuk saling berbagi.

Seseorang yang suka memberi, belum tentu punya banyak harta. Bisa jadi mereka hanya punya secukupnya, namun lapang saat berbagi pada yang lain.

Kebiasaan memberi, sejak kecil sudah sering ditanamkan oleh kedua orang tuaku. Bahkan ketika aku membawa bekal dulu, mama memberi lebih supaya aku berbagi pada yang lain. Padahal mah kalo dipikir-pikir, teman-temanku SD dulu banyak yang jauh lebih kaya, kayaknya ya gak perlu dikasih lagi. Eh tapi mereka seneng aja kalau dikasih. Hmm tapi memang bukan itu poinnya.

Bukan tentang seberapa banyak pemberian itu, melainkan rasa tulus dan ikhlas untuk berbagi. Mereka yang diberi merasa diperhatikan, merasa dirangkul.

Seperti sabda Rasulullah, bahwa hadiah/pemberian akan memunculkan rasa sayang dan cinta.

Kami memang bukan orang kaya raya yang bergelimang harta, namun, ayah selalu mengajarkan bahwa memberi orang lain tidak akan mengurangi harta kita sedikitpun.

Toh, harta di dunia ini sebenarnya bukan milik kita, ada hak orang lain disana.

Sampai kuliahpun, mama selalu menasihatiku, "kalau kamu minta bantuan temanmu, atau dia sudah berbuat baik padamu, balaslah. Nggak harus sesuatu yg mahal, hal kecil aja sebagai tanda terimakasih".

"Kalau ada temanmu yang berjualan, belilah sebagai bentuk apresiasi", lanjut ayahku.

"Atau kalo kamu masak apa gitu, temen atau tetangga juga dikasih", tambah mamaku.

Dulu saat kuliah, aku seringkali meminta beberapa temanku untuk mengajariku, belajar bareng, lalu kubawakan nasi bungkus, jajanan atau sekadar minuman. Hal sederhana, namun bisa menguatkan pertemanan itu sendiri.

Pemberian tidak harus berupa sesuatu, bisa juga waktu dan kesediaan kita untuk orang lain. Kita bisa meluangkan waktu dan pikiran kita untuk membantu, menemani, atau mendengarkan mereka.

Aku jadi teringat temanku saat di pesantren dulu. Sebelum ia makan makanannya, teman-teman di sekitarnya ditawari terlebih dahulu, meski hanya sepotong roti.

Setelah itu, banyak juga teman-teman lain yang mencontoh akhlak temanku ini. Betapa banyak pahalanya, bahwa kebaikan selalu akan memunculkan kebaikan lainnya.

Ustadzku yang setiap hari memberi makan santrinya, banyak sekali orang yang ikut memberi uang, sembako, perabotan rumah, juga makanan-makanan mentah maupun matang.

Pernah ketika kondisi finansial ayah memburuk, banyak sekali yang membantu, masyaAllah. Kalau aku inget hal itu, rasanya kayak heran aja kenapa tibatiba banyak saudara maupun teman yang bantu ayah, padahal kadang juga bukan bantuan kecil.

Saat setelah menikah, mama bercerita banyak pada suamiku tentang ayahku yang sering membantu orang lain. Jadi ini alasan kenapa saat ayah berada di bawah, banyak orang yang peduli.

Waktu aku menikah pun, banyak sekali yang mengirimku kado. Padahal aku batalkan semua undangan saat itu karena pengumuman ppkm. Betul sekali kata mama, "Allah yang akan mencukupkan".

Begitulah. Banyak sekali cerita. Aku jadi tau, bahwa dampak berbuat baik ternyata bisa sebesar itu. Itu aja baru Allah balas di dunia, apalagi kalau kita benar-benar ikhlas, kan? Allah balas pahala di akhirat nanti.

Jangan pelit! Berbagi tidak mengurangi sedikitpun apa yang kita punya. Kalau sedikit saja kita enggan, bagaimana kita bisa lapang memberi dalam jumlah yang banyak?

Buntok, 10 November 2021 | Pena Imaji

DAILY DUA

Dua and remembrance after finishing the prayer with salaam #7

لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ ، وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ ، لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ ، يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ ، وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

Translation

The messenger of Allah (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: Whoever says (translation of which is):

"None has the right to be worshipped except Allah, alone, without partner, to Him belongs all sovereignty and praise, He gives life and causes death and He is over all things omnipotent."

ten times is like the one who had freed four souls from among the children of Ismaa'eel.

[In another narration: "who ever says it after Maghrib prayer, Allah will send guardians (i.e. angels) to protect him (or her) from Shaytan until the morning, and will gain ten rewards and get ten bad deeds wiped off of his record"]

*Supplicate ten times in the evening (after the Asr or Maghrib) and in the morning (after Fajr prayers)

Transliteration

laa ilaaha ill-allaahu, waḥdahu laa shareeka lahu, lahul-mulku wa lahul-ḥamdu, yuḥyee wa yumeetu, wa huwa ‛alaa kulli shay’in qadeer

Sources: At-Tirmidhi No# 3534 and 3553

Ramadan is the month of mercy, not the month of perfection. You’ll still make mistakes, and you’ll still fall short at times. But Allah’s mercy remains. Seek it, and don’t give up.

from “The Month of Mercy, Not Perfection: Ramadan Journal” by Umm Zakiyyah

Some of you may have entered Ramadan with a heavy heart. You may have been disconnected from praying, reading Quran and going to the mosque all year so now you feel guilty and ashamed. You may have done things you’re not proud of, made repeated mistakes or lived heedlessly. You are so disheartened that you’re dragging yourself to simply fast and it’s hard for you to even comprehend the excitement others are feeling which leaves you feeling even more inadequate.

It’s ok. You don’t have to be over joyed. You don’t have to compete with others and you don’t have to be perfect. Simply take a small step forward. Simply make your intention to be better than you were yesterday and simply do something- anything that gets you even a little bit closer to Allah.

If you’ve been depleted all year, then this is your time to refuel. If you’ve been heedless, then this is your time to be mindful. If you’ve been disconnected, then this is your time to connect.

Don’t allow your thoughts of inadequacy stop you from embracing this sacred month. Allah is the most forgiving and He will always welcome you no matter how far you have transgressed, how many bad deeds you’ve done and how hopeless you feel.

Feel comforted that you simply need to take that first step with the right intention and before you know it, you will soon feel the sweetness of faith.

This is the month of HOPE! Come as you are, do what you can and trust that you can get back on track!

-Haleh Banani

BASICS OF ISLAM: Fasting: On Fasting&Self-control.Part1

Ramadan is the 9th month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It is a special month of the year for over one billion Muslims throughout the world. 

It is sometimes referred to as the “Sultan of the 11 months.” During this month healthy adult Muslims fast, from the break of dawn until sunset. Fasting requires abstinence from eating, drinking, and intercourse during the daylight hours; that is, about an hour and a half before sunrise until sunset. An early breakfast is recommended in the prophetic tradition, taken before dawn. At the end of the day the fast is broken with a meal called the iftar. It is the prophetic tradition to break the fast with a date, olive or some water.

Ramadan is a time of intensive worship and devotion to God, of reading the Qur’an and reflecting on its teachings, of comprehensive thanksgiving, giving to charity, practicing self-control and kindness, of training oneself to be a better person spiritually and improving relationships with others.

Fasting is not that difficult

To non-Muslims fasting in Ramadan may appear to be a time of hardship and deprivation, but that is not the experience of Muslims. There are at least five ameliorating factors that make fasting much easier than it appears.

These are :

the magic of intention

the community spirit

the ability of the human body to adapt

social/cultural cooperation

divine help

The initial intention significantly reduces the perceived difficulty. Once one commits to fasting, it becomes much more doable and feasible. Knowing and seeing that fellow believers are fasting with you and sharing the early breakfast or the dinner with them strengthens the community spirit. Thirdly, the human body is amazingly adaptable. Within the first few days of fasting the body adapts to the new schedule and one does not feel hunger as one normally would. In communities where Muslims are a majority or a significant minority, there is assistance or cooperation offered to the fasters, such as flexible holidays and working hours. Finally, for any worshipper, there is divine help which eases the task once the worshipper has committed to doing it.

Over 500 million Muslims, from age 9 to 90 fast every year. Fasting does not prevent them from conducting their mundane work or business as usual. As a pillar of the religious life in Islam, fasting is probably the most practiced form of worship. Muslims think of Ramadan as a kind of tune-up for their spiritual lives.

The four dimensions of Ramadan

As the third “pillar,” or religious duty in Islam, fasting has many dimensions:

the behavioral dimension

the religious dimension

the social dimension

the spiritual dimension

The first is the obvious behavioral dimension. Fasting in Ramadan is a means of learning self-control. Due to a lack of preoccupation with the satisfaction of bodily appetites during the daylight hours when fasting, the spirit gains a measure of ascendancy. The soul is freed of the chains placed by carnal desires. Fasting provides a break in the cycle of rigid habits or overindulgence.

During fasting, not only the stomach, but also the tongue, eyes, ears, other limbs, and the heart and mind are equally obligated to be restrained. Just as we control our physical appetites, we also must control our negative emotions and actions. The Messenger of Islam, Muhammad, peace be upon him, expressed that fasting is not only restraining from food and drink, but that it also means refraining from impious acts. He said that if a person does not control their senses and behavior, then God does not require that person to refrain from eating. He added that if someone verbally abuses you, acts ignorantly towards you, or even hurts you, you should respond by only saying, “I am fasting; I am indeed fasting.”

According to the masters of Sufism, the spiritual dimension of Islam, not only one’s organs, but also one’s thoughts and feelings need to be tightly controlled during this month.

Kenapa Kamu Tidak Perlu Insecure?

Setiap individu itu unik. Termasuk kamu. Masing-masing orang punya keterbatasan dalam banyak hal, tetapi dalam ruang keterbatasan yang berbeda-beda itulah justru seseorang dapat unggul.

Kamu bisa membentuk kepribadianmu sendiri secara baik, tapi bukan untuk menyamakan karaktermu dengan karakter orang lain. Seperti halnya Umar ra dan Abu Bakar ra. Mereka tidak memiliki karakter yang sama, meskipun demikian masing-masing mereka merupakan pribadi pahlawan yang kiprahnya terhadap sejarah Islam tak perlu diragukan.

Kedua-duanya berbeda dan kedua-duanya unggul. Umar dikenal dengan karakter tegas dan keras, sedang Abu Bakar dikenal lembut dan penuh perasaan. Namun satu ketika Umar mengakui kekerasan dan ketegasan Abu Bakar memerangi kelompok Islam yang menolak membayar zakat.

Keunikan mereka justru menjadikan mereka bak bintang-bintang yang gemerlapan di langit. Terangnya bintang yang satu tidak memudarkan terangnya bintang yang lain.

So, tidak perlu merasa insecure jika kamu merasa tidak unggul dibanding yang lainnya, bukan tidak ada sebenernya, hanya saja kamu belum mengenal baik siapa dirimu dengan baik, dan apa keunggulannya.

Sambil ngantuk-ngantuk, ada murrotal surat dhuha lewat di Youtube. Tiba-tiba kepikiran sesuatu tapi ndak sempet ngetik panjang. Tapi kalau dirangkum tuh kurang lebih begini:

Allah sudah menjamin kehidupan setiap makhluk-Nya. Hal yang tersulit bagi kita justeru menjaga akal kita agar tetap menghadap kepada Allah saat kita dikaruniai kebahagiaan ataupun diuji dengan kesedihan.

Hal yang perlu kita syukuri adalah....

Permintaan Allah kepada hamba-Nya tidak muluk-muluk. Dia menyediakan ladang amal di setiap kondisi. Dalam kelapangan ataupun kesempitan. Di waktu dhuha ataupun di waktu malam.

Melihat bagian akhir di surat dhuha yang mengajarkan kita untuk berbuat baik kepada dhuafa semacam memberi insight bahwa atas segala hal yang telah lama kita khawatirkan, biarlah semua dalam genggaman Allah. Kita percayakan kepada-Nya.

Selebihnya, seperti firman Allah dalam surat dhuha, kita jalankan peran sebagai manusia untuk berbuat baik kepada sesama dan melindungi yang lebih lemah.

Apa yang ada di bumi itu amanah kita bersama. Kita tidak perlu menjadi orang dengan kemampuan super dan karya monumental. Cukuplah menjadi manusia yang selalu berusaha sadar atas kewajibannya baik di waktu lapang ataupun sempit.

...

Kalau surat Al Fatihah dianggap intisari isi Al Qur'an, mungkin surat dhuha memperjelas Iyyaaka na'budu, wa iyyaka nasta'in. Hanya kepada Allah kita meminta pertolongan. Bahkan untuk menjalankan peran sebagai manusia yang sederhanapun, kita tetap butuh pertolongan dari Allah....

...

Fa amma bini'mati robbika fahaddist. Semoga kita bisa menjadi manusia yang selalu bersyukur dan menampakkan rasa syukur atas nikmat Allah melalui perbuatan baik kepada sesama. Sehingga orang di sekitar kita juga bersyukur atas kehadiran kita. Kemudian rasa syukur mereka juga membuat mereka istiqomah berbuat baik.

...

What a random ~XD

When you having fun and vibing for once and life just-

muslim cats to brighten your day :)

isi tumblr di sini, pindah ke sini ya:

langitimajiner.tumblr.com

bintang musim semi;

kompilasi dari (gagal) menulis.

sebenarnya saya sudah salah langkah dulu, sih, karena malah membuat sideblog sebagai tempat konten utama, alih-alih akun aslinya, haha. jika berkenan, silakan bisa mengikuti blog sebelah; tapi saya tetap hanya bisa menggunakan akun @aterrarium untuk mengetuk like dan mengikuti orang-orang, hehe. tak masalah jika ingin meng-unfollow akun ini :D

Al-‘Abbās, the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, came to the Prophet and said:

“Ya Rasūlullāh, teach me a du'ā’.” .

The Prophet ﷺ said:  “O my uncle, say: اللهم اني اسالك العافية Allāhumma inni asaluka al-‘āfiyah  (O Allāh, I ask you for ‘āfiyah).”

What is ‘āfiyah?  ‘Āfiyah means

To save me from any afflictions.  To be healthy you are in ‘āfiyah.  To have enough money you are in ‘āfiyah.  To have your children protected you are in ‘āfiyah.  And if you are forgiven and not punished you are in 'āfiyah".

Āfiyah means: “O Allāh, protect me from *any* pain and suffering.” (This includes dunya and ākhirah)

Al-'Abbās thought about this for a while, and then he came back after a few days and said:

“Ya Rasūlullāh ﷺ, this du'ā’ seems a little short. I want something big.”

The Prophet ﷺ said, “My dear uncle, ask Allāh ﷻ for 'āfiyah for wallāhi, you cannot be given anything better than 'āfiyah.”

Riyadh As Saliheen,  Sunan At-Tirmidhi

Growth is painful.

Change is painful.

But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong.

Once you get a taste of peace, you’ll cut anybody off to keep it.

thinking about the innocent lives in Iran + Iraq that will be affected by this. thinking about those who will pay the ultimate price for a crime they didn’t commit. thinking about those in the middle east who already are paying that price and have been doing it for so many years and how their deaths are so normalized.

How China Persuaded One Muslim Nation to Keep Silent on Xinjiang Camps

China launched a public-relations campaign to convince religious leaders in Indonesia that its re-education camps in Xinjiang are a well-intentioned effort to provide Uighurs, who are mostly Muslim, with job training and to combat extremism.

A year ago, clerics here in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country expressed alarm over China’s treatment of ethnic-minority Muslims—around a million of whom have been detained in re-education camps, according to human-rights groups.

Leaders of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, issued an open letter in December 2018 noting reports of violence against the “weak and innocent” community of Uighurs, who are mostly Muslims, and appealing to Beijing to explain.

Soon after, Beijing sprang into action with a concerted campaign to convince Indonesia’s religious authorities and journalists that the re-education camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region are a well-meaning effort to provide job training and combat extremism.

More than a dozen top Indonesian religious leaders were taken to Xinjiang and visited re-education facilities. Tours for journalists and academics followed. Chinese authorities gave presentations on terrorist attacks by Uighurs and invited visitors to pray at local mosques. In the camps they visited classrooms where they were told students received training in everything from hotel management to animal husbandry.

Views in Indonesia changed. A senior Muhammadiyah religious scholar who went on the tour was quoted in the group’s official magazine as saying a camp he visited was excellent, had comfortable classrooms and wasn’t like a prison.

China’s effort to shape opinions—bolstered by donations and other financial support—has helped to blunt criticism of its treatment of Uighurs by Muslim-majority nations—in contrast to the outspoken condemnation it has received from the U.S. and other Western nations.

Indonesia has been on the front lines of this effort. For months China has worked to persuade clerics, politicians and journalists to support its policies in Xinjiang and courted social-media influencers to promote a more favorable view of China and showcase Islamic culture in the country.

“There’s a problem” with extremism in Xinjiang “and they’re handling it,” said Masduki Baidlowi, an official with Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, who was also visited the region on the tour. “They provide a solution: life skills, a vocation,” he said.

He acknowledged he had some concerns—there was no place for detainees to pray, for example—which the delegation raised with officials.

Earlier this month, a top Xinjiang government official said all students learning vocational skills at the centers had graduated. Rights activists expressed skepticism that this meant all detained Muslims had been released.

Journalists from Indonesia and Malaysia conducted an interview at an Islamic college in Urumqi, Xinjiang, on March 1, 2019. PHOTO: XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

In July, a host of Muslim-majority nations, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, joined North Korea, Myanmar and others in signing a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council praising China’s governance of Xinjiang.

“Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded,” the letter said.

Uighur activists, in contrast, condemn China’s actions in Xinjiang, saying China is wrongfully imprisoning large portions of the population, breaking up families, silencing intellectuals and razing holy sites as it seeks to destroy Uighurs’ religion and culture and force them to assimilate into broader Chinese society.

The U.S. government says China has detained more than one million Muslims, and groups such as Human Rights Watch have offered similar estimates. Individuals can be targeted for matters as minor as reciting from the Quran at a funeral, according to the U.S. State Department.

Said Aqil Siroj, who heads Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, has written that people shouldn’t rely on media and international television reports to understand Xinjiang. PHOTO: DIMAS ARDIAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A message from a Communist Party commission in charge of Xinjiang security encouraged cadres there in Xinjiang to “promote the repentance and confession of the students for them to understand deeply the illegal, criminal, and dangerous nature of their past behavior,” according to documents uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

China has built up goodwill in Indonesia in recent years through programs like scholarships for students affiliated with Nahdlatul Ulama, which has tens of millions of followers and presents itself as a champion of moderate Islam. This year, Nahdlatul Ulama’s Beijing branch published a book of essays by supporters who had studied in China, some of which questioned the scale of the camp system and whether Muslims were mistreated.

Nahdlatul Ulama head Said Aqil Siroj —who has broken the fast on Ramadan for years with China’s ambassador—implored readers in the book’s foreword not to rely on media and international television reports to understand Xinjiang.

Mr. Siroj didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment. A senior official at Nahdlatul Ulama didn’t respond to a message asking about China’s possible influence over the organization.

Not all Muslim clerics who have gone on China-sponsored trips to Xinjiang have backed China’s line. Muhyiddin Junaidi, head of international relations for Majelis Ulama Indonesia, a powerful Indonesian clerical body, said that his February visit was tightly controlled and that Uighurs he met seemed afraid to express themselves.

A photo from Sept. 13, 2019, shows what used to be a Uighur cemetery, in Kuche, Xinjiang. PHOTO: HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

He said Beijing’s frequent invitations to influential Indonesians was designed to “brainwash public opinion,” and criticized Indonesian Muslims he said had become apologists for China.

Still, the blizzard of outreach has made it difficult for more-critical Indonesian Muslim scholars to speak out. One prominent Indonesian Islamic scholar opposed to China’s policies in Xinjiang posted a critical report by Human Rights Watch on his Facebook page, only to be accused by other Muslim leaders of amplifying Western propaganda.

The U.S. has countered by having diplomats meet and pose skeptical questions to clerics after Xinjiang tours.

In August, the U.S. sponsored a Facebook Live discussion on China’s alleged mistreatment of Muslim minorities “to draw attention to these abuses,” according to a notice for the event, and invited Indonesians to attend a meeting in a mall.

U.S. diplomats have also lobbied Indonesian counterparts to press Chinese officials to release ethnic minority Muslims, a person familiar with the effort said. U.S. officials “realize that the Chinese embassy is doing similar things, with—frustratingly—a bigger budget,” the person said.

“We have expressed our concerns about China’s treatment of its own citizens in meetings with Indonesian officials and members of civil society,” a U.S. Embassy official said.

Bayu Hermawan, a journalist for Indonesian newspaper Republika, traveled to Xinjiang on a Beijing-organized tour in February, and wrote articles that cited camp residents who said they weren’t given trials or were brought in for offenses like adhering to a Muslim diet.

Mr. Hermawan received a WhatsApp message from a Chinese embassy employee in Jakarta, saying he was disappointed by the article because it had errors and didn’t focus on positive aspects of the trip, according to the message shown to The Wall Street Journal.

Around that time, Republika’s website faced a distributed denial-of-service cyberattack, according to two employees, making the website slow to load and inaccessible from abroad. Fitriyan Zamzami, an editor at Republika, said IT workers traced the attack to accounts in places like Bulgaria and Ukraine; still, he said, the timing was suspicious.

China’s Foreign Ministry said that it had no knowledge of this cyberattack and that China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity.

China’s Embassy in Indonesia has also supported tours of Indonesian social-media influencers to visit Chinese cities outside of Xinjiang. This was a part of a broader effort to limit anti-China sentiment in Indonesia and expose Indonesians to Muslim life in China, according to Riyadi Suparno, the head of Tenggara Strategics, an Indonesian investment research and advisory institute that helped organize a recent tour. He said the influencers were paid a per diem of $500 and they were free to post whatever they liked.

“Yes a mosque!” wrote Alya Nurshabrina, a tour participant and former Miss Indonesia to her roughly 86,000 followers on Instagram, outside of one in Beijing. “China welcomes every religion.”

A recent report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a nongovernment organization, found that more than 100 mosques have been damaged or destroyed in Beijing’s recent campaign in Xinjiang. Cemeteries and other structures with Uighur Islamic architecture also have been destroyed.

When asked if her social-media postings offered a misleading portrait of China’s treatment of Islam, Ms. Nurshabrina said her postings reflected her own experiences on the trip.

Omer Kanat, an ethnic Uighur who directs the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington, visited Jakarta earlier this year to lobby Islamic leaders to speak out against what he described as China’s use of detention camps to indoctrinate Uighurs and eliminate Islam.

He said some Indonesian Muslims leaders had already been visited by Chinese diplomats, and they were suspicious, asking him whether it was an American conspiracy that China mistreats Uighurs.

“They were so convinced with what the Chinese said,” Mr. Kanat said.

“That’s the thing about introverts; we wear our chaos in the inside where no-one can see it.”

— Michaela Chung

“I don’t want you to save me. I want you to stand by my side as I save myself.”

— Unknown

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

— J.K. Rowling

“Yes, there are times we live for somebody else.”

— The Lumineers // The Dead Sea

I’m sure you’ve all had days, weeks or even months when you were stretched to the limit. When you felt pressured, overwhelmed and exhausted. You may have felt like you were on the verge of breaking down.

Here are tried and tested remedies for coping with those stressful times:

1. Breathe - take deep breaths to calm your nerves. Breathe in through your nose for 5 second is , hold 5 seconds and breathe out of your mouth for 5 seconds

2. Prayer- prolong your sujood (prostration) and sincerely ask Allah for strength, patience and relief

3. Keep the goal in mind- push through any difficulty remembering how amazing it will be once the goal is achieved

4. Self-care- in the midst of the chaos do things for yourself to revive so you don’t burnout

5. Get Help- know your limitations and don’t hesitate to ask for help whether that’s from family members or outsource sources

6. Trust Allah’s plan- even though a situation may be hard or painful, fully trust that Allah is making everything unfold in the most perfect way

7. Get emotional support-it’s critical to share with your loved ones challenges you’re going through and get their words of encouragement, advice or empathy

8. Remembrance- always keep your lips moist with the remembrance of Allah.

Haleh Banani

2019-08-31

Semalam, seorang temanku lelaki sempat menyatakan,

“Capek ya, mengusahakan perempuan. Harus mulai duluan, harus merendahkan ego sendirian, harus menerima resiko ditidak acuhkan…”

Saat itu aku tersedak, lalu diam menekuri segelas vanilla latte yang sedari tadi sudah keruh sebab teraduk-aduk seperti emosi yang dimilikinya saat ini. Aku menyesap sekaligus menggigit batuan es yang dinginnya membuat mati rasa seperti getir perasaan yang dimilikinya saat ini. 

“Bro.. tau ngga?..” 

Ia menengadah tak melihatku, menerawang pada ambience cafe yang kuningnya redup. Sementara aku tegas menentang wajahnya,

“..di luar sana, sebagian perempuan justru merasa sangat lelah hanya karena menunggu. Cuman - karena - nunggu ….”

Ia tak bergeming. Aku juga jadi bingung sendiri, sebab tetiba menawarkan premis yang tidak setara namun berujung pada silogisme yang sama. Siapa yang akhirnya mengaku ‘paling lelah’ karena semua ini? Entah.

@miftahulfikri 

[ lock screens ] Stray Kids 🞪 Voices M/V

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“You are like night, calmed, constellated. Your silence is star-like, as distant, as true.”

— Pablo Neruda