End of the Road

Once a week, what ought to be an opportunity to guide the ummah, more often than not Friday sermons nowadays are becoming too generalised and sometimes politicised. There are many times when you walked out of the mosque thinking what actually was the message and what should I be doing about it. The Friday sermons here to me are quite good. They really touched the real spiritual issues and left you to think and reflect deeply. Because they are not drafted by some academics sitting in a lofty office but rather by Imams who are on the street, the messages tend to be simple but strong. The topics recently were about being thankful or 'besyukur' for not only when big things come but for everything that are bestowed on us everyday which tend to be taken for granted. The other time was to do with the impact of Ramadan. Most of us adults have performed 30 to 50 full months of fasting in our life, but have we really see changes in the way we conduct our life. In the end it is up to each of us, rich or poor, what we want to prepare for the afterlife. Below is a nice story I came across.

There was a nobleman who decided to take a tour of his county. As he passed by different places, everyone rushed to see him. However, while passing by a certain place, he noticed a poor old man who did not pay any attention to the nobleman's arrival and remained engaged in his own activities. The nobleman went up to this poor man and asked why he did not join the people to see him. The poor man replied, "Before you, there was another nobleman who once passed by this place. Everyone gathered to see him as well. But, few days later he died and was buried in a place nearby. A poor man also died during that time and was buried near the nobleman's grave. After some time, a strong flood passed through that area causing those graves to overturn. As a result, the bones of the poor man became mixed up with those of the nobleman's. We could not differentiate between them any longer. After seeing this, it does not matter to me anymore as to who is a nobleman and who is a beggar. In the end, our home is the same."