Friday

It was on the last Friday. I just finished my asr prayer in the Mosque. Before that, I was attending the talk delivered by a iium lecturer on the topic of nakba(catastrophe), the Palestinians exodus from their land. It has been 60 years since 1948, were Palestine were forcibly ejected from their homes during Arab-Israel war, the land now known as Israel, an illegal state. After asr prayer, I was on the way to my room when I suddenly stop after saw an organization chart of the one of the famous club in this university on the billboard. That club has been established since 2003 for the objective to promote good deeds and also organizing the lectures on Islamic talk. I even attended the talk organized by this club last week, the talk delivered by Imam of Assyakirin Mosque, KLCC. Once again, it was very good talk. It has been a normal for me to pass through the economics kuliyyah , either for purpose to go to the class, mosque, library and central or going back to my room. So, every single new notice on the billboard along the way will be attracting my attention. One of the things that attracted on the billboard is the picture of my friend, who held a position in that club. But, it is not a surprised because from her appearances, from my point of view, she really has credibility. She’s really a good muslimah, always wearing baju kurung and hijab and never wears jeans during the lecture. She’s always sat in front; listen carefully to the lecture in the class.

Sometimes, I wonder how can some of my friends can be involved in that such society or club. I mean that, they have been given responsibility to certain position, mean people have trust on them. As for me, I always think it quit difficult for people to trust me. I have been involved in some societies before, but then I quit because I think people don’t have trust on me. Probably, a lack of communication with the other people make people have less confident on me. Even, I always doubts about myself, did I’m really can take the responsibilities for certain task? Did I’m really a good guy? Did I’m really practicing my religion completely? Or just a guy who always proud to be muslim but not completely follow my religion? Nauzzubillah….

The book I have been read a couple days ago probably give me realization that whatever I do, I should be sincere and so that people will have some believe on me. In whatever we do, we should remind ourselves we are khalifah of Allah that responsibly not only to ourselves but also to others. If you think that just by performing 5 daily prayers, fast in Ramadan, and doing other pillars of Islam are enough to make you a khalifah , probably you are wrong. Being a khalifah not only mean lead yourself to a right but also the other people.

As Prof Dr. Muhammad al'Mahdi written in his book, there three main responsibilities as khalifah ;

1) To perfect yourself

2) To perfect society

3) To perfect the physical world of space and time

To restate it more simply, the three responsibilities of khalifah of Allah are

1) To make yourself good

2) To help others become good

3) To make the physical worlds good(clean and beautiful so it is pleasing to Allah)

We might probably easy to perfect ourselves in accordance with Islam, but to help the other become good, it might be difficult. This is because we are now living in the society which some people think that we cannot interface other people life or privacy. But, the question is what kind of privacy if it’s not in line with Islamic teaching? What kind of privacy that if we let it happen, it will destroy our society and religion? Can we just close our eyes when we see a maksiat occur in front of us? Can we just keep quit when our friends backbiting the others? Can we just let our roommate sleep in morning when we know that he still didn’t perform a subuh prayer?

Probably, those entire things seem a small matter, but the fact is, we will ask on the Day of Judgment if we didn’t make any effort to help them.

Think about it.

The three responsibilities that mention above actually cover absolutely everything a human being can do. And so everything a human being is supposed to be doing as khalifah of Allah is making goodness prevail – in ourselves, in society and in the physical world. And that is the totality of man’s responsibility in this life –until he enters the spiritual world, in the next life. Thus, we have as our total responsibility to bring good to ourselves, to others, and to the physical world.

If you look to the three responsibilities, two of them have worded “ to make” and one of then have been worded “ to help”. The reason why Prof Dr. Muhammad al'Mahdi wrote “ help other to be good” and not “ make others be good” is that while it is fair enough to make ourselves good and the to make physical world good , it would no be fair to ‘ make’ others good. If Allah wanted to make all of us to be good He would have done so. So, since Allah chose no to make us be good we should not impose that goodness upon others.

Think about it.......