by Helmi Hakim | Apr 12, 2014 | Insurance, Investment, Miscellaneous, Motivation
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by Helmi Hakim | Mar 24, 2014 | Miscellaneous
I was reading an article in the papers of a lady, been swindled of her life savings, by a “handsome, charming, and sweet looking Caucasian man”.
The modus operandi is very simple.
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1) He approached the woman via facebook for a relationship.
2) The woman ignored him.
3) He called her on her mobile. He sweet talked her.
4) She fall in love with him. She thought, she has finally found her soulmate.
5) He promised to marry her, buy a house, and settle down with her in Singapore.
6) One day, he mentioned that he needs to borrow money for some peculiar reasons. His business is suffering cashflow problems. He needs to pay his employees.
7) He promised to pay her back. She believed him. She trusted him.
8) He asked for more money. She gave in.
9) Finally, when she is dead broke, and cannot loan her “lover” more money, he scolded her…. and then become uncontactable.
10) Now saddled with debts, she stay with her sister, with life full of regrets.
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The reason, why I am sharing this with you is because, everyday, when I log in my facebook account, I receive a lot of such spammy messages.
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I urge you to be extra careful, as this can happen to anyone of us. Spread this message to your love ones, as such scam practices have happened many times, anywhere in the world, including Singapore.
by Helmi Hakim | Jan 27, 2014 | Miscellaneous
Recently, I read in both the social and mainstream media, on the contentious issue of allowing Muslim women to don their tudong, while working in the frontline public service in Singapore. There were many exchanges between both proponents and opponents on this issue, but I have not seen, anyone clearly defining in simple terms, what aurat, exactly means in Islam.
In my opinion, education on what aurat means to a Muslim is very important, to establish and develop cogent dialogue and fruitful discussion with pertinent stakeholders then, now and in the future. It is important to identify, and reiterate the sheer magnitude of importance on the crux and scope of the underlying issue to present effectively the cause that we are advocating in this multi cultural, multi ethnic, cosmopolitan Singapore, especially when it involves religion.
I know, there are many others, who are more qualified to talk about this subject, but the absence of substantive elucidation on the subject matter in the open space is really bothering me, prompting me to create this blog post. I learnt about aurat in my religious class and am prepared to be corrected if any asatizahs found what I will share below to be contradictory in the spectacles of Islam.
This post, is meant to be educational, and aims to promote inter-religious understanding amongst all my friends of all faith in Singapore.
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Aurat according to Islam refers to the intimate parts of the human body that must be covered from the sight of others with clothing. Exposing the intimate parts of the body is unlawful in Islam and is regarded as sin (haram).
The discussion in this post on aurat, will focus specifically, on aurat between a non marham man and woman.
(A non-mahram is someone who you can marry, someone who you should cover yourself in front of – whereas if you are Mahram to someone, you cannot marry them – your brother, father, uncle, etc.)
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A man has his aurat. The aurat of a man refers to the part of the body from the navel to the knees. This means, according to Islam, a Muslim man, must cover part of the body from the navel to the knees, when he is in front of a non Marham woman.
The aurat of a woman is her whole body except for her face and her hands and therefore must be covered when she in front of non mahram man.
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As Muslims, when we practice our religion, we will always refer back to the Quran and Sunnah, with guidance by our Islamic scholars. We believe Quran is the word of God and Sunnah has come to denote the way Prophet Muhammad (may peace and blessings be upon him) who we, Muslims believe him to be the last messenger of God, lived his life.
Quran and Sunnah, both are sources of Islamic jurisprudence that are indispensable. One cannot practice Islam without consulting both of them.
In his last sermon, Prophet Muhammad (may peace and blessings be upon him) said,
“I leave behind me two things, the Holy Qur’an and my example, the Sunnah, and if you follow these you will never go astray.”
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There are many Quranic verses and hadiths on the obligation of covering our Aurat. Amongst them,
Surah 24. An-Noor, Verse 31:
Translation:
And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.
Surah 33. Al-Ahzab, Verse 59:
Translation:
O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
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Other narration (hadith) from Prophet Muhammad that commands a woman to cover herself.
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I have seen articles, shared on facebook, discussing contrasting views on what exactly aurat is, but what I have shared above specifically on aurat, is agreeable by majority Islamic scholars in the world, and also being practiced by majority of Muslims worldwide.
Prophet Muhammad has reminded us, “Without doubt, my Ummah will never be gathered in misguidance. Whenever you see disagreement, hold fast to the greater majority.”
(Ibn Majah)
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I hope, we, as Muslim community in Singapore can continuously engage, encourage and do our very best to win the trust of our government to allow Muslim women the freedom to wear tudong in the frontline public service in Singapore, in the near future. I appreciate the effort of our Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, having candid discussions with our Muslim leaders on this issue. It shows the government is listening and proactive in addressing concerns on the needs of the Muslim community.
Do share this article and leave your thoughts below.
Sources Of Research
http://www.hadithcollection.com/download-hadith-books/361-abu-dawud.html?start=20
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080130122820AA9x5Kr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimate_parts_(Islam)
http://zulmauzun.blogspot.sg/2010/03/hadith-mengenai-aurat-perempuan-dan.html
by Helmi Hakim | Dec 3, 2013 | Miscellaneous, Motivation
Alhamdulillah. Time is ticking fast, and in a few days time, I am a married man. 🙂
I created a blog post on the costs of Malay wedding in Singapore last year, and it has garnered a lot of attention from fellow social media enthusiastics. Some lamented that my wedding costs are too high, and there are also many who argued that my figures are too conservative. Nevertheless, that is the exact wedding costs, on my side, after doing barrage of research/food tasting/interviews etc2. 🙂
After settling other big commitments like buying our BTO HDB flat, booking our wedding venue (I can only book 150 days in advance), registering and meeting the naib kadi at ROMM and at the same time reserving our Kadi for our akad nikah, we finally bought our air tickets to our lovely honeymoon destination which is Marrakech, Morroco.
My fiance and I will like to have all the time for ourselves thus we opt for free and easy option to relax and enjoy. 🙂
As we choose to book air tickets without itinerary, we did our own background research by using online platforms like skyscanner.com.sg, expedia.com.sg, zuji.com.sg, to make comparison of the prices of the air tickets. Unfortunately, there is no direct flight from Singapore to Marrakech, thus using such platforms aid us, in planning our journey, at the same time, plan our finance well.
After planning the route and ensuring the available connecting flights are from the same airline, we then liaised with the airline directly, to book our air tickets. It costs us SGD$1998.60 each for the airline tickets from Singapore to Marrakech via Zurich and then return back home safely, 10 days later.
Next, we plan for our hotel/riyad. I have a personal preference to have our hotel to be as close as possible to the shopping area, Djemaa el Fna which is the centre of the medina and the heart of Marrakech. What I did, is that I go to google map on my ipad, and key in “Djemaa el Fna”. It brings me here automatically.
From the map above, you can see, that there are a lot of hotels/riyads located nearby. We want value for money hotels with good services. We have some fun choosing the hotels, narrowing it down to a few good ones and then read the reviews of the hotels at tripadvisor.com. We are spoilt for choice! 🙂
Tripadvisor.com has both good and bad reviews from people who have stayed in the hotel, that you will like to enquire.
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We planned our itineraries first, and as most of our activities are of driving distance from Marrakech, we decided to just book the hotel in Marrakech for 10 nights. We booked through Booking.com and email the hotel again, to confirm that our booking went through. We arranged for airport transfers from the airport to the hotel too. The hotel stay costs $2484 for 10 nights. Of course, there are cheaper options, but we chose the best! 🙂
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At first, we plan to spend some days in Marrakech and some days in Spain, but we then reach to a consensus to just spend our honeymoon days in Marrakech, as there are plenty of activities that we can do, like….
Cooking Class at Faim d’Epices
Hot Air Balloon, and watch the sun rise over the Atlas mountains
Camel Ride the palmeraie of Marrakesh
Quad Biking At The Dessert
There are really many, exciting activities to be done in Morrocco. Attached are our customized, yet detailed itineraries and indicative costs involved. (Right click and save target as)
PDF Format
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Below, are the costs at a glance…
The costs might be steep, but in my opinion, it is money well spend! Really looking forward for our honeymoon. If you find, this post beneficial, do share it with your friends. If you have more ideas, on how to make this trip more fun and interesting, do hit the comment post below! Thank you! 🙂
