Eidul Adha 1427H

About a month before Eidul Adha, hubby checked with the president of ICOJ if he can be released for one day on Eidul Adha since he had been invited to lead the solat sunat raya in the Malaysian Embassy. The president told us that it would be rather tough to find a substitute imam since many Pakistanis are going for hajj or spend their year-end holidays in Pakistan. The president himself would be spending his Eid in Pakistan with his family, and so hubby has to liaise with Brother Jamil.

As it turned out, one Syeikh Al-Hafiz happens to be on a short visit during Eid season, so Brother Jamil arranged for him to be the imam in Asakusa for Eidul Adha. But his visit was only confirmed on Thursday, 3 days before Eid itself. Nevertheless, hubby was so glad that he doesn’t have to perform solat sunat raya in according to Hanafi, and that he could deliver the sermon in Bahasa Melayu.

The sermon text faxed to us by the embassy was almost 20 pages long. “It’s too long, please make it shorter,” advised Encik Jasri, the current student Counsellor. It wasn’t just too long, it was also too wordy yet the content was rather uninspiring. “Find some points which the audience could relate to – and the audience would be mostly students and officers,” I commented after reading the sermon.

He worked hard on summarizing and improving the text – constantly reworded, revised and made changes here and there. He finally cut it down to just 9 pages – with some new inputs, thanks to Mak. Mak was in the Ministry of Education for over 20 years plus she is now an active member of the mosque’s organizing committee back home – just the right person to consult on a short notice.

Mak’s main points were – 1) we must be willing to sacrifice for R&D although the payback is not immediate, in order to become the leader and not merely adopting and adapting because by doing so we will forever be a follower and 2) in spite of being the leader in any field, what we must focus more is on increasing our iman, because it takes more than just being master of technologies to make us great leaders. Too many Malaysians are infected by ‘sindrom selesa’ – feeling so content and comfortable with what we already have that we do not pursue to do more. That’s why some of us, if not all, need to ‘sacrifice’ more time and effort to come up with research results that can enable Malaysia to become leaders. The payback would not be immediate – it takes a lot of time and effort to come out with such result, and it may take decades for returns in monetary terms, but it is something that someone must be willing to sacrifice for…

Unfortunately, I am not sure how many of the jemaah paid close attention to the sermon – the only time the praying hall was really quiet was when hubby read the final doa during the second sermon. Still at least we tried to make the sermon relevant to the audience – I’ve heard of many complaints about sermons which drive people to sleep easily, that’s why we tried to ensure that hubby’s is one that the audience (or at least those who pay attention among the audience) can relate to.

The good thing about hubby being invited to become the imam for Eid prayer meant that we were fetched by the Embassy’s car. We have both met the chauffeur, Hasegawa-san when we ‘tumpang’ the Embassy car last Eidul Fitri since the imam back then happens to be hubby’s friend in Al-Azhar. The drive from Asakusa to Shibuya took only about 20-25 minutes, so by 8.15 we had reached the Embassy – otherwise a one-hour journey, if we were to take the train and bus on our own. Hasegawa-san too was a pleasant driver (despite having to work on his day off – not to mention that New Year is a really important event for most Japanese), attending to our requests and answering our questions courteously.

The Embassy is the place one can count on meeting acquaintances and making new friends – and this time was no exception. Two encounters that stood out from the rest was meeting another blogger who heard about me from an outstanding blogger in Okinawa and a silent reader of this blog who happens to be a friend of two other friends of mine. Kak Hani and Ida, it was nice meeting you ;-).

I didn’t cook any rendang this time, hoping to have some at the Embassy – zannen deshita. No rendang to be found at the Embassy either – instead we were treated to rice with kari dalca, fried chicken and jelatah timun-nenas. The attendees were more then the staff anticipated, so they had to cook a lot of extra while people were lining up. Some complaint of being served such a small portion – but then again, the volunteers who helped serving had not much choice when they had a serious shortage in food, especially rice. They initially cooked 12 large pots (kawah) of rice, but halfway through, they had to cook additional 4 pots (kawah). Kesian the volunteers – mostly undergraduate students or teachers undergoing Nihongo training.

Hubby and I managed to avoid lining up because right after the solat, Encik Jasri invited us to one of the officer’s room and asked one of the volunteers to prepare two plates of nasi for us. Encik Jasri himself did not eat with us, instead he continued monitoring the ongoing activities in the main hall. Poor Encik Jasri – it’s not easy being a student Counsellor, especially when a feast had to be held on the day all the Japanese staff in the Embassy were on their year-end/new year holidays.

We took the opportunity to take a sneak peek of the Ambassador’s residence. The current Ambassador, Dato’ Radzi is a friendly Penangite with an equally friendly Datin as his wife. So friendly they are that for the first time, students are allowed to enter their residence during Raya. In fact, last Eidul Fitri, Dato’ Radzi himself gave a tour of his residence to the students. This time around, hubby had quite a long chat with Dato’ while I had a short chat with Datin, who seemed to be impressed on learning that there is a Malaysian who becomes an Imam in Tokyo. “You must arrange for us to go for a visit there,” she asked one of the staff nearby. “The next time someone visits from Malaysia, I can show them the mosque led by a Malaysian – that would be something different from the same old, same old…” I welcomed her to visit us anytime, but also warned her that Asakusa mosque is not quite ‘proper’ like the Tokyo Camii or most mosques in Malaysia.

Encik Jasri did not held any open house session this raya. His wife, Kak Linda is seven-month pregnant, so that is perfectly understandable. They still organized a makan-makan session for the volunteers who helped serving and cooking though – so they invited hubby and I over as well. Kak Linda prepared mee kari – spaghetti kari actually, but she added turmeric while boiling the spaghetti so it resembled the mee kuning. We exchanged some mommies talk in the kitchen. She is just as friendly as Encik Jasri, so I found it easy chatting with her. Besides, preggie mommies usually could find a lot to share – and this time, I ended up promising to fax some zikir for preggie mommy since she is worried about her placenta praevia condition. (uri di bawah) and since every little effort counts, so she would like to start reciting the zikir too.

We left Encik Jasri’s residence at around 4.00 p.m. Instead of heading back to Asakusa, we asked Hasegawa-san to send us to the nearest Tozai line station, which happened to be Iidabashi. We thanked him profusely for working on the day he was supposed to be on leave and we sent our best to his wife and family in Yokohama. Such is the professionalism of the Japanese, Hasegawa-san kept smiling and being courteous to the very end – no ‘tarik muka’ episode like could be expected from a typical Malaysian driver who has to work on his day off.

Ridzuan joined us on our ‘beraya’ excursion to our friend Syahril’s place in Myoden. It turned out to be a ‘jejak kasih’ episode for them since Ridzuan and Syahril used to live in the same house about 8 years ago. We spent over 4 hours at Syahril’s place – what with Ridzuan obviously enjoyed sharing his thoughts with the juniors who visited while hubby had a discussion on the world affairs (Saddam’s hanging) with the more adult guests (government officers on study leave).

We finally reached home at around 11.00 p.m. Exhausted – but all in all it was a nice Raya although there was no rendang and we were not clad in matching color costumes (hubby and Huzaifah in purple baju Melayu, me in turquoise maternity dress with grey cardigan).

Anyway, if it is not too late – Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year.