A response to a long and loaded comment

Dear Ponderer,

First, my husband knows what I write here and he has no problem with it. No, the previous entry was not about him sulking. The entry was about a crappy birthday that resulted from a crappy week before that. I’m explaining this just in case you didn’t get that, because you inferred that hubby had made some mistakes, yet I saw none. He just had a bad week – and hence a bad birthday, that’s all.

And I did wrote in the previous entry about him not being the kind to celebrate birthdays - but I do, and I had wanted to celebrate his birthday. Yes, birthday is a good day to contemplate, to reflect on the past and all, but I don’t see any harm in making it a merry day as a way to express our gratitude to Allah for allowing us to live up to this point. (By the way, are you aware that even Rasulullah celebrated his birthday by fasting on Mondays – to mark the day he was born?) Again, I do not see any mistake made by hubby just because he had a lousy birthday. So, what exactly is the mistake that you keep referring to and claimed that I should not reveal?

As for his duties as the imam-cum-super-all-in-one here in the mosque – he tries his best to do what he could. You said that in the past an Imam did not get paid any allowance or provided a place to stay. If I may remind you – in the past, people have Tok Siak to take care of the mosque. And once in a while, the whole qariah of the mosque would assemble for a gotong royong to clean it up and make it nicer. We don’t have that here. Hubby is the imam, the siak, the secretary, and everything else in between. No, he is not working for money (he doesn’t get that much for allowance anyway), but yes I think he deserves a break sometimes from having to do everything himself. Hence I don’t see him growling on his birthday as “a mistake that should not be revealed to others because it reflects badly on him as an imam” – it was just a sign that he needed a break.

By the way, too many people feel that when it comes down to ‘kerja agama’, one has to be sincere, has to do it ‘ikhlas, lillahi taala’ because it is after all a ‘fisabilillah’ task and one will be rewarded by Allah. What many fail to appreciate is that even people who carry out ‘kerja agama’ need financial support too. After all, every other jobs, so long as they are halal, could also be classified “fisabilillah”, thus everybody should also be “ikhlas, lillahi taala”, and should not expect any monetary rewards, huh? Yet in practice, we don’t really see that happening, do we? Often we find parents who wouldn’t mind paying a small fortune for their kids’ tuition fees, but are rather stingy when it comes down to paying an ustaz to teach Al-Quran or fardhu ‘ain. Often we find people who could be oh-so-generous when it comes to belanja in the canteen, yet are tightfisted when it comes down to sedeqah for ‘kerja agama’.

And before you wonder yet again if hubby knows what I write this time – he sat right beside me as I wrote this one. So there.