Last Friday night (2 April 2010), I was honoured to be given a task by Malaysian brothers of the Malaysian Association of Jeddah to present their members' contribution to Ijabah Foundation, a foundation that looks after orphans and HIV patients in Selangor. I was amazed that in a short span of time during their weekly usrah that night, about twenty of them attending the usrah have collected and contributed about 4,000 Saudi Riyals to the Foundation. It means that each has contributed about 200 Saudi Riyals. How generous they are, although the collection of the contribution was on an ad hoc manner.
This is not peculiar to them, I suppose. I came to know before this that a number of Malaysians in Jeddah, who work in Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and other private sectors, have also collectively contributed, as much as 12,000 Saudi Riyals each, to a number of children of the Malays of Mekah to pursue their studies in several universities in Malaysia and Turkey.
The Ijabah Foundation, led by Ustaz Abdullah Amin who, I was told, regularly appears in Tanyalah Ustaz program of TV9 in Malaysia, was on its umrah trip in appreciation of excellent achievements in education of its 12 orphans. All of the orphans were together with us that night. The members of the trip were invited from Mekah by Ahmad Tarmizi bin Mat Noor (Operations Manager of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Jeddah), who is the President of the Malaysian Association of Jeddah to be together with us in the usrah. Ustaz Amin delivered an interesting lecture on Pasangan Ilmu before Isyak prayer.
But then why me that was chosen to present the contribution? Indeed I did not really know. Maybe I was the oldest in the gathering (which I did not think so as there were others who seems to be older than me), or because the older-cum-one of the founders of the usrah in 2005, Dr Razley, the Director of Science and Technology Department of the OIC was on his mission elsewhere, or perhaps I was the newest to join the usrah. I have been here in Jeddah for only a month, and this was my second time being in the usrah held weekly at the IDB staff quarters called IDB Compound. Whatever the reason was, I felt honoured to present the contribution to such a Foundation that cares for the needy though the substantial amount of the money contributed were not mine.
