A LITTLE PERSONAL NOTE

R-L: Taariq, Afirah and Akif

Just a little personal note on my children.

Few days before I left for Vancouver the other day, my son Akif at International Islamic University Malaysia Kuantan campus, has a little motorcycle accident. He has to borrow the motorbyke from his friend and rode it to his residence as the University's bus will only come at 1630 while his lecture has finished at 1300. Alhamdulillah he only suffered minor injuries, but his friend who was together with him broke one of his shoulder bones and was warded for more than a week. Akif promised not to ride a motorbyke anymore, as his mum and myself always advice him so. In consequence, he got a green light from the University authority to have a car in the campus. The University's Security Chief was kind enough to find out that Akif deserves to have such a permission as his University's residence is outside the campus, at IM2. We will send his car in about two weeks time, InshaAllah, on my way to Terengganu.

When I was away in Vancouver, my younger son Taariq has another incident relating to the car. A motorbyke rode by a youngster ramped into the door of my wife's car driven by Taariq while parking at the Taman Tun Saadon market. The boy fall down, injuring his foot. In minutes, a gang of the boy's brother came, the brother himself with a stick. They argued for money and Taariq gave RM100 to settle it all and for once. Alhamdulillah, Taariq has learned something out of the incident, at least in the arts of settling a conflict and in reserving his martial arts skills by viewing such an incident as a not worthwhile fight.

When I was away in Vancouver too, my elder daughter Afirah at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia found the engine of her car overheating after coming home from her lecture, due to the lack of water in the radiator. She has to deal with it with her housemates, before an elder Indian came to teach her how to solve the problem. She has a wonderful lesson on the day, at least in getting to know a little bit about her car. Before this, like many other lady drivers, she knows how to use the car but does not exactly know how to maintain it. Moreover, she was too busy with her study and does not have enough time to look after the car. For that, I believe, Allah SWT took a little bit of her time to bestow her with a little knowledge about the car.

The three news reached me with a big takbir and Alhamdulillah. I was convinced that all the three children have been given direct lessons by Allah SWT accordingly - on their personal transportation - which would become one of the basic needs in their daily life, today and time to come. Allah SWT taught Afirah about the car itself, while for Akif and Taariq, Allah SWT taught them the arts of facing the challenges, physically and socially, pertaining to the culture of the Malaysian road usage. All these are indeed necessary for, and came at the right time to them as youngsters, to prepare for a more matured life, InshaAllah.

THE TASKS AHEAD

Though the Vancouver expedition is done, many other tasks, as usual, are in queue.

Inter alia, today 25th February is the deadline for my column article in the Milenia Muslim. Monday 27th would be my lecture for the graduate Islamic-based Development course for which its course outline should be ready by then. On Tuesday 27th too, there will be a presentation for a Research University Team (RUT) grant, in which I would be involved as an assessment panel.

Then on Tuesday 28th is the deadline for two articles, one for Islamic Project Management and the other one for Zakat in Southeast Asia projects. Monday 5th March is another deadline, this one a working paper for Islamic Marketing Project Workshop to be held in Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA), Kuala Terengganu on 13rd March.

Monday 7th March would be a DBP-ISDEV Book Writing Workshop in which at least 3 chapters of my book entitled Principles of Islamic-based Development: Lectures on Basic Islamic Concepts (in Malay, co-authored with Masakaree Ardae) to be published by the DBP has to be presented. Thursday the 8th would be graduate proposal presentations, to be presented by ISDEV PhD students Radieah Mohd Nor and Deicy. And beginning 9th till 18th March I will be away in Kuala Lumpur and in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, to fulfill my post as a Visiting Professor at UniSZa in Kuala Terengganu.

Seem to be quite a tight schedule, though these do not include my other administrative tasks. But belief me, Alhamdulillah, they are all joyful tasks indeed.

Thank you Allah for Your trust in still giving me the tasks to uplift Your religion.

ARRIVED HOME SAFELY

Arriving Penang International Airport at about 1920 yesterday, February 24th.

Alhamdulillah, we have landed at Penang International Airport at about 1920 yesterday 24th February, and arrived home safely, as scheduled. Another chapter of our ISDEV's international expedition Alhamdulillah, has been completed.

In fact, such an international expedition is followed by another one today. Dr Zakaria Bahari, Dr Zahri Hamat, Dr Mohd Zaini Abu Bakar and Dr Ahmad Azrin Adnan have left for Jakarta this morning, to fulfill invitation by a number of universities in Jakarta and Malang, to deliver talks on potentials of graduate studies at their universities. They will be there for about a week, InshaAllah.

Recontemplating the recent experience at Vancouver, another observation could perhaps be shared here. At the conference, participants are free to talk about their religions and ask about others' religions, and some of them even presented an objective analysis of their own religious movements. For instance, apart from Ms. Diana Holland of the Share International who talked openly about her "World Teacher" named Maitreya, there were also Dr Guia Calicdan-Apostle who fondly explained about her Bahai religion, the young Buddhist monk Shuva Langker who presented about conflict management from his Buddhist perspective, and Dr Megan P. Brock, a nun from Sydney Australia who presented an objective analysis of her Catholic movement. Interestingly, to them, I could even asked personal questions, such as to the monk Shuva and nun Dr Megan, about their feelings towards marriage/man/woman and their love affairs, if there were any. They have answered me frankly, without any barriers.

In memory: My working table in my room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver, Canada

In memory: My resting chair in my room at the same hotel in Vancouver

ON WAY BACK - AGAIN AT HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Done a little work towards the end of the Vancouver-Hong Kong journey, after a long sleep

Alhamdulillah, we have landed at Hong Kong International Airport at 0720, after about 13+ hours journey on the air. The date turned fast on the air, from 23 February to 24 February. It is already 24 February today when we landed at Hong Kong, even though when we departed from Vancouver International Airport, it was 0210 of 23 February.

It was a tiring journey indeed, not because of the early morning schedule, but because of our tiring schedules and the cool and raining weather in Vancouver. We spent most our time on the plane sleeping.

We will be here at the Hong Kong International Airport for about 8 hours. We do not go out of the airport for a city sightseeing. We were told that the city is quite far and we are not familiar with the public transport. We are afraid that we do not have enough time to go around and could not come back to the airport on time.

Our flight to Penang will be at 1520 and will be landing at Penang Inernational Airport at 1900, InshaAllah.

Working at the resting lounge of the Hong Kong International Airport, while waiting for the 1520 flight to Penang

CHECKING-IN AT VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Checking-in at Vancouver International Airport

We are at Vancouver International Airport now. It's 0125. We have checked-in and will fly in about one hour time (at 0210, February 23rd), InshaAllah. While waiting, here are some brief contemplations.

1. The conference organizer publishes 24 international journals. One of them is the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society which relates to this conference. Unlike other normal journals, the articles for the Journal are chosen from the working papers at this conference, not from the call for papers. The papers are adequate for their quarterly issues. They do not accept articles from outside this conference.

2. Vancouver is a nice place. However, there are beggars and homeless sleeping on the pavements. According to the Indian taxi driver who ferried us to the airport just now, these beggars and homeless are drug addicts. They refuse to work.

3. There are also a lot of Chinese. All around the city, we could really feel their presence. There is even a Chinese town here in Vancouver, like in many other cities in the world. Some of these Chinese are already citizens of Canada, and some others, are students and workers. Like one of the presenters at the conference had explained, Canada is now a multicultural city, not a secular city anymore. They are a lot of other ethnics in the city beside the Chinese, such as Phillipinos, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, etc. So is I think in the US. Secularism has gone. They are talking about multiculturalism now, not secularism anymore.

At the airport

Dr Fadzila Azni and Dr Zahri working while waiting to fly

5TH DAY IN VANCOUVER - THE 3RD DAY OF THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUALITY CONFERENCE

Presentation in progress

Alhamdulillah, all three of us have presented our papers today. It went on smoothly, attracting interesting discourses. One participant from University of York/Ryerson, Dr Michael Thorn, requested my power point. He wanted to use it to teach his students. He was attracted to my categorization of the poor and the rich, which is based on both the tangible and intangible factors, such as the richness in material wealth and the richness in soul. A participant from India wanted to know how do I measure these richness, providing the opportunity to me to explain about faith (iman) and desires (nafs). I explained the levels of both. My paper basically was on the construction of a new form of poverty management resulting from the inclusion of spirituality. I introduce a wordlview I termed as Divinistic Worldview which shapes this new form of poverty management.

Below are some of the pictures on today's discourses, the last day of the conference.

Dr Fadzila Azni presenting her paper

Dr Zahri presenting his paper

Discussion with Bulgarian Dilyana Mincheva, who is based at Trend University, Peterborough, Canada

With Dilyana Mincheva (right) and her husband (left)

Our mission is completed, Alhamdulillah. We will be leaving for Hong Kong tonight, InshaAllah, on our way home. It will take more than 13 hours fly to Hong Kong, an eight hour transit at the Hong Kong International Airport, and another nearly 4 hour fly to Penang.

Oh Allah, please bring us home safely.

4th DAY IN VANCOUVER – 2ND DAY OF RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY CONFERENCE

Reading at University of British Columbia's bookstore

The conference runs as usual, quietly, without any exciting happenings except the following observations.

1.  Time allocation for each presenter is allocated nicely. Long before the conference, presenters could ask how long he needs the time, but of course with a payment. The longer the time one needs to present his paper, the more costly the payment has to be.

2.  If the presenter is absent, his time will not be filled by others. The time allocation will be left empty. The next presenter in the Session could only present his paper when his allocated time comes. He could not replace the earlier absent presenter.

3.  The organizer seems to not worrying about the absence of the paper presenters, for they have paid the payment for their participation earlier. The organizer only allocates the time for presentation when the payment is made. It is up to the presenter to come or not after that.

4.  The organizer also does not entertain any request for the changing of the time allocation when it is already fixed and printed in the programme book. Prior to that, the paper presenters were communicated both individually and via the conference web, informing the suggested time for their presentation.

All the above arrangements I think are good. It could be followed by ISDEV in the organization of all its future conferences, beginning perhaps with the ISDEV's 6^th IDMAC in August, 7^th INGRAW in October and 7^th IDMAC in December this year, InshaAllah.

The Jeffrey's book

On the way back to our hotel, I bought a book at the University of British Columbia’s bookstore at the Robson Square. The title of the book is The Price of Civilization – Economics and Ethics After the Fall by reknown economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. Jeffrey expressed his worries about his country, America, where economic crisis of recent years reflects a deep, threatening, and ongoing deterioration of the America’s national politics and culture of power. At the root of America’s economic crisis, says Jeffrey, lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America’s political and economic elite.

The price of the book is C$29.95 (about RM90). Yes, it is rather costly as is the cost of living here in Canada. My dinner tonight on rice and fried talipia costs about C$15.00 (about RM45). So are the dinners for Dr Fadzila Azni and Dr Zahri on rice and prawn, which cost about C$12.00 (about RM36) each. I am glad that we would be leaving for Malaysia tomorrow night, the relatively much cheaper country to live, though the cost of living is ascending as is in the west. Is the increasing cost of living a pre-requisite of development that we have to sacrifice?

Holding the fried talipia

Rice with prawns