[Ramadhan Special] Projek Usrah ABRAR- Lets Write!

Ahlan Ya Ramadhan!

Credit: We<3It

It’s already almost a week into the blessed month, and alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah, we are still privileged by Him to make the most out of the month to gain His Forgiveness & Blessings. Moreover, it is also a good time to develop good habits, either in term of our manners (Akhlaq) or even our skills.  

Our ‘اسرة‘ (or ‘family’, a group of sisters together supporting each other to improve ourselves to be better servants of Allah, better members of society) named ‘ابرار‘ (or ‘righteousness’), had a discussion on the topic of ‘واجبات الأخ‘ from the book Himpunan Risalah Imam Hasan Al-Banna (Ayub 2003) around a week before Ramadhan started. One of the responsibilities as an ‘al-Akh’ is: 

14. Anda hendaklah berkemampuan untuk membaca dan menulis dengan baik. Perbanyakkanlah membaca tulisan-tulisan, akhbar, majalah atau sebagainya yang ditulis oleh Ikhwan. Anda sendiri hendaklah mempunyai sebuah perpustakaan walaupun kecil. Anda hendaklah meningkatkan penguasaan ilmu dan kemahiran anda jika anda merupakan orang yang berkepakaran. Anda hendaklah menguasai keseluruhan permasalahan Islam secara mendalam sehingga anda mampu memahami dan memberikan jawapan yang tepat sesuai dengan kehendak fikrah anda. (Ayub 2003, 535)

Rough Translation
14. You have to be able to read and write well. Read a lot of articles, journals. magazines etc (especially) written by Ikhwan. You have to create your own library even (it is) small.  You have to empower your knowledge and skills if you are specialized (in a certain area). You must have in-depth understanding of the overall issues of Islam until you are able to provide correct answers (or solutions), which are suitable to the needs of your ideology.

Yeah, I know & I feel it too. Writing is so めんどくさい (troublesome). I certainly knew how hard it was since my first degree is in Engineering major. Engineer understands numbers, not words. Period! Haha….It does not help that I worked as a Project Engineer for four years and the only writings that I need to do were Techincal Reports.I just need to follow the set template: Executive Summary, Introduction, Background, Methodology, Findings bla..bla..bla.. Not until I decided to do some crazy things in 2013. I took a year leave, unpaid, to further my education in a totally unrelated & weird Master degree called ‘International Relations (IR)’. Guess what? It’s under School of Social Science, thus I have to read tens of articles a week and write ten-thousand-word of essays for the degree. It was a hell at the start of my Master.

However, after writing a few essays, I somehow understand the enjoyment. Of course not during the process, but I love to reread my essays after they are being graded (even more so if I got Distinction for them haha). It gives a sense of satisfaction to be able to see your flow of thoughts being put onto the paper. Writing also forces me to read more and to be open to different sides of argument. At the same time, I have to set my angle of discussion and clarify any bias or prejudice I may have based on my background, principle and belief. In short, it helps me to not just jump into conclusion but rather to take time analyzing things before setting up my stand.

Back to our usrah. Putting the knowledge into action, we decided to set up our blog to encourage the members to write. In conjunction with Ramadhan, we agreed to set a schedule for each of us to write an article with theme of ‘Ramadhan’ in areas that we enjoy or are good at. For example, a member who is a teacher may write on ‘Education’ and how Ramadhan sets up a good platform to develop certain habits. Or someone who loves cats can write about her observation of cats and how she can apply during her Ramadhan struggle.

Writing develops one’s thinking process  (Credit: ContentCreatorZ)

To kick off our blog, I wrote a piece of reflection. Well, of course in the area I love most: TRAVEL. I wrote my reflection on eating culture in South Korea that I observed during my Couchsurfing* stay with local Koreans earlier this month (June 2016). Accordingly, I related the sharing of food to the spirit of Ramadhan and encouraged myself and others to share and give charity to others in this blessed month. You can read it  HERE.

That’s all from me on Day 6 of Ramadhan. Let us all pray for the betterment of ourselves, our families, our societies, our countries and people around the world. Amin!

*Couchsurfing is a social platform a la Facebook for backpackers/travelers all over the world to meet up and find somebody to host/be hosted in the place(s) they are staying/visiting.