Food Hunt During Eid

The bodyguard, The godfather and the 'crook' cook.

Patiently waiting for meal to be served.

...but only get some banana crackers, kuih gasing, Fruit Plus and some citrus.

Oh yeah, lontong babeh!

Crime scene.

My ex-neighbours. They have grown a lot.

We take a photograph after successfully raiding the second house.

A few steps away, and we take a photograph again.

The third house is unfortunately on their preparing process for their food.

Nonetheless, we have take another picture to commemorate this failure.

Making snide comments against each other.

A loving couple is left behind in an area called Shaymaa'.

We're about to raid the final house of the operation.

Taking nearly 20 minutes to reach the most isolated house in the area.

The 'oyabun' is scheming an ambush plan.

"We go like this, and like this...," said the future executive-officer.

I looked at the targeted house.

Damn it! It seems that the residents have known our modus operandi. They make us wait for nearly an hour for the meal.

...and they're finally busted.

The connoisseur is always tempted by the food.

Always leave no trace.

Eid Adha 1430 Hijra

I still remember what my teacher, Mr Yusof had taught me about Eid Adha.

He asked everybody in the class, “what’s the moral of Eid Adha?”

Of course we answered with the lame answer - the willingness to sacrifice.

He said, “You’re wrong.”

“The real purpose of Eid Adha is to obediently follow what Allāh has commanded. Just obey Allāh without questioning the purpose of it. It's that simple," he added.

At Samanoudy Mosque, after Eid prayer.

Left to right: Nasi impit, kuah kacang (Nadhir's), rendang ayam (mine).

Blame the camera, not me.

Going to raid the next house.

Curry noodles at the most isolated house in Al-Manṣūrah

Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat: There's a Mistake?

To use Malay words to describe emotion and feelings, one must follow these grammatical rules:

1. The word + akan. For example: Suka akan, benci akan. Or,
2. Prefix ‘me’ + the word + suffix ‘an/i’ (suffix is not a necessity in some words). For example: Menyukai (out of suka), Merindukan (from the word rindu).

However, I was taught that the word 'merindui' is wrong. The correct form is 'merindukan.' You can’t find the word 'merindui' in Kamus Dewan Edisi Ketiga but I was told that the word is included in Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat, page 1332.

I still believe that the correct form is ‘merindukan.’

A Malay linguist told me that Kamus Dewan is not an ultimate guide for Malay grammar. The only guide you can rely upon is Tatabahasa Dewan.

Fake Professorship

There have been some issues here in Egypt, shaking a group of Malaysian community in this place. But, I don’t wanna comment about those issues.

But what really intrigues me is, the way people addressing a character in the issue. Let’s look at this thing from linguistic and moral aspect.

Let say his name is Jamal, PhD. And let just say that he’s some crappy liaison for some corrupted agency from Malaysia.

Right, when he came here few years ago, people address him ‘Doctor Jamal.’ Maybe, he’s not a physician but it is still correct to call him as such as he holds a PhD.

Time passed by and all of sudden people address him as Associate Professor Jamal officially in ceremonies and working papers. And it wasn’t long before people starting address him Professor. For your info, this Jamal guy hasn’t done any dissertations, academic papers or whatever for him to be entitled for aforementioned academic titles. Plus, he’s far away from those because he’s no longer affiliated with any university or other academic institution.

I wonder, what kinda crappy secretaries and master of ceremonies are there? Don’t they know anything about protocols?

What if he does something that can lead to abomination? A professor fucking up some ceremony, or maybe work part time as a contrabandist? If you’re in your right mind, do you think he as a (fake) professor or at least a doctorate holder would do as such?

See, Malaysians here in Egypt are so unnecessarily ‘kind.’ You’re an Islamic studies student, you can be called ustaz or ustazah. You’re med student, people call you ‘duktur’ or ‘dukturah.’ I deplore the latter. Nonetheless, these people should realize that sometimes they’re overstepping border. Making up people's title sometimes is really too much, I think. It's flattering and exaggerating. I saw such screw-ups happen too many times in Malaysian med students society especially in their paperworks.

You wrongly address people with some academic title he/she doesn’t have, you’ll end up telling lies to the society. Giving too much credentials is fatal.

Stupidity

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. Harvard University is in London? You gotta be kiddin' me.
See below (click for larger view).

Geez, even dung beetles know that Harvard is in Massachusetts, USA. Guess what would happen when those students arrive in London. Would they be able to find Harvard University in London?

Okay, now let’s see another same-day news excerpt of the same e-newspaper.

Some stupid newspaper is suggesting college students to use their library/archives as source of references. Yeah, refer and fail for sure.

Radio Antarabangsa China

When I was looking for some websites about Islam in China, I discovered a very interesting website (in my opinion). It is Radio Antarabangsa China (CRI).

I wonder, who made the Malay translation and manage its on-air radio broadcast? Malays?

Every words in Malay is carefully written. Tatabahasa (Malay grammar) is observed well. You can read its publication: Kembara Sutera. Even Malays can't do this. Look by yourself, there's a lot of rubbish blogs (even official websites!) written in Malay but unfortunately full of tatabahasa, choice-of-word and spelling errors. They should be ashamed of themselves.

To learn Islam is not necessarily taking examples from Muslims. Same goes to learning* Bahasa Melayu. Being native Malay doesn't mean having good command of Bahasa Melayu.


(*Rule of gerunds applied. Same as : "Mr Hammond is looking forward to meeting you")

Breaking Fast

Last night we went to Gudaid village. Located approximately 5 km northeast of Al-Manṣūrah. The renowned microbus operator Ammu Magdy invited us there.
I thought there was no invitation for iftar this year.

There were four vans: two for Malaysians and two for Indonesians.

We were served with rice cooked with liver, lasagna, kofta, salatoh and ¼ chicken mashwi. Side dishes were custard pudding and guava.

Freeloaders

Ust Yasir's first son, Miqdad.

Do Japanese Loan Some Arabic Words?

There are two Japanese words I've discovered so far similar to Arabic words phonetically and meaningly.

In Japanese, the word 'anata/anta' means 'you.' In Arabic, 'anta' means the same but specifically used towards a male.

Japanese word for bird is 'tori,' (鳥). In Arabic, the bird is called to'ir or toyr (ٱلطائر\ٱلطير).

Ramadhan or Ramadan?

(This is teaching Malay language in English)

Cikgu Shafiee bin Zakaria, our Malay language teacher once taught us how to spell loaned words in Malay language such as 'Ramadan, terawih' etc.

He said, many people tend to exaggerate the spelling of the words, for example Ramadan.

In Malay, the correct spelling is simply, 'Ramadan' with capitalized letter R. Yet, many people spell it as 'Ramadhan.'

Cikgu Shafiee explained that there is no exact Roman letter to be pronounced like the Arabic letter 'ض,' so there's no need to put letter 'h' after 'd' in 'Ramadan' to make it sounded like the letter 'ض.' He reiterated that it is already known pronouncing 'd' in 'Ramadan' is not as same as pronouncing 'd' in the word 'meredakan.'

Same goes to the word 'terawih.' That is the correct spelling! Yet, some ignorant people out there claimed that it is important to preserve the nature of the pronunciation of the word, so they spell it as 'taraweh,' and more pathetically, 'tarawikh!'

It intrigues me, how come these idiots who claimed that they are opposing PPSMI, and had learnt Bahasa subject for about twelve years during compulsory education yet persistently making such simple mistakes. Shame on you. It would be oxymoronic to say that you are an anti-PPSMI but not competent in your own language (suppose you are a Malay).

Anyway, wishing you a blessed Ramadan.

Mihrab of Muhammad bin Abu Bakr Mosque, Mit Damsis, Dakahlya