Friday, March 28, 2014

TO WRITE OR NOT TO WRITE?

Hallo world!

Er. I mean, assalamu a'laikum!

I feel so... What's the word? Honoured? Yes, honoured! I feel so honoured to be given the chance to write in this blog. Yes, this is my first time writing in this blog.

Not my first writing of course, but the first I'm contributing to this blog. There's always a first time for everything right? 

Anyway, hope this one will be short and sweet. We'll see. Ahah. 

I'm going to talk about writing and why I think everyone should write. Regularly.

Yes, not everyone can write. But everyone should give it a try. 

Writing is probably the best way to translate the way you think. i.e. fikrah, besides speaking in public of course. But to be able to speak in public, that will need a huge courage.

But writing? Come on, you can write everywhere, anytime! 

Do you by any chance happened to know that the first creation is the pen (qalam), with which Allah used to write everything - every single thing - that would come about from the very beginning until the end of day? No kidding.

See, writing is so important that the form of life as we know today was first written in Lauh Mahfuz before anything else!

If you think about it seriously, I'd say, almost every phenomenal and influential figure writes. Save for Prophet Muhammad SAW as he was an ummiy (couldn't write and read), you just name a remarkable and amazing figure, I bet he or she wrote at least once in his/her lifetime.

Imam as-Shafi'e and his al-Umm, al-Ghazali with his Muwatta', Sayyid Qutb and his Ma'alim fi at-Tariq (the Milestone) and Fi Zilalil Quran (Under the Shades of Al-Quran), Hasan al-Banna with his collection of writings (Majmu'ah ar-Rasail), Maududi and his Tafhimul Quran and Syaikh Yusuf al-Qardhawi with his Fiqh al-Awlawiyyat (The Method of Priorities), just to name a few. 

Well, let's not be biased and look also on the influential writings that pretty much have changed the course of the world. The Art of War by Sun Tzu, The Republic by Plato, The Divine Comedy by Dante, The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, again just to name a few.

And and come to think about it, the Quran comes to us in form of writings. Without those huffaz (people who memorise the Quran) who actually wrote down the holy scriptures in form of proper writings, we wouldn't be able to recite the words of Allah! What a great loss!

Whether you agree with me or not on the list of figures and writings, you wouldn't be able to deny that these people manifest their ideas and influence via writings. Look at Karl Marx for instance. He was arguably the founding father of the communist ideology. But did he manage to materialise it in a practical and tangible form?

No. Who did? Vladimir Illyich Lenin, who was profoundly affected by Karl Marx's writing. 

Who needs a credit?

You see, you may feel that you are not good at writing. You might have a hunch that you are nobody and who would read your piece of writing.

Hey, who cares? You write not for popularity. You write not to seek attention. And you definitely write not to get most likes or shares. 

But you write for His pleasure. You write to understand Islam better. You write, so that you can share the goodness and spread love, that comes form the deepest part of your heart.

Someday, sometime, some bloke or lad would read your writing and baaamm! He is so touched with what you poured in your writing, that he decides to change himself for the better, there and then!

"Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe. You are not (O Muhammad) by the favour of your Lord, a madman."
[al-Qalam, 68:1-2]

So peeps, don't be afraid of what people would say about your writings. Just write. Give it a try and trust me, the feeling when you manage to produce a writing is a sense of accomplishment, something that you wouldn't get with something else. 

Pssstt. I've got a secret to tell. I once was just like you; not confident enough to write and didn't really know what to write. But I forced myself to give it a try and be consistent with it and voila! Here I am today! 

Till we me meet again!

Yours truly,
Mister Woodpecker

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