pre-judgement

Bismillah and thank you Allah for all the strength and ideas you gave me.

Today, I had a conversation with my colleague. At first, he asked, can you read this (pointing at his computer) and I saw some Thai words. I told him I can't. Then he asked, are you using Arabic letters in you country? I told him, the Malay language use the same letters as English.

But do you know Arabic? he asked then. Yes I do know Arabic letters and understand some Arabic words because I received religious education, I explained.

Then he started to looked confused, and asked, then how do you become Muslim if you don't speak Arabic? I started to explain about the history of Islam coming to the south east asia in 13th century.

oh! the spread of Islam by sword! he commented..

I was taken aback, trying to remain calm.. and continued explaining that the spread of Islam in this part of region was mainly by muslim preachers and teachers. Rulers at that time accepted Islam, hence, followed by the masses.

Then my colleague requested me to explain, how Islam spread to different places all over the world.

I haven't talk about Islamic history for such a loooong time! Then I told him about mecca, about Prophet Abraham and prophet Ismail who discovered zam-zam. About prophet Muhammad, (oh! how could I make the story short... because I took few courses to discover the whole history of islam from the time of Muhammad (peace be upon him), till the last caliphate in Turkey)

He then told me he adored Harun al-Rashid.. great man he said. He also likes Kamal Atarturk. I tell him I dislike Atarturk since he was the one who abolish the caliphate system, thus led to disunity among muslims (though he was adored by many because he modenized Turkey).

My colleague argued that many people dislike change. Man is then just a 'repetitionist' of existing actions/behavior. I told him, there isn't any wrong in bringing changes, but the main rules remain. He then argues about the status of women in islam. He notices that women in Arabs can't give testimony from the 'place/counter' (I'm not this term, it's the place where someone stand on during testimonial presentation) that men do, instead, women give testimony behind curtains. And women's testimony carry half the weight of man's testimony.. I argued that Islam actually bring up the status of women, through the respect of motherhood.

"Paradise is under your mom's feet"
"Who should I stay right close to, listen most to, give my respect and honor to, after Allah and rasulullah? Rasulullah said "your mother" 3 times, and then "your father"..

The conversation stops at that point, leaving my mind with a prayer, I pray my colleague will get hidayah from Allah. Though he has some kind of pre-judgement nad misconception about Islam (rather muslims actually), his urge and thirst for 'knowledge' and 'truth' may lead him to Allah, insyaAllah, ameen.