Istiqomah Di ujung Nafas....

Ketika ku tulis catatan ini, air mata ku pun terus mengalir deras. Tulisan ini bukanlah karangan, tapi rintihan dari hati yang terdalam. Tak pernah ku bayangkan sebelumnya jika menjadi penghafal alquran tidaklah mudah membalikan kedua telapak tangan,karena surga yang kita tukar. adakalanya hati menjadi dingin. Dingin, dan terus memaksa hati untuk berada di jalan ini walau tak ada tepi kesudahannya. Ini sudah jalan hidup yang telah aku pilih, meski terkadang sesak untuk menghirup udara ketika hati menjadi dingin. Kembali mengupdate hati yang dingin dengan munajat tiada batas. Aku yakin, setiap perjalanan seorang penghafal alquran, akan pernah mengalami hati yang dingin, baik itu aku, kamu , dan siapa pun.

Beruntunglah kamu yang mendapatkan dukungan di jalan ini, dukungan dari keluarga, ayah dan ibu mu yang memperhatikan hafalan mu. Jangan kamu sia-siakan dukungan itu.  aku dan kamu yang tidak pernah mendapatkan dukungan dari keluarga bahkan dimusuhi.Kita memang harus mencari secercah semangat dari luar sana. Disaat inilah hati berubah menjadi dingin, di ujung nafas memohon agar diberi keistiqomahan, di sini kepasrahan ku gantungkan, bukan kepasrahan tanpa usaha. Di kepasrahan aku belajar untuk memberikan hafalan hanya untuk Allah, meski tiada dukungan. Belajar dari kisah Uwais alqorni, yang terus mengikhlaskan diri hanya untuk Allah. Hanya untuk Allah, bukan karena ingin disebut orang yang selalu ada didepan barisan alquran, ulama, ahli ibadah, ahli quran, ahlullah. Allah telah memilih aku dan kamu di jalan ini, maka kita harus memperjuangkan hinga di ujung nafas, meski aku dan kamu tersandung batu dan jatuh menjadi luka. Aku yakin Allah melihat proses kita, bukan hasil akhir. Jika cukup memindahkan ayat cinta di kepala, sangat mudah! mudah sekali! namun, istiqomah untuk menyatukan hati, tindakan, dari ayat cinta Nya membutuhkan kesadaran, kekuatan, dan terkadang  hati berubah menjadi dingin. Mungkin disinilah ujian bagi penghafal alquran.Jika kita tidak pernah resah dengan sikap yang sedikit tidak sejalan dengan alquran, maka perlu di pertanyakan ada apa dengan hatinya, hanya hafal sebatas lisan kah?

Istiqomah di ujung nafas, memang tidak mudah. sedikit untuk menghibur diri sendiri dan diri kamu, meski tiada dukungan, yakinlah para malaikat di langit sana semua mendukung dan mendoakan kita. Dukungan yang lebih dahsyat dari dukungan manusia. Dukungan yang menguncangkan 'arsy, dan membuat para hati malaikat cemburu. Ketika Allah telah menyeburkan diri kita di dunia penghafal alquran, kita punya kewajiban untuk memantaskan diri sebaik-baik mungkin meski jatuh bangun. "Tidak masalah berapa banyak nya kita jatuh, tapi bangkitlah sebanyak-banyaknya". Salam cinta ku untuk semua penghafal alquran......

"saling mendoakan ya........"

By: Annisa

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My Journey From Christianity to Islam

Bismillah hir-Rahma nir- Raheem

My story in short is that I am a girl who was born to a Christian family and therefore followed Christianity until January 15th 2006 when I converted to Islam, most thankful to God.

I grew up in a non-too-religiously-committed Christian family, my father was an atheist, though he never tried to influence us nor he ever interfered in our choices, and my mother was a Christian by birth and tradition, and she brought us up this way.

We went to Nuns Schools therefore learning Christian religion was a must, and we had to attend the mass on Sunday with the rest of the parish in addition to a Wednesday special mass for the students. I never liked the rituals of the mass nor did I feel connected with God through those rituals, yet I used to practice it with interest because of my conviction that prayer is the only connection with God, the only way to express my appreciation and do my supplications, but deep inside me never felt heart warmed with the process maybe because of all the festive appearance in the church and its visitors, also the method of the prayer through the priest did not appeal to me, why should I need a third party to connect me to God, let alone when that third party is as human as I was? Ever since I was a child we had a Muslim cleaning lady who used to come help my mother in the house, and she used to pray timely, I used to watch her with fascination, I used to notice her shining with faith, even though she was praying alone and not in a worship house, I once asked her "do u feel God close to u when you pray?" she said "yes, when u pray u feel His spirit next to you", as simple as her reply was but it touched the core of my heart, ever since I used to envy the Muslims with every Athan thinking they are now praying, thus feeling the spirit of God close to them.



I grew up within Christianity and stayed like that, sort of accepting it as is until my early thirties, when I joined the communist party and then I
 stepped away from religion and my thinking of God became closer to an atheist, but I never could deny His existence as a whole, and stayed like
that for few years until I quit the party, but my relation with God stayed abrupt, and I only went to church for Christmas and Easter and to participate in any social occasion.





With time I started feeling that it is not enough for to only believe in God, and was tired of that abrupt relation with Him, so I concluded that to strengthen the tie with him I have to strengthen my relation with my religion, and the agony started again, every time I came closer to the religion and its teachings I faced the same question torturing me



Who is God?



Is He the father?



Is He the son?



Or is He the Holy Spirit?



God in one on all those three, that was the same answer I always got, but never was convincing to me, how could God have a son? And how could He say it is Him that son? Why did He need a son to prove that he's a God?



Why do I as a Christian only need to connect with God through Jesus, if he were a prophet, then he was as human as we are, though with a higher rank of sanity, but I don't need him to connect me with God, at the end he was God's messenger who delivered God's message, as did other prophets, and if he was God, how could I worship two Gods?



I started reading more in my desperate tries to come closer to God through this religion, to which I was born, started to worry, I can't accept most of
its teachings, specially the basics, started to feel that the Holy Book is not the word of God as He sent it, I found in the Holy Book many signs that
*Jesus was only a prophet sent with a message to finish what came before him,* and actually most of the signs and from the bible gave that
implication.





Matthews 18:11 and the son of man is come to save that which is lost

John, 12:19 For I have not spoken of myself*:* but the *f*ather which sentme,



Matthews 5"17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them





Mark 10:18 Jesus said to him: why callest thou me good? There is no man good but one, which is God



Mark 9:37 Whosoever receive any such a child in my name, receiveth me. And whosoever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.



John 17:3 This is life eternal, that they might know thee that only very God, and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ.



And so many other examples from the bible how Jesus never claimed he was God but he always affirmed he was the son of Human.



So where did the idea of Trinity come from, and that Christ is God, the son of God ?!!?!?!



A dilemma that bothered my brains for years.



Another important issue puzzled my brains; why did God have to come down to earth in a form of a human? Why did he have to kill "his son" to take away our sins? Why did He have to bribe us to love him? Aren't we bound for him for our mere existence and creation? What would be the purpose of our life if we live with no sins? And where is the divine justice in having one person take the burden of others sins and mistakes?



And if Christ died while on the cross, then should this mean that God died??? How could this be?



The only answer I got from those who wanted to prove Christ's divinity that he did miracles, but other prophets did too!!!



Him rising from the dead after three days is something only gods can do, but wasn't Elias carried to heaven on a carriage of light, as per the old
testament?

I was never convinced with the answers



*The only answer that I could believe and be convinced with was coming from my inside which was that the idea of salvation and Trinity were added to Christianity upon the outset of spreading Christianity from Constantinople, where the bibles were published with this current shape, for the purpose of convincing people easily of following that new religion, where the idea of one God was not common, so making them three would be easier for people to grasp and that new religion will take away all their sins *

* *

Another important point, was the bible the word of God? And due to having so many different in identical versions of the bible raised my doubts about the authenticity of the bible as the word of God and started researching the issue until I heard a debate by Late sheikh Ahmad Deedat with an American priest under the title of "is the Bible the World of God" and all the points he raised were so sensible to me and made so much sense, and I noticed through Sheikh Deedat's works how so many signs from the Old testament that indicate the mention of Prophet Mohammad which are totally ignored, and my trip to Islam began.





And what helped me explore it more, that at the same time of my quest the attack on Islam in the international arena has got stronger, and I've hear
so many interpretations from within some Muslim factions which came to me contradicting to what I know of Islam, having lived all my life in with a
Muslim society, so started digging out for the truth and base for such interpretations, only to find out the TRUTH of Islam which I found a religion that can absorb everyone, and calls for the worship of One and Only God and calls for peace and forgiveness and addressed every single aspect of
life, which made it a more realistic religion for me as opposed to Christianity which I found too spiritual for my taste, let alone the other essential differences that I could not accept nor comprehend

I found Islam a religion that calls for people to appreciate God for what He is and for what they are without the need for any mediators with clear cut
instructions that covered the lives of all Muslims.

Instinctively I felt Islam settle in my heart without any resistance, and talked to my mind with ease, I found my self fitting in it as if I was born to be a Muslim, the prayer satisfied me and my need to get closer to God, and I fasted last Ramadan and read the whole Quran, I found myself spiritually involved in that religion accepting it from all angles, I felt so much inner peace in it, and after Ramadan there came Christmas followed by Adha and it was a good test for my conviction, at Christmas I didn't feel any kind of spiritual attachment nor connection, while on Adha I found myself fasting Arafah day, when I decided that Islam is the Religion for me, and I pronounced the Shahadatin on the 15 th of January, Wal Hamdulellah

(Khadijah)

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Ketika Pilihan Ku Selalu Ditolak....

Sebut saja namanya Zahra (bukan nama sebenarnya), Zahra adalah gadis yang sangat taat kepada kedua orang tuanya. Zahra sangat mencintai Islam dan ingin mendalami Islam lebih dalam. Walau sebenarnya tidak ada keluarganya berasal dari  santri, tapi Zahra punya keinginan setamat SD ingin masuk pondok pesantren lalu kuliah ke Al Azhar university mesir. Tapi sayang, keinginan itu tidak terwujud karena ayah dan ibunya tidak menyetujui nya, ayah nya ingin Zahra menjadi dokter, sehingga tanpa sepengetahuan Zahra dan bermusyawarah terlebih dahulu, Zahra sudah di daftarkan ke SMP negeri yang ternama. Zahra hanya pasrah, walau sebenarnya dia tidak suka, dia berusaha untuk ikhlas menerima ketetapan Allah ini. Sempat terpikir dalam benak Zahra ingin menjadi anak asal-asal saja di sekolah, tapi...apalah guna baginya, semua itu tdk akan bisa membuat ayahnya luluh. Zahra berbeda dg anak2 yang lain, yg menjadi stess dan menjadi anak ugal-ugalan bila berbeda pendapat dg ortunya. Karena Islam lah yg membuat Zahra tetap taat pada ortunya.Dlam usahanya tetap belajar ikhlas, Zahra termasuk anak yg berprestasi di sekolah, juara umum selalu dia dapatkan. Hingga, akhirnya Zahra memang harus mengubur dalam2 cita2nya ingin kuliah ke Al azhar. Dia diterima di universitas sriwijaya fakultas kedokteran. Hari demi hari ia lalui sambil mengobati hati yang sempat terluka. Suatu saat, Zahra sempat berta’aruf dengan ikhwan yng msih kuliah di LIPIA Jakarta, akhirnya mereka memutuskan untuk melanjutkan ke jenjang pernikahan. Tapii....lagi2 saat ikhwan ini datang ke rumah Zahra, hendak meminang Zahra. Kedua orang tua Zahra menolak mentah2, hanya alasan ikhwan itu belum punya pekerjaan tetap. Ternyata kedua ortu Zahra ingin anaknya menikah dengan laki2 yg bekerja di Pertamina, sebagaimana Ayah Zahra bekerja.
Untuk kedua x nya Zahra harus ikhlas menerima keputusan itu, ia menanggis dalam sujud2nya, bukan karena sedih tak berjodoh, tapi sedih dengan cara kedua ortunya yang menolak mentah2. Ujian keimanan ini tidaklah membuat Zahra sedih berkepanjangan, dia tetap menghormati ayah dan ibunya. Tiga bulan setelah lamaran,

Ternyata rencana Allah memang lebih indah, tidak jadi menikah Zahra didekatkan Allah dengan Alquran, Allah memberi kado terindah kepada Zahra untuk menghafal alquran di Jakarta. Tapi....lagi2, saat ingin meminta izin kepada ortunya, keduanya menolak, bahkan bukan hnya menolak, tapi mencurigai Zahra kalo kepergiannya ke Jakarta karena ingin mengejar laki2 yg pernah melamarnya. Zahra sudah menjelaskan kalo niat dia benar2 karena Allah, bahkan sampai bersumpah dan bersujud dikaki ayahnya. Tpi hanya kata2 kasar yg keluar dari mulut ayahnya. Karena bujukan kakak Zahra, akhirnya ayah dan ibunya merestui kepergian Zahra ke Jakarta.

            6 bulan sudah Zahra di Jakarta, melewati hari demi hari dengan Alquran.Ternyata tak sampai disitu saja ujian Allah. Zahra mendapatkan ujian spesial dari Allah, yaitu sakit. 6 bulan terakhir itu dia suka sakit2an, tapi Zahra menyimpannya dari keluarganya. Hingga saat zahra jatuh pingsan, pembimbing pondok memberi kabar kepada keluarga Zahra. Karena sakitnya Zahra disuruh pulang ke kampung kelahirannya, walau sebenarnya hati Zahra tak mau pulang. Saat pulang, Zahra bukannya di sambut baik, tapi di jatuhi kalimat2 ucapann yang menyakitkan, baik dari ayah ibu dan saudara2 kandungnya. Ibunya bilang ”kamu itu gak sakit, tapi karena kamu itu terlalu bnyk pikiran, niat kamu ngafal quran itu gak tulus tapi ada niat yang lain, ada yg kamu pikirkan selama disana, pasti kamu itu memikirkan laki2 itu kan?? Sudah sekarang kamu tidak usah kembali lagi ke jakrta, teruskan kuliah kamu. Sakit hati ibu ini kamu gak pernah nurut.” Zahra menanggis mendengar kata2 itu keluar dari seorang wanita yng ia hormati, ”Bu sumpah demi Allah,tak pernah melintas dlm pikiran ku utk mengejar laki2 itu, sejak kalian menolak lamarannya sejak itulah kami tdk pernah berhubungan lagi. Ya, aku memang banyak pikiran disana, aku memikirkan kalian keluarga ku yg sampai saat ini masih tak percaya dg ku, padahal kalian keluargaku yg tau aku dari kecil tapi kalian seperti org asing. Sementara org2 yg baru kenal aku bbrpa bulan  mereka percaya dg ku, bhkan sangat percaya. Baiklah aku memang tidak sakit, tak perlu aku berobat.”, jelas Zahra sambil menanggis.

Dada Zahra terasa sesak, dinding dikamarnya terasa seperti ingin menghimpit tubuhnya, kata2 itu membuat Zahra terpukul. Zahra terus berdoa kepada Allah, agar Allah saja lah yang menjelaskan semua perasaanya kepada keluarganya terutama ayah n ibunya. Seminggu sudah zahra di kampung halamannya, Zahra hanya menahan sakitnya, jika sakit ia mengunci pintu kamarnya, percuma aku mengeluh toh ibu saja tak percaya.” ungkapnya
Minggu ketiga saat zahra ingin siap2 ke kampus , Zahra jatuh di kamar mandi, lalu dilarikan ke UGD rumah sakit pertamina. Disaat itulah dokter menjelaskan penyakit Zahra, ”anak ibu sakit jantung rematik, syukur cepat di bawah ke rumah sakit. Katup jantungnya sudah bocor, perlu dirawat intensif”. Jelas dokter.
Sang ibu langsung menanggis di pangkuan Zahra, sementara ayahnya berdiri kaku tak mampu berkata apa2. Ibu langsung meninta maaf dengan Zahra.

Zahra sangat senang akhirnya Allah lah yg menjelaskan semuanya kpd ortunya, bukan kata maaf dari ibunya yg Zahra harapkan. Tapi kasih sayang, dan pengertian keluarga. Sejak itu Zahra mengungkapkan isi hatinya kalo dia msih berniat tuk kuliah syariah, dia tdk minat kuliah kedokteran. Sejak saat itu juga ibu ayahnya sangat perhatian, pendirian yg dulu sangat kokoh, kini semakin rapuh dan luluh. Akhirnya, ayah dan ibunya merestui Zahra kuliah sesuai keinginannya. Akhirnya, Ridho itu ia dapatkan, dia lulus di imam muhammad ibnu Suud islamic university (LIPIA). Kini, ia hidup dibwah naungan alquran, walau sakitnya sudah semakin mengerogoti jantungnya...


Ibroh dari kisah nyata ini:

Tetaplah kita taat kepada kedua ortu kita walau terkadang mereka menyakiti kita, karena sakit yg kita rasakan tak sebanding dengan sakit saat ibu mengandung dan melahirkan kita. Berkorban jiwa dan raga. Sebaik-baik rencana adalah rencana Allah..

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