Twins of Faith Day 2 Part 1

25th December 2011

I joined a Sister’s only workshop as a start for today’s activity.

The speaker, Dr Harlina Halizah Siraj with the topic Women in the Eyes of God. She started off with few verses from the Holy Quran that basically place women in Islamic perspective. Outside world perceive Islam as a religion that oppresses women, however it is clearly explained in the Al-Quran, both gender men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah, what differentiate us is our level of taqwa.

An-Nahl, ayat 97
Sahih International
Whoever does righteousness, whether male or female, while he is a believer - We will surely cause him to live a good life, and We will surely give them their reward [in the Hereafter] according to the best of what they used to do.

Islam has never treated women as second grade creation; in fact, Islam is the only religion that strongly upholds women’s right. A whole chapter is dedicated to women in Al-Quran (Surah An-Nisa). Such details were drawn on how to treat women, up to the point of allocating the inheritance.

Dr Harlina draws her session more towards how women are in the current global society. She based her talk from a Millennium Development Goals Report. The Millennium Development Goals were derived from the United Nations Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 nations in 2000. Most of the goals and targets were set to be achieved by the year 2015 on the basis of the global situation during the 1990s. Three out of eight goals are directly related to women. The goals are:
1. Goal 3 Promote gender equality & empower women
2. Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
3. Goal 5 Improve maternal health

UN conducts the research to see where the countries stand based on certain KPIs. Though the report only outlines the scores according to continents, the working team had access to the detail breakdown of each countries score. Sadly majority of the Sub Saharan African countries that score the lowest ranking in all the indexes are mainly populated by Muslim people.

Why is this happening? This is because Cultural Islam took over instead of living the life the way it is outlined in the Al-Quran and sunnah. As an ummah, this is a serious issue. Muslim women are not being treated fairly across the world even by their own fellow Muslim brothers, we are lucky we did not see that as big issue in Malaysia, but still there are people in the our Muslim community that fails to live up to Al-Quran’s guide when it comes to treating women.

Some interesting facts that was shared, so ladies, off to the Norwegian Woods I presume? ;)

I once had a girl~~~ thanks CS, now I cant stop humming the song :D

After that workshop, I returned back to the main auditorium and just in time for next lecture by the cute and cuddly Sheikh :) . The topic is Our Youth, the Foundations of an Exemplary Community. Majority of the participants are no doubt still can be categorized as youth. There are quite a few universities that sent few buses of students to join the conference. I say the organizer did a great job in catering the conference to all walks of life.

Main take away from Sheikh Navaid talks, there are 7 categories in a wheel to help us (the youth :P ) realize our true potential. Those are:
1. Deen – spend time and effort in investing in the hereafter. People who aim the akhirat will try their best to be on their best behaviour. It was mentioned good tongue leads to good heart, hence a person that properly guard his/her deen, will definitely has a good personality to begin with
2. Education – invest in your own education. His advice was to learn this 3 basic skills and you are good to achieve anything in your life:
a. Learn how to manage people
b. Learn how to manage time 
c. Learn how to lead people
One highly recommended book to be read by the Sheikh is Dale Carnegie’s – How to Win Friends and Influence People
3. Career – do what you enjoy and what you most passionate about, not what others expect you to do
4. Social life – you are the average of 5 people you surround yourself with, so what type of person are there in your social circle?
5. Health – take good care of your health
6. Finance – money should be in our hands but let not money get to our hearts. Earn as much as possible, spend in way of Allah, do not just pamper ourselves (note to self!!)
7. Family – keep good relationship with your parents, siblings, family etc.

We will reach our full potential once all of these elements are well balanced in our wheel of life, insyaAllah…
That’s it for now. I will continue with the rest of day 2 programme in the next post. Daa…