QUOTATIONS ON GENIUS Great men grow tired of contentedness. Great men are meteors that burn so that the earth may be lighted. Napoleon Bonaparte Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone. Longfellow Every great action is extreme. However brilliant an action may be, it should not be accounted great when it is not the result of great purpose. Duc de La Rochefoucauld There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meagre and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intense; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points - and is fatal. Kierkegaard The case with most men is that they go out into life with one or another accidental characteristic of personality of which they say: Well, this is the way I am. I cannot do otherwise. Then the world gets to work on them and thus the majority of men are ground into conformity. In each generation a small part cling to their "I cannot do Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer otherwise" and lose their minds. Finally there are a very few in each generation who in spite of all life's terrors cling with more and more inwardness to this "I cannot do otherwise". They are the geniuses. Their "I cannot do otherwise" is an infinite thought, for if one were to cling firmly to a finite thought, he would lose his mind. Kierkegaard Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue?Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness. Nietzsche (in Zarathustra) Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air. Kierkegaard A genius is one who can do anything except make a living. Joey Adams Genius is born, not paid. Oscar Wilde Genius borrows nobly. R.W Emerson Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. R.W Emerson Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Samuel T. Coleridge Genius is not so much about new ideas as it is about clarity of ideas. Two people can have the same idea yet it will be genius in the one and mediocrity in the other. Kevin Solway It has been seen that the object of a sane upbringing is increasingly to direct all emotion towards objects which involve other people. Now basically the situation of being finite is an infinitely frustrating one, which would be expected to arouse sensations of desperation and aggression - as indeed it may sometimes be seen to do in very young children. I am aware that I must be careful, in using the word aggression, to state that I do not mean aggression directed towards people.What I mean is an impersonal drive directed against reality - it is difficult to give examples but it may be presumed that geniuses who are at all worthy of the name preserve a small degree of this. However, since all emotion must be directed towards people, it is obvious that the only form of aggression which a sane person can understand is aggression against people, which is probably better described as sadism or cruelty. Celia Green I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age...The gods had given me almost everything. I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring; I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men and the colour of things: there was nothing I said or did that did not make people wonder...I treated Art as the supreme reality, and life as a mere mode of fiction: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram. Oscar Wilde, in De Profundis Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent - the power to do the right thing the first time. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Elbert Hubbard The ability of someone to choose and arrange the details of their creative field guided by a vision is a major hallmark of a genius. John Briggs Philosophy becomes poetry and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius. Disraeli Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity. The ignorant peasant without fault is greater than the philosopher with many.What is genius or courage without a heart? Oliver Goldsmith A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity. Nietzsche Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Wolfgang A. Mozart The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death. Edmund Spenser Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others. Mark Twain Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think. In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. R.W. Emerson Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can. Owen Meredith Earl of Lytton AndyWarhol is the only genius with an IQ of 60. Gore Vidal I have nothing to declare except my genius. Oscar Wilde's response to an American customs official Genius is an infinite capacity for giving pains. Genius learns from nature, its own nature. Talent learns from art. Oscar Wilde Genius: 1. to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer 2. a sledgehammer. 3. the fruit of labour and thought. 4. soul. 5. the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. 6. something one can become. Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by friction. Heinrich Heine At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the words of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history. Gustave Le Bon Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them. Arthur Schopenhauer A man of genius makes no mistakes . His Errors are the portals of discovery. James Joyce There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him. Antonin Artaud, of Van Gogh Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Oh! how near are genius and madness!Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them. Denis Diderot There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. Aristotle It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. If he is more than a popular story-teller it may take humanity a generation to absorb and grow accustomed to the new geography with which the scientist or artist presents us. Even then, perhaps only the more imaginative and literate may accept him. Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself. Loren Eiseley, in "The Mind as Nature" Genius . . . is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. Ezra Pound Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers. Robert Graves It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing. Gertrude Stein The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Samuel Johnson Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer. Ralph Waldo Emerson The man of genius does not steal, he conquers. Dumas The principal mark of a genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers Arthur Koestler Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent; genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead. Kierkegaard It is through woman that ideality is born into the world and - what were man without her! There is many a man who has become a genius through a woman, many a one a hero, many a one a poet, many a one even a saint; but he did not become a genius through the woman he married, for through her he only became a privy councillor; he did not become a hero through the woman he married, for through her he only became a general; he did not become a poet through the woman he married, for through her he only became a father; he did not become a saint through the woman he married, for he did not marry, and would have married but one - the one whom he did not marry; just as the others became a genius, became a hero, became a poet through the help of the woman they did not marry. Kierkegaard Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius. Rousseau Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Male conspiracy cannot explain all female failures. I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant. Genius is not checked by social obstacles: it will overcome. Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae There are no female geniuses because there are no female Jack-the-Rippers. Camille Paglia Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots. Ambrose Bierce Sporadic great men come everywhere. But for a community to get vibrating through and through with intensely active life, many geniuses coming together and in rapid succession are required. This is why great epochs are so rare, - why the sudden bloom of a Greece, an early Rome, a Renaissance, is such a mystery. Blow must follow blow so fast that no cooling can occur in the intervals. Then the mass of the nation glows incandescent, and may continue to glow by pure inertia long after the originators of its internal movement have passed away. We often hear surprise expressed that in these high tides of human affairs not only the people should be filled with stronger life, but that individual geniuses should seem so exceptionally abundant. This mystery is just about as deep as the time-honored conundrum as to why great rivers flow by great t owns. It is true that great public fermentations awaken and adopt many geniuses who in more torpid times would have had no chance to work. But over and above this there must be an exceptional concourse of genius about a time, to make the fermentation begin at all. The unlikeliness of the concourse is far greater than the unlikeliness of any particular genius; hence the rarity of these periods and the exceptional aspect which they always wear. William James Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer A genius is the man in whom you are least likely to find the power of attending to anything insipid or distasteful in itself. He breaks his engagements, leaves his letters unanswered, neglects his family duties incorrigibly, because he is powerless to turn his attention down and back from those more interesting trains of imagery with which his genius constantly occupies his mind. William James Genius always gives its best at first, prudence at last. Lavater, J.C. Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. Pope It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men. Nietzsche Genius is nothing but continued attention. Claude Adrien Helvetius It is easy to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Emerson I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer than man's, which respects itself too much to be the slave of the many or the few. Channing The genius differs from us men in being able to endure isolation, his rank as a genius is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we men are constantly in need of "the others," the herd; we die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the herd, of the same opinion as the herd., Kierkegaard Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius. Gibbon Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the Headless Monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded. Charles Chaplin Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time. John Stuart Mill The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive ...We must learn to Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. Thoreau The principal mark of a genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers. Arthur Koestler Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more even than death... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: while he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: shortsightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others. William Hazlitt The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decisions, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.Whatever you can do or dream Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. Goethe Action, so to speak, is the genius of nature. Blair When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts. Heinrich Heine Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself... Further, genius consists in the working of the free intellect., and as a consequence the productions of genius serve no useful purpose. The work of genius may be music, philosophy, painting, or poetry; it is nothing for use or profit. To be useless and unprofitable is one of the characteristics of genius; it is their patent of nobility. Schopenhauer Genius does not herd with genius. OW Holmes Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it. William Hazlitt The only difference between a genius and one of common capacity is that the former anticipates and explores what the latter accidentally hits upon; but even the man of genius himself more frequently employs the advantages that chance presents him; it is the lapidary who gives value to the diamond which the peasant has dug up without knowing its value. Abbe Guillaume Raynal What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that idea - possessing them - that what has been said has still not been said enough. Eugene Delacroix Genius might well be defined as the ability to makes a platitude sound as though it were an original remark. L. B. Walton Genius never desires what does not exist. Kierkegaard The great things in life are what they seem to be. And for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, often are very difficult to interpret (understand). Great passions are for the great of souls. Great events can only be seen by people who are on a level with them. We think we can have our visions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self- Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer sacrificing visions have to paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. Oscar Wilde Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men. It may be well enough here to ask the question:What is greatness? A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the Bastille of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now. A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon: in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy. Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness. The place does not make the man, nor the scepter the king. Greatness is from within. Robert Ingersoll Some superior minds are unrecognized because there is no standard by which to weigh them. Joseph Joubert It is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own. Mark Twain Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. Mark Twain The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius. Oliver Wendell Holmes Society expresses its sympathy for the geniuses of the past to distract attention from the fact that it has no intention of being sympathetic to the geniuses of the present. Celia Green The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. Oscar Wilde Every person of genius is considerably helped by being dead. Robert S. Lund Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length. Christian Nevell Bovee Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple. C. W. Ceran It takes immense genius to represent, simply and sincerely, what we see in front of us. Edmond Duranty Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Genius without education is like silver in the mine. Benjamin Franklin The genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer. Francis Bacon Talent without genius isn't much, but genius without talent is nothing whatsoever. Paul Valery Men of genius are the worst possible role models for men of talent. Murray D. Edwards Genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow. Thomas Huxley A genius is one who shoots at something no one else can see, and hits it. Author unknown Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought. Simone Weil Genius is the capacity for productive reaction against one's training. Bernard Berenson Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Victor Hugo The lamp of genius burns quicker than the lamp of life. Johann Friedrich Von Schiller Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines.We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it. Friedrich Schlegel Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. Joshua Reynolds Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it. Horace In following the strong bent of his genius, he was self assured that he should 'create the taste by which he is to be enjoyed. Emerson Mediocrity is self-inflicted. Genius is self-bestowed. Walter Russell Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together. G. C. Lichtenberg Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer George Bernard Shaw Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede - not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen. G. C. Lichtenberg When human power becomes so great and original that we can account for it only as a kind of divine imagination, we call it genius. William Crashaw So few people think.When we find one who really does, we call him a genius. Author Unknown The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light. George Steiner True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. Winston Churchill Genius is an infinite capacity for taking life by the scruff of the neck. Christopher Quill Genius is that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates. Samuel Johnson Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius. William Blake Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. Abraham Lincoln Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself with duties which will imbitter his days and spoil him for his proper work. R.W. Emerson Geniuses experience a second adolescence, whereas other people are only young once. Goethe If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. Goethe True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of a genii. Puzant Thomajan Genius has somewhat of the infantine; But of the childish not a touch or taint. Robert Browning OttoWeininger on Genius Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer The man of genius is he who understands incomparably more other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of himself that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men he has in his personality, and the more really and strongly he has these others within him. If comprehension of those about him only flickers in him like a poor candle, then he is unable, like the great poet, to kindle a mighty flame in his heroes, to give distinction and character to his creations. The ideal of an artistic genius is to live in all men, to lose himself in all men, to reveal himself in multitudes; and so also the aim of the philosopher is to discover all others in himself, to fuse them into a unit which is his own unit. Otto Weininger The ideal genius, who has all men within him, has also all their preferences and all their dislikes. There is in him not only the universality of men, but of all nature. He is the man to whom all things tell their secrets, to whom most happens, and whom least escapes. He understands most things, and those most deeply, because he has the greatest number of things to contrast and compare them with. The genius is he who is conscious of most, and of that most acutely. And so without doubt his sensations must be most acute; but this must not be understood as implying, say, in the artist the keenest power of vision, in the composer the most acute hearing; the measure of genius is not to be taken from the acuteness of the sense organ but from that of the perceiving brain. Otto Weininger Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Otto Weininger I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius. - Otto Weininger The reason why madness overtakes so many men of genius - fools believe it comes from the influence of Venus, or the spinal degeneration of neurasthenics - is that for many the burden becomes too heavy, the task of bearing the whole world on the shoulders, like Atlas, intolerable for the smaller, but never for the really mighty minds. But the higher a man mounts, the greater may be his fall; all genius is a conquering of chaos, mystery, and darkness, and if it degenerates and goes to pieces, the ruin is greater in proportion to the success. The genius which runs to madness is no longer genius; it has chosen happiness instead of morality. All madness is the outcome of the insupportability of suffering attached to all consciousness. Otto Weininger No one suffers so much as he [the genius] with the people, and, therefore, for the people, with whom he lives. For, in a certain sense, it is certainly only "by suffering" that a man knows. If compassion is not itself clear, abstractly conceivable or visibly symbolic knowledge, it is, at any rate, the strongest impulse for the acquisition of knowledge. It is only by suffering that the genius understands men. And the genius suffers most because he suffers with and in each and all; but he suffers most through his understanding. . . . Otto Weininger Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer It results from their periodicity that, in men of genius, sterile years precede productive years, these again to be followed by sterility, the barren periods being marked by psychological self-depreciation, by the feeling that they are less than other men; times in which the remembrance of the creative periods is a torment, and when they envy those who go about undisturbed by such penalties. Just as his moments of ecstasy are more poignant, so are the periods of depression of a man of genius more intense than those of other men. Every great man has such periods, of longer or shorter duration, times in which he loses self-confidence, in which he thinks of suicide; times in which, indeed, he may be sowing the seeds of a future harvest, but which are devoid of the stimulus to production; times which call forth the blind criticisms 'How such a genius is degenerating!' 'How he has played himself out!' 'How he repeates himself!' and so forth. Otto Weininger Talent is hereditary; it may be the common possession of a whole family (eg, the Bach family); genius is not transmitted; it is never diffused, but is strictly individual. Otto Weininger The age does not create the genius it requires. The genius is not the product of his age, is not to be explained by it, and we do him no honour if we attempt to account for him by it . . . And as the causes of its appearance do not lie in any one age, so also the consequences are not limited by time. The achievements of genius live for ever, and time cannot change them. By his works a man of genius is granted immortality on the earth, and thus in a threefold manner he has transcended time. His universal comprehension and memory forbid the annihilation of his experiences with the passing of the moment in which each occurred; his birth is independent of his age, and his work never dies. Otto Weininger Genius is, in its essence, nothing but the full completion of Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer the idea of a man, and, therefore, every man ought to have some quality of it, and it should be regarded as a possible principle for every one. Genius is the highest morality, and, therefore, it is every one's duty. Genius is to be attained by a supreme act of the will, in which the whole universe is affirmed in the individual. Genius is something which 'men of genius' take upon themselves; it is the greatest exertion and the greatest pride, the greatest misery and the greatest ecstasy to a man. A man may become a genius if he wishes to. But at once it will certainly be said: "Very many men would like very much to be 'original geniuses,'" and their wish has no effect. But if these men who "would like very much" had a livelier sense of what is signified by their wish, if they were aware that genius is identical with universal responsibility - and until that is grasped it will only be a wish and not a determination - it is highly probable that a very large number of these men would cease to wish to become geniuses. Otto Weininger The most powerful musical motifs of world-music are those in which the representation of the breaking-through of time within time, the breaking out of time, is attempted, in which an ictus falls upon the tonic such that it reabsorbs the other parts of the melody (which as a whole represents time; separate points unified by the I) and in this manner sublimates the melody. The end of the Grail-motif in 'Parsifal,' the Siegfried-motif, are such melodies. There is, however, an act that, so to speak, reabsorbs the future in itself, experiences in advance all future falling back into immorality already as guilt, no less than all the immoral past, and by this means grows out over and beyond both: A timeless setting of the character, rebirth. It is the act by which genius comes to be. Otto Weininger Since the soul of man is the microcosm, and great men are those who live entirely in and through their souls, the whole universe thus having its being in them, the female must be described as absolutely without the quality of genius. . . . There is no female genius, and there never has been one . . . and there never can be one. Those who are in favour of laxity in these matters, and are anxious to extend Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer and enlarge the idea of genius in order to make it possible to include women, would simply by such action destroy the concept of genius. . . . How could a soulless being possess genius? The possession of genius is identical with profundity; and if any one were to try to combine woman and profundity as subject and predicate, he would be contradicted on all sides. A female genius is a contradiction in terms, for genius is simply intensified, perfectly developed, universally conscious maleness. Otto Weininger Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing. Woman has no share in ontological reality, no relation to the thing-in-itself, which, in the deepest interpretation, is the absolute, is God. Man in his highest form, the genius, has such a relation, and for him the absolute is either the conception of the highest worth of existence, in which case he is a philosopher; or it is the wonderful fairyland of dreams, the kingdom of absolute beauty, and then he is an artist. Otto Weininger In those rare individual cases where women approach genius they also approach masculinity. Otto Weininger The man of genius possesses, like everything else, the complete female in himself; but woman herself is only a part of the Universe, and the part can never be the whole; femaleness can never include genius. This lack of genius on the part of woman is inevitable because woman is not a monad, and cannot reflect the Universe. Otto Weininger There are probably very few people who have not at some time of their lives had some quality of genius. If they have not had such, it is probable that they have also been without great sorrow or great pain. They would have needed only to live sufficiently intently for a time for some quality to Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer reveal itself. The poems of first love are a case in point, and certainly such love is a sufficient stimulus. Otto Weininger A nation orients itself by its own geniuses, and derives from them its ideas of its own ideals, but the guiding star serves also as a light to other nations. As speech has been created by a few great men, the most extraordinary wisdom lies concealed in it, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists. Otto Weininger The genius is not a critic of language, but its creator, as he is the creator of all the mental achievements which are the material of culture and which make up the objective mind, the spirit of the peoples. The "timeless" men are those who make history, for history can be made only by those who are not floating with the stream. It is only those who are unconditioned by time who have real value, and whose productions have an enduring force. And the events that become forces of culture become so only because they have an enduring value. - Otto Weininger It is the genius in reality and not the other who is the creator of history, for it is only the genius who is outside and unconditioned by history. The great man has a history, the emperor is only a part of history. The great man transcends time; time creates and time destroys the emperor. Otto Weininger It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law. . . . Otto Weininger The ego of the genius accordingly is simply itself universal comprehension, the centre of infinite space; the great man contains the whole universe within himself; genius is the living microcosm. He is not an intricate mosaic, a chemical combination of an infinite number of elements; the argument in chap. iv. as to his relation to other men and things must not be taken in that sense; he is everything. In him and through him all psychical manifestations cohere and are real experiences, not an elaborate piece-work, a whole put together from parts in the fashion of science. For the genius the ego is the all, lives as the all; the genius sees nature and all existences as whole; the relations of things flash on him intuitively; he has not to build bridges of stones between them. Otto Weininger The man of genius is he whose ego has acquired consciousness. He is enabled by it to distinguish the fact that others are different, to perceive the "ego" of other men, even when it is not pronounced enough for them to be conscious of it themselves. But it is only he who feels that every other man is also an ego, a monad, an individual centre of the universe, with specific manner of feeling and thinking and a distinct past, he alone is in a position to avoid making use of his neighbours as means to an end. Otto Weininger The history of the human race (naturally I mean the history of its mind and not merely its wars) is readily intelligible on the theory of the appearance of genius, and of the imitation by the more monkey-like individuals of the conduct of those with genius. The chief stages, no doubt, were house- building, agriculture, and above all, speech. Every single word has been the invention of a single man, as, indeed, we still see, if we leave out of consideration the merely technical terms. How else could language have arisen? The earliest words were "onomatopoetic"; a sound Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer similar to the exciting cause was evolved almost without the will of the speaker, in direct response to the sensuous stimulation. All the other words were originally metaphors, or comparisons, a kind of primitive poetry, for all prose has come from poetry. Many, perhaps the majority of the greatest geniuses, have remained unknown. Think of the proverbs, now almost commonplaces, such as "one good turn deserves another." These were said for the first time by some great man. How many quotations from the classics, or sayings of Christ, have passed into the common language, so that we have to think twice before we can remember who were the authors of them. Language is as little the work of the multitude as our ballads. Every form of speech owes much that is not acknowledged to individuals of another language. Because of the universality of genius, the words and phrases that he invents are useful not only to those who use the language in which he wrote them. A nation orients itself by its own geniuses, and derives from them its ideas of its own ideals, but the guiding star serves also as a light to other nations. As speech has been created by a few great men, the most extraordinary wisdom lies concealed in it, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists. Otto Weininger Sepuluh Prinsip dalam Islam Sa'id Hawwa adalah sosok ulama yang cukup vokal dalam menyuarakan kebenaran (al- Islam). Ulama yang hidup di Mesir ini telah banyak menghasilkan tulisan-tulisan keislaman yang sangat berkualitas dan dibutuhkan ummat. Pemikiran-pemikirannya senantiasa merujuk pada al-Qur'an dan as-Sunnah. Namun, pemikiran-pemikirannya tidak lepas dari kontroversi dan kritikan (protes) dari mereka yang merasa berat untuk melaksanakan Islam secara total (kaffah) sebagaimana yang selalu 'diteriakkan' oleh beliau. Dalam bukunya yang berjudul "Min Ajli Khuthwatin ila al-Amam'ala Thariqi al-Jihad al- Mubarak", Sa'id Hawwa mengungkapkan ketentuan-ketentuan dalam Islam yang bersifat badihi (prinsipil), yaitu merupakan ketentuan yang sudah jelas nash-nya dan tidak diragukan lagi kebenarannya. Dan semua ummat Islam wajib menerima ketentuan atau konsepsi dalam Islam yang bersifat badihi tersebut. Menurut Sa'id Hawwa, ada sepuluh ketentuan yang bersifat badihi (prinsipil). Berikut ini ke-sepuluh prinsip tersebut yang diringkas dari buku "10 Aksioma tentang Islam" - terjemahan dari buku "Min Ajli Khuthwatin ila al-Amam'ala Thariqi al-Jihad al-Mubarak". Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Prinsip Pertama Islam adalah satu-satunya sistem hidup yang dibebankan pada seluruh ummat manusia, di barat atau di timur, di utara atau di selatan, berkulit kuning, merah, putih atau hitam. Allah swt telah mengumumkan bahwa Dia tidak akan menerima sistem hidup (ad-Dien) selain Islam dengan firman-Nya: Sesungguhnya dien (sistem hidup) yang diridhai di sisi Allah ialah Islam. (Qs.Ali Imran:19) Barangsiapa yang mencari dien (sistem hidup) selain Islam, maka sekali-kali tidak akan diterima (dien itu) darinya. (Qs.Ali Imran:85) Yang dimaksud dengan Islam adalah risalah yang diturunkan Allah swt melalui Nabi Muhammad saw. Risalah ini merupakan penutup seluruh risalah Allah swt, dan demikian risalah atau agama yang diturunkan Allah sebelumnya melalui para Nabi-Nya yang terdahulu tidak berlaku lagi. Karena itu seluruh manusia diwajibkan untuk memeluk Islam sampai Hari Kiamat. Barangsiapa yang tidak mengimani Islam, sedangkan seruan Islam telah sampai kepadanya, maka ia dianggap sebagai ahli neraka. Demi Dzat yang jiwaku berada di tangan-Nya, tidak mendengar seseorang tentangku dari ummat ini, apakah ia Yahudi atau Nasrani, kemudian ia tidak beriman dengan apa yang diutus kepadaku melainkan ia akan tergolong dari ahli neraka. (HR.Muslim) Prinsip Kedua Islam adalah satu-satunya jawaban yang benar dan bersih terhadap semua persoalan manusia. Ia mencakup seluruh aspek kehidupan manusia yang meliputi keyakinan, ibadat, syari'at dan syi'ar-syi'ar. Islam merupakan neraca dan satu-satunya tolok ukur untuk semua sisi kehidupan manusia. Dari Islamlah terefleksinya petunjuk yang benar dan lurus serta selamat dalam segala hal. Dan Kami turunkan kepadamu (Muhammad) Kitab (al-Qur'an) untuk menjelaskan segala sesuatu dan petunjuk serta rahmat dan kabar gembira bagi orang-orang yang berserah diri. (Qs.an-Nahl:89) Al-Qur'an menerangkan segala persoalan, apakah melalui nash-nashnya atau melalui kesimpulan-kesimpulan yang tepat tentang nash-nash tersebut berdasarkan hadits, qiyas, ijma' ulama, istihsan, istishab, istislah, 'urf, hukum-hukum yang diakui oleh akal, syara' atau hukum adat menurut batas-batas yang dibenarkan oleh nash tersebut. Prinsip Ketiga Bila seseorang masuk Islam, berarti ia telah menyerah secara mutlak kepada Allah swt dalam semua persoalan yang mencakup semua aspek kehidupan, termasuk yang berhubungan dengan jiwa, akal, hati, ruh, perasaan, emosi, perbuatan, pemikiran, kepercayaan dan peribadatan. Termasuk dalam hal konstitusi dan undang-undang kehakiman. Di samping itu Islam berarti penolakan total terhadap seluruh bentuk penyekutuan dengan selain Allah. Allah swt berfirman: ....Barangsiapa yang ingkar kepada thaghut dan beriman kepada Allah, maka Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer sesungguhnya ia telah berpegang kepada buhul tali yang amat kuat yang tidak akan putus.... (Qs.al-Baqarah:256) Prinsip Keempat Dalam Islam pemikiran eksperimental merupakan salah satu fenomena proses pembentukan pribadi Muslim atau karakteristik Islam. Oleh karena itu segala sesuatu yang telah dicapai oleh akal yang sehat dan melalui proses percobaan adalah sesuatu yang dapat diterima dari sudut pandangan Islam dan diberi jaminan kepercayaan terhadap kesahannya. Rasulullah pernah bersabda: Hikmah (ilmu pengetahuan) itu merupakan hak orang Mu'min. Maka di mana saja ia jumpai, ia lebih berhak terhadapnya. Namun jika pemikiran-pemikiran eksperimental itu sudah tidak murni lagi, telah diwarnai oleh sistem hidup yang tidak Islami, maka kita berkewajiban untuk membersihkannya terlebih dahulu, dan mewarnainya dengan nilai-nilai Islam yang bersih, sebelum kita menggunakannya. Prinsip Kelima Islam adalah satu sistem yang sempurna dan lengkap, karena ia mencakup seluruh sistem politik, sosial, ekonomi dan moral. Oleh karena itu mengabaikan atau melupakan sebagian dari sistem Islam berarti menghalangi perjalanan seluruh sistem itu sendiri. Begitu juga menegakkan politik yang tidak berdasarkan pada pilar-pilar Islam merupakan satu kendala dan sekaligus tantangan terhadap Islam. Seluruh sektor kehidupan kaum Muslimin harus selalu berlandaskan pada nilai-nilai dan syari'at Islam, ekonominya, politiknya, sosialnya, pendidikannya, militernya dan sektorsektor lainnya. Tidak dibenarkan melaksanakan Islam secara parsial (tentunya selama kondisi dan kemampuan memungkinkannya). Apakah patut kamu beriman kepada sebagian al-Kitab (Taurat) dan ingkar terhadap sebagian yang lain? Maka tidak ada balasan bagi yang berbuat demikian dari kamu, kecuali kenistaan dalam kehidupan dunia, dan pada Hari Kiamat mereka akan dikembalikan kepada siksa yang amat berat. Allah tidak lengah terhadap apa yang kamu perbuat. (Qs.al-Baqarah:85) Barangsiapa yang tidak menghukum menurut apa yang diturunkan Allah, maka mereka itu adalah orang-orang kafir. (Qs.al-Maidah:44) Prinsip Keenam Seluruh kaum Muslimin dibebani kewajiban menegakkan kalimatullah agar Islam menjadi satu-satunya Dien yang tegak di bumi ini. Allah berfirman: Dan Allah menjadikan seruan orang-orang kafir itu rendah dan kalimatullah itulah yang tinggi. (Qs.at-Taubah:40) Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Barangsiapa yang berperang untuk menjadikan kalimatullah yang tertinggi sekali, maka ia berjuang di jalan Allah. (al-Hadits) Salah satu tujuan Allah mengutus Rasul-Nya adalah agar Islam sebagai dienullah menang terhadap dien-dien (sistem hidup) lainnya. Karena itu semua pengikut Muhammad berkewajiban untuk mewujudkan kemenangan Islam dengan berjihad di jalan-Nya. Dia-lah Allah yang mengutus Rasul-Nya dengan membawa petunjuk dan dien yang haq, agar dimenangkan-Nya terhadap semua dien. Dan cukuplah Allah menjadi saksi. (Qs.al- Fath:28)* Orang-orang yang beriman dan berjihad di jalan Allah dengan harta benda dan diri mereka, adalah lebih tinggi derajatnya di sisi Allah, dan itulah orang-orang yang mendapatkan kemenangan. (Qs.at-Taubah:20)* Prinsip Ketujuh Kaum Muslimin dalam satu negara, bahkan di seluruh dunia harus merupakan satu sekutu, satu blok dan satu jama'ah. Sekutu ini adalah sekutu iman dan politik. Apa pun bentuknya yang memisahkan dan mengesampingkan hal ini adalah satu kekufuran dan kesesatan yang amat besar. Sekutu dan blok tersebut harus mempunyai imam tersendiri. Kepemimpinan dan persatuan bagi ummat Islam sangat penting sekali. Para sahabat Rasulullah saw telah mendahulukan pemilihan khalifah ketimbang mengubur jenazah Rasulullah saw. Dalam satu kesempatan Rasulullah saw bersabda: Tidak boleh bagi tiga orang berada di manapun di bumi ini, kecuali memilih salah satu seorang di antara mereka itu sebagai pemimpin. (Musnad Imam Ahmad, jilid II, hal.177)* Mu'min dengan mu'min lainnya itu ibarat satu tubuh, jika salah satu anggota tubuhnya ada yang sakit, maka anggota tubuh lainnya ikut merasa sakit. Demikian Rasulullah pernah mengingatkan ummatnya. Umar bin Khattab pernah berkata, "Tidak ada Islam tanpa jama'ah, tidak ada jama'ah tanpa imamah, tidak ada imamah tanpa ketaatan, dan tidak ada ketaatan tanpa bai'at. Barangsiapa yang keluar dari jama'ah maka ia telah keluar dari Islam."* Prinsip Kedelapan Dalam kondisi kekuasaan politik Islam dan kaum Muslimin di seluruh penjuru dunia sedang mengalami kehancuran dan kelumpuhan seperti sekarang, maka merupakan kewajiban bagi setiap Muslim untuk cepat-cepat melantik seorang imam yang akan memimpin perjuangan, atau untuk mempersiapkan diri menghadapi peperangan, atau melakukan persiapan yang matang untuk memilih seorang yang akan memimpin mereka. Hal ini merupakan salah satu masalah yang sangat mendesak untuk segera dilaksanakan. Dan siapkanlah untuk menghadapi mereka kekuatan apa saja yang kamu sanggupi dan dari kuda-kuda yang ditambat untuk berperang (yang dengan persiapan itu) kamu Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer menggentarkan musuh-musuh Allah, musuhmu dan orang-orang selain mereka yang kamu tidak mengetahuinya. (Qs.al-Anfaal:60) Dalam memperjuangkan kebenaran (al-Islam) diperlukan kesungguhan, sumber daya manusia dengan kuantitas dan kualitas yang memadai, sarana dan prasarana serta pengorganisasian yang rapi. Sayyidina Ali ra pernah mengatakan, "Kejahatan yang terorganisir dapat megalahkan kebenaran yang tidak terorganisir." Agar perjuangan dapat terorganisir maka diperlukan kepemimpinan, yang manhaj kepemimpinannya berpegang kepada al-Qur'an dan as-Sunnah. Sesungguhnya Allah menyukai orang-orang yang berperang di jalan-Nya dalam barisan yang teratur seakan-akan mereka seperti suatu bangunan yang tersusun kokoh. (Qs.ash- Shaff:4) Prinsip Kesembilan Menyertai dan bergabung dengan jama'ah Islam dan imamnya adalah suatu kewajiban besar di dalam Islam. Kewajiban ini secara langsung tidak memberikan peluang untuk mengelakkan diri dari keterlibatannya dengan jama'ah dan imamnya, kecuali dalam kondisi dimana orang-orang Islam tidak mempunyai jama'ah dan imamnya. Maka dalam keadaan seperti itu, seorang Muslim harus memisahkan diri dari perkumpulan sesat dan tetap berpegang kepada yang haq. Dalam sebuah hadits yang diriwayatkan oleh Bukhari dan Muslim serta Abu Daud, dari Hudzaifah al-Yamani, diriwayatkan sebagai berikut: Orang-orang yang bertanya pada Rasulullah saw tentang kebaikan, tetapi saya bertanya tentang kejahatan, sebab saya takut akan terlibat dengannya. Saya bertanya: "Wahai Rasulullah, dahulu kita berada dalam masa Jahiliyah dan diliputi oleh suasana kejahatan, lalu Allah mendatangkan pada kita kebaikan ini, maka apakah sesudah kebaikan itu akan ada kejahatan?" "Ada," jawab Rasulullah. "Apakah sesudah kejahatan itu akan ada kebaikan?" Saya bertanya lagi. Rasulullah menjawab, "Yaitu segolongan ummat yang mengikuti sunnah bukan sunnahku, dan mengikuti petunjuk bukan petunjukku. Kenalilah mereka olehmu, dan cegahlah." Saya bertanya lagi, "Kemudian setelah kebaikan tersebut masih adakah kejahatan lagi?" Rasulullah menjawab, "Masih, yaitu para penda'wah yang menyeru manusia ke pintu neraka. Barangsiapa menyambut seruan mereka, niscaya mereka akan dilemparkan ke dalam neraka." Lalu saya bertanya kepada Rasulullah, "Apa yang harus saya lakukan jika saya menghadapi keadaan yang demikian itu?" Jawab Rasulullah, "Hendaklah kamu teguh pendirian dengan jama'ah Islamiah dan imamahnya." "Bagaimana kalau sudah tidak ada lagi jama'ah Islamiah dan imamahnya?" Saya terus bertanya. Rasulullah menjawab, "Tinggalkan golongan-golongan itu semua, walaupun kamu akan menggigit sebatang pohon kayu, sampai kamu mati dalam keadaan demikian." Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Persoalannya sekarang, apakah bumi yang kita diami ini telah kehilangan jama'ah dan imamnya, sedang Rasulullah saw bersabda: Akan selalu ada di kalangan ummatku, satu golongan yang mendukung kebenaran, golongan yang selalu menentang dan membelakangi mereka tidak akan memberikan kemudharatan apa-apa kepada mereka sehingga Hari Kiamat. Imam Ali ra mengatakan, "Tidak akan sunyi bumi ini dari seorang pemimpin yang berdiri untuk Allah dengan hujjah-hujjahnya." Prinsip Kesepuluh Ummat Islam, sebenarnya merupakan satu jama'ah atau satu partai, dan maju mundurnya jama'ah ini tergantung pada pencapaian ilmu, karakteristik, dan komitmen ummat terhadap Islam. Oleh karena itu segenap kaum Muslimin harus terikat pada rencana atau program yang telah disusun. Dan rencana atau program yang disusun secara spontanitas pun harus tunduk kepada kaidah-kaidah yang ketat, dan tidak boleh membelakangi ke arah tercapainya tujuan. Karakteristik ummat Islam dan jama'ahnya adalah sesuai dengan ayat 36-43 surat asy- Syura. Karakteristik ummat Islam ialah beriman, bertawakkal, menjauhkan diri dari dosa-dosa kecil maupun besar dan perbuatan keji, mengontrol diri dari marah, menyambut seruan Allah dalam semua hal, mendirikan shalat, berinfaq di jalan Allah dan berlaku adil sesama manusia. Sedangkan ciri-ciri khusus dari jama'ah Islamiah ialah adanya syura dan selalu menentang kezaliman. Penutup Kekalahan, keterbelakangan, penindasan dan yang dialami ummat Islam sekarang ini disebabkan adanya perselisihan dan perpecahan yang menimpa ummat Islam dewasa ini. Perpecahan dan perselisihan ummat Islam sekarang ini persoalannya bukanlah terletak pada perlunya pembersihan jiwa dan hati, luwes dan sikap berhati-hati di dalam gerakan, tentang perlunya sikap berlindung, atau perlunya semangat jihad. Ia juga bukan karena perbedaan tentang perlunya penguasaan terhadap seluruh medan perjuangan, juga bukan karena perbedaan perlunya suasana terbuka yang menjamin keamanan da'wah Islamiah. Dan bukan pula karena perbedaan tentang persoalan-persoalan yang dapat memberikan pelayanan kepada orang Islam. Tetapi sumber segala perselisihan dan perpecahan di antara kita ialah karena adanya perbedaan pandangan terhadap persoalan-persoalan dalam Islam yang bersifat prinsipil (badihi). Sehingga banyak dari kalangan ummat Islam sendiri yang melupakan dan mengabaikan prinsip (pokok) dalam Islam. Thinking Man's Dictionary Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Compiled and Continued by Kevin Solway Ability: the natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. Abrupt: without ceremony. Absence: that which makes the heart grow fonder - of somebody else. Absolute: independent, irresponsible. Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. Abyss: the distance between truth and sanity. / Academe: an ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy: a modern school where football is taught. Academics: those employed by their peers to produce papers and books of references to their peers. / Accident: an inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws. Accountability: the mother of caution. Acknowledge: to confess. Adherent: a follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get. Admiration: (1) ignorance. (2) our polite recognition of someone else's resemblance to ourselves. Admonition: gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Adore: to venerate expectantly. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Adult: an obsolete child. Advertising: (1) the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. (2) the art of making whole lies out of half truths. Affectation: a woman's whole life. Age: that period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit. Agitators: a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent among them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Air: a nutritious substance supplied by bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. Alimony: (1) bounty after the mutiny. (2) the cash surrender value of a husband. (3) a system whereby when two people make a mistake, one of them continues to pay for it. (4) the high cost of leaving. (5) the screwing you get for the screwing you got. Allah: the Mohammedan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth. Alliance: in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. Alone: in bad company. Altar: the place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and female fool. Altruism: (1) mowing your neighbour's lawn. (2) the art of doing unselfish things for selfish reasons. Ambition: (1) the last refuge of the failure. (2) the grand enemy of all peace. (3) an overmastering desire to be Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. America: the best half-educated country in the world. Amnesty: the state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish. Amusement: the happiness of those that cannot think. Anxiety: that which provides us with something to think about while watching television. Ape: an animal with the effrontery to resemble man. Apology: (1) to repeat an insult with variations. (2) the foundation for a future offense. Appeal: in law, to put the dice into the box for another throw. Applause: the echo of a platitude. April fool: the march fool with another month added to his folly. Architecture: the art of how to waste space. Ardor: the quality that distinguishes love without knowledge. Arrest: formally to detain one accused of unusualness. Art: (1) lying, and the telling of beautiful untrue things. (2) artlessness. (3) prostitution. Art, abstract: a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. Articulate: unaware of the foolishness of what one is saying. / Artist: one who doesn't see things as they are, but as he is. Artlessness: a certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young. Atheism: (1) the vice of a few intelligent people. (2) one point beyond the Devil. Atheist: (1) one who has no invisible means of support. (2) beloved of God. / (3) one who knows he was not merely created. / Author: one who has his head in the clouds and his feet behind the sales counter. Autumn: a time when the hills put out weeds. Bait: a preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty. Barometer: an ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. Beard: the hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head. Beauty: (1) the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband. (2) feminine of intellect. / Bed: the place where marriages are decided. Beggar: one who has relied on the assistance of his friends. Belladonna: in Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues. Benedictines: an order of monks otherwise known as black friars. ("Black friars in this world, fried black in the next") Best-seller: the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent. Bigot: a blind man with sight. Birth: the first and direst of all disasters. Bishop: the politician of Churches. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Blank-verse: unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind. Blues: music for the prematurely aged and profoundly unhappy. / Bohemian: (1) a person who works to live but does not live to work. (2) a person open to the suspicion of irregular and immoral living. (3) a person conventionally unconventional. Books: (1) a screen to keep us from a knowledge of things. (2) either dreams or swords. (3) the mind's food, not exercise! Boredom: (1) the desire for desires. (2) what happens when we lose contact with the Universe. Boundary: in political geography, an imaginary line between two nations separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other. Boy: a cross between a god and a goat. Brain: (1) an apparatus with which we think that we think. (2) an appendage of the genital glands. Bravery: an accident of circumstance. Bride: a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. Businessman: (1) one who has all the air, the distraction and restlessness and hurry of . . . a criminal. (2) one who is too lazy to do anything noble. Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. Calamity: a more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others. Cannibal: a gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the prepork period. Caution: cowardice. Cemetery: an isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. Ceremony: ignorance. Chance: Providence. Character: what history knows of us. / Charity: that which deals with symptoms instead of causes. Charm: (1) a delusion of fleeting beauty. (2) the power to make someone else feel that both of you are wonderful. Cheat: the girl who loves you back. / Child: (1) love's by-product. (2) one who stands halfway between an adult and a t.v set. Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age. Child prodigy: a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up. Children: a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too. Chivalry: (1) the deportment of a man toward any woman not his wife. (2) a man's inclination to defend a woman against every man but himself. Christ: (1) a man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. (2) an anarchist who succeeded. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Christian: (1) one who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. (2) one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the needs of his neighbor. (3) one who believes that love is worth more than intelligence. (4) one who makes atheism more appealing. / (5) one who is an atheist only in fair weather. / Christianity: (1) the paganization of monotheism. (2) the Femme Fatale of all religions. (3) the Devil's imitation of a quality of evil he can only imagine. / Church: (1) a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there. (2) an organization that swaps off treasures in heaven for cash down. Circumstance: what determines all our thoughts and acts. Circus: a place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool. Civilization: (1) a coat of paint that washes away when the rain falls. (2) the time when men learn to live off one another instead of off the land. Clairvoyant: a person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead. Classics: primitive literature. Clock: a reminder that you still have a lot of time left. Clothes: (1) remembrances of our lost innocence. (2) wrappings worn by men for warmth, women for spite, and children because they have to. (3) the reflection of one's self respect (lack of). Cold: scissors for a miniskirt. / Comedian: a man on the slow slide to oblivion. Comedy: an escape, not from truth but from despair: a narrow escape into faith. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Comfort: a state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbour's uneasiness. Commendation: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own. Commerce: the school of cheating. Committee: a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. Common-sense: the reason so many people can be wrong at the same time. Communism: the opiate of the intellectuals. Communist: a frustrated capitalist. Commuter: one who spends his life in riding to and from his wife. Compromise: (1) an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and the terror of a coward. (2) such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due. Compulsion: the eloquence of power. Computer: a million morons working at the speed of light. Conceit: worst when it is not. / Congratulations: the civility of envy. Conscience: (1) an inner voice that warns us somebody is looking. (2) the voice of men in man. (3) cowardice. Conservatism: (1) a bag with a hole in it. (2) organized hypocrisy. (3) preserving the past for no reason whatsoever. / (4) preserving the best from the past without knowing what is best. / Conservative: (1) a statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. (2) one who is in office. (3) Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer one who can't see the difference between radicalism and an idea. (4) one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. (5) men who have learned to like the new order forced upon them by radicals. Consolation: the knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself. Conspiracy: as in agreeing with everyone else to never speak the truth, and to plead ignorance that one is doing such. / Consult: to seek another's approval of a course already decided on. Contempt: the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable to be opposed. Contentment: (1) moral laziness, the epitome of depravity. (2) the smother of invention. (3) being satisfied with what you haven't got. (4) the best powder for women's faces. Controversy: a battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannonball and the inconsiderate bayonet. Convent: a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness. Conversation: a vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. Coquetry: innocent cruelty. Coronation: the ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. Corruption: everything we see before us today. Courage: (1) doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're afraid. (2) the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death. (3) a quality no one admits he lacks totally. (4) salvation. (5) the only virtue. / Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Courtesy: (1) fictitious benevolence. (2) a gift notable in well-bred people and courtesans. Coward: sinner. Cowardice: (1) the surest protection against temptation. (2) to sin by silence. Craft: a fool's substitute for brains. Creed: (1) an ossified metaphor. (2) the shell of a lie. (3) the grammar of religion. Crime: to publish a book that offers nothing absolutely new, or which is no better than existing books - being a backwards step. / Criminal: someone who gets caught. Criticism: the art of appraising others at one's own value. Critic: a person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. Critics: people who quarrel over the meaning of books that don't have any. / Crowd: wherever there is . . . untruth. Cult: a religion with no political power. Culture: (1) reading. (2) anything that people do and monkeys don't. (3) the icing on the cake which is the same from place to place - men are men and women are women. Cunning: (1) a characteristic of animals which is called discretion in men. (2) the faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a stong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. Curiosity: (1) hope. (2) an objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer insatiable passions of the masculine mind. (3) the desire to learn something harmless - the engine of science. / Curse: energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. Custom: a tyrant. Cynic: (1) a man who tells you the truth about your own motives. (2) a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be. (3) a person who knows everything and believes nothing. (4) one who looks down on those below him. / (5) one who went without when God was handing out congeniality to lies. / Cynicism: (1) a euphemism for realism. (2) intellectual dandyism. Damsel: a female who prepares a man for marriage. Dance: to leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious. Daring: one of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security. Dawn: the time when men of reason go to bed. Dead: the majority. Death: (1) the bursting of a cell. (2) to stop sinning suddenly. Debate: the death of discussion. / Debauchee: one who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it. Decide: to succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set. Defenceless: unable to attack. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Degradation: one of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment. Delegation: an article of merchandise that comes in sets. Deliberation: the act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. Delusion: the father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters. Democracy: (1) a condition where people believe that other people are as good as they are. (2) a political system where votes substitute for brains. (3) a political system where every man has the right to be his own oppressor. (4) mob rule. (5) he who founds on the people founds on mud. (6) a form of religion - the worship of jackals by jackasses. Destiny: (1) a tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure. (2) to leave the known for the unknown. Devil: (1) compromise. (2) God when drunk. Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work. Die: to leave off dying and do the thing once for all. Dignity: the absence of love. / Diplomacy: (1) the art of letting someone have your way. (2) the patriotic art of lying for one's country. Diplomat: (1) one who has learned that you can't bend a nail by hitting it squarely on the head. (2) forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion. (3) one who thinks twice before he says nothing. Disciple: ciphers. Discontent: comparison. Discretion: to be indiscreet discreetly. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Disobedience: (1) the rarest and most courageous of virtues... seldom distinguished from neglect; the laziest and commonest of virtues. (2) the silver lining to the cloud of servitude. Disobey: to celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command. Dissenter: the dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. Distance: the only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep. Distress: a disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. Divination: the art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool. Dog: a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations, takes, in the affection ofWoman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. Dreamer: (1) one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. (2) all men of action. Dreams: children of an idle brain. Dullard: a member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of two hundred millions, including the statisticians. Duty: that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire. Eccentricity: (1) originality without sense. (2) a method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Economy: purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford. Edible: good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm. Editor: one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. Education: (1) capacity for further education. (2) all the minds of the past. (3) that which shows a person how little other people know. (4) the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent. (5) persuasion. (6) that which has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. (7) a process which makes one rogue cleverer than another. (8) to reverence superiority and accept a fact though it slay him is the final test of an educated man. (9) something that puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes. Egoism: (1) the very essence of the noble soul. (2) a case of mistaken nonentity. Egotism: that which enables a man in a rut to think he is in the groove. Ejection: an approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty. Eloquence: the art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white. Enemy: those who have more accurate insights about you than you do yourself. Enemy, the: made up of human beings just like us - that's why they can't be trusted. Entertainment: any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by dejection. Envy: emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Epigram: Any sentence spoken by anybody who is in the public eye at the moment. Epitaph: an inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. Equality: (1) a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane person has ever given his assent. (2) the offspring of envy and covetousness. (3) womens' right to do absolutely whatever they want to do. / Erudition: dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull. Ethnology: the science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists. Eulogy: praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead. Evangelist: a bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors. Evil: (1) whatever springs from weakness. (2) suggesting to a forty five year old woman that she looks only twenty five. / Exception: a thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. Excess: in morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate penalties the law of moderation. Executive: an officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect. Exile: one who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador. Experience: (1) the teacher of fools. (2) the wisdom that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer again. (3) what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. Expert: (1) one who has focused all his ignorance on to one subject. (2) one who avoids the small errors as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. (3) a person who can take something you already know and make it sound confusing. Expostulation: one of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends. Eye: the traitor of the heart. Face: a book where men may read strange things. Fact: something that ceases to exist when ignored. Failure: the fear of failure. Faith (religious): (1) the beast. (2) consists of believing things because they are impossible. (3) before all and above all, wishing God may exist. (4) belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without possibility. (5) trying to believe what reason deems untrue. / Faith (intellectual): (1) self-reliance. (2) courageously believing in what you know to be true. / Fame: (1) an inscription on a grave. (2) chiefly a matter of dying at the right time. (3) to have an insane person imagine he is you. Familiarity: a relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction. Famous: conspicuously miserable. Fanatics: noncreative men of words. Fanaticism: the fashionable creed of tomorrow, the established religion of the day after, and trite is the multiplication table the very next day. Fascism: (1) capitalism in decay. (2) capitalism plus murder. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Fashion: (1) a despot whom the wise ridicule and obey. (2) vulgarity. (3) that phantom born of the unnatural intercourse of woman's reflection with itself. (4) a woman's entire life. / Fear: the start of wisdom. Felon: a person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment. Female: one of the opposing, or unfair, sex. Fib: a lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit. Fiction: the good end happily, the bad unhappily - that is what fiction means. Fiddle: an instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat. Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. Flatterer: (1) one whose throat is an open coffin. (2) flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs. Like cats, they lick and then scratch. (3) one who says to your face what they wouldn't say behind your back. Flirting: simply enjoying the company of the opposite sex without wanting sex. / Folly: that "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life. Fool: (1) one who is without anxiety. (2) one who lacks the wish to personally know everything about life, death, and the purpose of all existence./ (3) a person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. Foreign Aid: taxing poor people in rich countries for the benefit of rich people in poor countries. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Forgetting: woman's first and greatest art. Free speech: (1) no such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists. (2) something that is allowed because nobody listens. Free will: fate. / Friend: (1) the name for a more constant acquaintance. (2) one who has no comprehension of the harm you are doing him. / Friendless: having no favors to bestow. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense. Friendship: (1) loneliness relieved of the anguish of loneliness. (2) a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul. Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears. Future: that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. Gaiety: the reckless ripple over depths of despair. Gambling: poverty of mind. Garden: a thing of beauty and a job forever. Genealogy: an account of one's decent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own. Generosity: the giving away of that which is not yours anyway. / Genius: (1) to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. (2) a sledgehammer. / (3) the fruit of labour and thought. (4) soul. (5) the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. (6) something one can become. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Gentleman: one who does not tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies. German: a hero born, and believes that he can hack and hew his way through life. Gesticulation: any movement made by a foreigner. Ghost: the outward and visible sign of an inward fear. Golden age: never the present age. Golf: a good walk spoiled. Gossip: (1) the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid. (2) cannibalism. (3) the opiate of the oppressed. Gratitude: lively expectation of benefits to come. Grave: the place where beauty fades. Great men: (1) meteors that burn so that the earth may be lighted. (2) only an actor playing out his own ideal. (3) almost always bad men. (4) insist on publishing their letters before they die. / Greatness: saying what is true. Greece: from heroes to shopkeepers. Grief: the pleasure that lasts the longest. Guru: the most effective pick-up routine yet devised. / Habeas Corpus: a writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime. Habit: the shackle of the free. Hair: (1) the beauty of women. (2) the bane of women. Happiness: (1) a good stomach and an evil heart. (2) tranquillity and occupation. (3) ignorance. (4) to be very busy with the unimportant. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Harassment: whatever a man did before he stepped over an imaginary line a woman drew after he stepped over it. Harsh: truthful. / Hatred: the most sublime force in life. To love is to surrender; to hate is to carry on. Heart: the place the Devil dwells in. Hell: (1) Heaven enjoying itself. (2) a city much like London. Helpmate: a wife, or bitter half. Hermit: a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself. Hero: one who is afraid to run away. Hers: His Highbrow: (1) a man who has found something more interesting than a woman. (2) a person educated beyond his intelligence. History: the record of the follies of the majority. Hollywood: (1) paradise with a lobotomy. (2) a town that has to be seen to be disbelieved. (3) a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. Honeymoon: (1) the time during which the bride believes the bridegroom's word of honor. (2) the vacation a man takes before beginning work under a new boss. Honesty: honesty is the best poverty. Hope: (1) the great falsifier of truth. (2) a mask the dying person wears. (3) the dream of those who are awake. (4) the fawning traitor of the mind. Hospitality: the virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Humility: (1) an awful lot of hard work. / (2) so calculating. / (3) man making himself a worm. Humour: (1) laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it. (2) emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. (3) the sense of the Absurd which is despair refusing to take itself seriously. Husband: (1) one who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate. (2) a sweetheart who pushed his luck too far. Hydrogen: a light, colourless, odourless gas, which, if given enough time, turns into people. Hypochondriac: someone who enjoys bad health. Hypocrite: one who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises. I: the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. Its plural is said to be "We", but how there can be more than one myself is doubtless clearer to the grammarians than it is to the author of this incomparable dictionary. Idealist: one who will make any sacrifice as long as it won't hurt business. Idiot: a member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. Idleness: the ultimate purpose of the busy. Ignoramus: someone who doesn't know something that you learned yesterday. Ignorant: (1) happy and beautiful. / (2) wicked and ugly. / Ignorance: (1) stupidity reduced to science. (2) a soft . . . easy . . . pillow. (3) the solidified wisdom of ages. (4) not innocence, but sin. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Imagination: (1) the one weapon in the war against reality. (2) a warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership. Imbecility: a kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary. Immigrant: an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another. Immodest: having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others. Immoral: inexpedient. Impatience: sometimes a sign that a person values their life and is not prepared to waste it on lies and trivialities. / Impropriety: the soul of wit. Impulsive: following reason without a second thought. / Impunity: wealth. Inarticulate: (1) the state of being unconvinced that what you are saying is worth saying. / (2) the state of being unconvinced that the people to whom you are speaking should hear what you have to say. / (3) thinking about what you are saying. / India: (1) children in a herd. / (2) happy people living in a sewer. / Indifferent: imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things. Indirect: less blatently direct. / Indiscretion: the guilt of woman. Individuals: what people are because everyone else is. / Infatuation: love that is not returned. / Ink: A villainous compound chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Insanity: a rational adjustment to an insane world. Intellectual: (1) one who stands firmly on both feet in midair on both sides of an issue. (2) one who produces endless quandaries for himself and others by sleight of brain. Intimacy: a relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction. Intuition: reason in a hurry. Inventor: a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization. Ireland: a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent. Irony: (1) an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment. (2) gravity hidden beneath jest. / Irreligion: the principal one of the great faiths of the world. Jealousy: (1) the friendship one woman has for another. (2) concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping. (3) one of the consequences of love. Job: (1) A low mean lucrative busy affair. (2) Petty, piddling work; a piece of chance work. Joss-sticks: small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion. Journalism: the challenge of filling the space. Jury: a group of twelve people of average ignorance chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. Justice: a commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service. Juvenile delinquent: a child who starts acting like his parents. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Kin: an affliction of the blood. Kindness: (1) loving people more than they deserve. (2) a brief preface to ten volumes of exaction. Kiss: a word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer. Knowledge: when you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it. Labour: one of the processes by which A acquires the property of B. Lady: (1) to have nothing to do, but listlessly to go they scarcely care where, for they cannot tell what. (2) one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. Land: a part of the earth's surface, considered as property. Language: (1) the dress of thought. (2) the music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure. Laughter: (1) the hickup of the fool. (2) maliciousness with a good conscience. Lawful: compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction. Lawyer: one skilled in circumvention of the law. Laziness: (1) the mental alertness to avoid hard work. (2) unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. (3) there is no such thing. Everyone works hard at whatever they want to do. / Learning: the kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Lecture: a means of transferring information from notes of the lecturer to the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either. Lecturer: one with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience. Letters: the world's unwritten sonnets. Liar: (1) the aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society. (2) Two kinds: (a) the genuine liar who knows himself to be lying, and (b) the evil liar who lies even to himself. / Liberty: one of Imagination's most precious possessions. Library: (1) rows of tombstones that aren't worth reading. / (2) proof that publishers reject the seed and publish the chaff. / (3) a maze in which the goal is to find something worth reading. Lie: (1) a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second nature in a married woman. (2) a very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. Life: (1) the pursuit of the superfluous. (2) a stress designed to keep you alive long enough to either reproduce or grow wise, but rarely both. / (3) life to the wise is death to the fool. / (4) a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk. (5) far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about. (6) a man puts his best foot forward and it gets stepped on. (7) a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act our part in it. (8) that intangible quality which is added to existence when you drink Coca-Cola. Likeable: to be likeable one must be happy and cheerful. To be happy and cheerful one's brain must die. / Linen: a kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp. Listening: a very dangerous thing. If one listens one may be convinced. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Literature: (1) the art of writing something that will be read twice. (2) only what people would say to each other if they had the chance. (3) a monumental proof enough against death. Living: (1) the art of knowing how to believe lies. (2) the process of reacting to stress. Lock-and-key: the distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment. Logic: the art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. Logician: he deposits on a sheet of paper a certain assemblage of syllables, and fancies that their meaning is riveted by the act of deposition. Longevity: uncommon extension of the fear of death. Love: (1) a temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient. Luminary: one who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it. Lunarian: an inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from a Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. Mad: affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Madman: a man who has lost everything except his reason. Magic: an art of converting superstition into coin. Magnet: something acted upon by magnetism. Magnetism: something acting upon a magnet. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Magnificent: having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glow-worm, to a maggot. Maiden: a young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. Majority: one man with courage makes a majority. Male: a member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers. Mammon: the god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is the holy city of New York. Man: (1) animals used by words. Animals who live by catchwords. (2) something that likes to do a lot of unnecessary things. (3) principally the organ of the accumulated smut and sneakery of 10,000 generations of weaseling souls. (4) the only animals able to do art, and evil. / (5) animals who strive for extinction with the tools of emotion. / (6) anything that calls itself intelligent. / (7) today's most sophisticated computer. / (8) an imitative creature - of apes rather than angels. / (9) a small, infinitely frail thing, which can be crushed in a snap by a falling branch. / (10) a species which owes much of its genetic inheritance to rapists, wife thieves, and sex maniacs in general. / Manners: a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Martyr: one who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death. Masses: (1) individuals minus quality. (2) the great identifiable majority, characterized by a feeling of general satisfaction, and spouting the first thing that comes into its head. Matrimony: friendship under difficult circumstances. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Media: the plural of mediocre. Mediocrity: excellence to the mediocre. Memory: a beaten path in the brain. Metaphysics: the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct. Mercy: a virtue of the weak. Metaphor: the greatest thing in style . . . a mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. Middle age: (1) when every person you meet is only a composite of other people whom you have met. (2) a time when you'll do anything to feel better, except give up what's hurting you. (3) later than you think and sooner than you expect. (4) when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places. Millennium: the period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side. Mine: belonging to me if I can hold or seize it. Mini Skirt: the distillation of 5000 years of female wisdom. / Minority: they that have achieved all that is noble in the history of the world. Miracle: an event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it. Mirror: the conscience of women. They never do a thing without first consulting it. Misdemeanor: an infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society. Misfortune: that which makes one man superior to another. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Modesty: (1) one of the seven deadly virtues. (2) enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. (3) the attitude of mind that precedes the pounce. (4) with people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. (5) the beauty of women. Money: (1) a kind of disease which those who have it don't like to spread. (2) the measure of our distrust. Monkey: a malicious mirror. Monogamy: an obsolete word meaning a fidelity complex. Moral: conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency. Morality: (1) to discover Ultimate Truth and then to share your wisdom with everyone else. / (2) to renounce the traditional maxims of your community without hesitation or discussion. / Moron: one who is content with a serene state. Mother: (1) the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. (2) a woman who decorates her life with babies. (3) the dead heart of the family, spending father's earnings on consumer goods to enhance the environment in which he eats, sleeps and watches television. (4) the most automated appliance in any household. Motherhood: women's mafia. Motive: what people have instead of purpose. / Mouse: an animal which strews its path with fainting women. Mouth: in man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart. Multitude: a crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. Murder: to obscure the truth. / Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Mystery: whatever we refuse to understand. / Mysticism: the attempt to get rid of mystery. Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. Nation: a body of people who feel they are a nation. Nationalism: a defensive movement against the crude encroachments of civilization. Natural: a very difficult pose to maintain. Necessary evil: an evil we like so much that we don't want it abolished. Necessity: the spur of genius. Negative: positive thinking. / Neurotic: anybody who thinks you mean it when you ask how he is. News: anything that makes a woman say "For heaven's sake!" Newspapers: (1) a daily spiritual death. (2) a device unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization. Newtonian: pertaining to a philosophy of the universe, invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when. Nihilist: someone who does not believe in anything. That is, a purely literary product. Noble: has come to mean being strong enough to stand-up against reality. / Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Nonsense: the objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary. Nostalgia: a longing for a place you wouldn't move back to. Novel: (1) a short story padded. (2) a species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. (3) the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. (4) what you write if you have something to say, but don't think it's worth writing in a readable form. / Oath: in law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury. Oaths: the fossils of piety. Oblivion: fame's eternal dumping ground. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. Obscenity: untruth. / Obsolete: no longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. Obvious: (1) that which is never seen until someone expresses it. (2) that which is never seen less than when it is well expressed. / (3) the most difficult question to answer. Occident: the part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient. Old: offensive to the popular taste, as an old book. Old age: (1) an emotion which comes over us at almost any age. (2) more than ever, a time to consider whether you are not more of a hindrance to society than a help. / (3) a person is old when they have deserted their ideals. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Omen: a sign that something will happen if nothing happens. Once: enough. Opiate: an unlocked door in the prison of Identity, leading into the jail yard. Opportunity: a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment. Optimism: (1) fatty degeneration of intelligence. (2) the instinct to lie. (3) an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. Optimist: (1) one who believes (a) that good arises out of evil, and (b) that there is no evil. / (2) a proponent of the doctrine that black is white. (3) a bridegroom who thinks he has no bad habits. Orator: one waving in the wind of his own eloquence. Oratory: (1) the art of making deep noises from the chest sound like important messages from the brain. (2) a solitary vice performed in public. (3) a conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. Originality: (1) truthfulness. / (2) undetected plagiarism. (3) the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it. Orthodoxy: agnosticism towards deeper meaning. Overeat: to dine. Pacifist: a deceased pacifist. Paedophilia: attraction to women. / Painting: (1) a picture of paint. (2) an expression in the veiling medium of colour. Pantheism: the doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Paradox: when premature insight clashes with prevailing nonsense. Parasite: anyone who is a hindrance to the survival of wisdom and the human species. / Parents: what children never think of when falling in love. Passion: (1) not fake. (2) the winds necessary to put everything in motion, that usually cause storms. (3) fashion. Past: the best prophet of the future. Pastime: a device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility. Patience: a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. Patron: Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery. Peace: (1) a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. (2) a short pause between wars for enemy identification. Pedestrian: the variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile. Pen: a formidable weapon, but a man can kill himself with it a great deal more easily than he can other people. Pensioner: a kept patriot. Perseverance: a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. Person: an animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what she thinks she is as to overlook what she indubitably ought to be. Personality: what you are when people are around; character is what you are when everybody goes home. Pessimism: wisdom relative to optimism but cowardice relative to wisdom. / Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Pessimist: (1) one who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist. (2) a man who tells the truth prematurely. Philanthropist: a thief who enjoys tossing a penny or two to beggars. Philistine: one whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn. Philosopher: he who can analyze his delusions. Philosophy: (1) much words. / (2) homesickness - the longing to be at home everywhere. Picture: a representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three. Piety: reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. Pity: (1) remembering yourself. (2) one remove from love. Plagiarism: (1) stealing from thieves. (2) taking something from one man and making it worse. (3) the privilege of the appreciative man. Plagiarists: all the makers of dictionaries. (With the exception of this esteemed lexicographer) Planned Economy: where everything is included in the plans except economy. Platitude: (1) an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true. (2) a thought that snores in words that smoke. (3) the wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. (4) all that is mortal of a departed truth. (5) a jellyfish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. (6) the fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. Platonic love: the gun you didn't know was loaded. Pleasure: the least hateful form of dejection. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Plunder: to take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanished opportunity. Pocket: the cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others. Poem: what happens when an anxiety meets a technique. Poet: someone who is astonished by everything. Poetry: (1) a kind of ingenious nonsense. (2) an extravagance you hope to get away from. (3) language in which a man explores his own amazement. (4) a pleasant air but a barren soil. (5) Devil's wine. (6) the imaginative expression of strong feeling, usually rhythmical. Politeness: the most acceptable hypocrisy. Politician: (1) a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth. (2) an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. Politics: (1) a means of livelihood affected by the more degraded portion of our criminal classes. (2) the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men. Polygamy: a house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one. Poor: the only class of people who have time to cultivate the intellect. Popularity: (1) to mingle with the erring throng. (2) what one buys at the cost of self respect. Population explosion: (1) humanity trying to immortalize itself in the final grand achievement of extinction. / (2) one of the consequences of love. / Possession: the whole of the law. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Possessions: we only possess what we renounce; what we do not renounce escapes us. Poverty: a great wealth, provided one is also short of a wife and family. / Praise: when you praise someone you call yourself his equal. Pray: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Prayer: the most odious of concealed narcissisms. Preacher: a man who advises others concerning things about which he knows nothing. Predicament: the wage of consistency. Pre-existence: an unnoted factor in creation. Prejudice: a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety. Preposterous: the idea that murder is a crime. Present, the: elastic, to embrace infinity. Presentable: hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place. Press, the: a method of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. Price: value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it. Priest: one who speaks what all fools feel. / Principles: another thing no woman can understand. / Printing: (1) a multiplication of mind. (2) an as yet unrecognized contributor to overpopulation and noise pollution. / (3) a way in which a fool can inflict mortal wounds to innocent children on a global basis even long Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer after he is dead. / (4) something wise men cannot afford, and cannot find anyone to pay for it. Prison: a monument to neglected youth. Professors: those who go to college and never get out. Progress: (1) in antiquity . . . the appearance of great men; in modern times . . . the appearance of great inventions. (2) life means progress, and progress means suffering. Propaganda: the diminution of the love of truth by the falsehoods which interest dictates. Property: (1) theft. (2) a sacred trust expressly granted by God, the Bible, and the Recorder's Office. Prosperity: (1) the consequence of rapidly spending the planet's irreplaceable capital. (2) the best protector of principle. (3) the surest breeder of insolence. Psychiatrist: one who lets you see why you are unhappy. Psychiatry: the art of teaching people how to stand on their own feet while reclining on couches. Psychoanalysis: the disease it claims to cure. Psychology: (1) the science that tells you what you already know in words you don't understand. (2) as unnecessary as directions for using a poison. (3) nothing. / Public opinion: the people's tyranny. Public: the monkeys outside the cage. Pun: puns are to words what wit is to ideas. Punishment: (1) the justice that the guilty deal out to those that are caught. (2) having wisdom forced upon you by your own intelligence. / Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Queen: a woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not. Question: something that fools raise which wise men answered a thousand years ago. Rabble: the greater part of the masses, omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. Racism: is the snobbery of the poor. Racist: a fraction of whose ideas about other races are true. / Radical: one who wants to tackle evil at the root. Rattlesnake: Our prostrate brother. Realism: the art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. Reality: what truths should take account of. / Reason: (1) the arithmetic of the emotions. (2) the greatest enemy that faith has. Reconsider: to seek a justification for a decision already made. Recreation: a particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue. Redemption: deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. Reform: (1) to reform a grown man, you must begin with his grandmother. (2) a thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation. Refusal: denial of something desired. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal conditional, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Recognition: what one desires from people who are more concerned with what they are doing than with what you have done. / Reformer: (1) a man who rides through a sewer in a glassbottomed boat. (2) one who educates the people to appreciate the things they need. Regret: the beginning of a new life. Religion: (1) hope and fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. (2) something that is upheld because it is good enough for children. (3) that which women and children should be protected from. / (4) a speculative hypothesis with no supporting evidence that reason proves invalid. / (5) the art of having faith in God without knowing what God is, or even if He is possible. / (6) a consciously accepted system of make-believe. (7) a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. (8) the best armour in the world, but the worst cloak. (9) ritual and the truth of dogma. (10) a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he were certain. (11) the fashionable substitute for belief. (12) induced insanity. (13) the opiate of the masses. Reporter: a writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. Reputation: what you seem to be like. Resident: unable to leave. Respectable: rich. Decent means poor. Respectability: The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account. Responsibility: (1) the way of doing the right thing - and of shortening life. (2) a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. Revenge: biting a dog because the dog bit you. Revolution: a successful effort to get rid of a bad government and set up a worse. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Riches: (1) the savings of many in the hands of one. (2) the reward of toil and virtue. Rite: a religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. Ritual, religious: the most effective form of thought prevention ever developed. / River: an aspect of Nature which lies behind the cottages and billboards. Road: a strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go. Robber: a candid man of affairs. Romance: a self-induced state of hallucination that leaves one finally unromantic. Rostrum: in Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In American, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble. Rubbish: worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas. Ruin: to destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids. Ruins: our monuments. Sabbath: a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Safety: never to feel secure. Sanity: a cozy lie. Satire: an obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. Satire requires wit, Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer so it has been largely replaced by humour, which is tolerant and sympathetic. Satirist: (1) a being with an eye in the back of his head who fills up with straw and sawdust all illusions. (2) a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people. Savage: (1) the most conservative of human beings. (2) those who are content to be what they are. Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. Seducer: a man whom women have trained to please women - man made mirror. / Seduction: for men, being in the right place at the right time; for women, beauty. / Self-esteem: an erroneous appraisement. Selfishness: (1) devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. (2) seeking your own good at the world's cost. (3) the only real atheism. Self-sacrifice: the effect of prudence on rascality. Semantics: the art of telling someone they agree with you when they don't. / Seminar: a place where you can learn in two hours what it takes a professor three months to teach. Sentimentality: sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way. Sex: the castration of man. / Sexism: maintaining that the sexes are equal. / Sexual Revolution: conquest of the last frontier, involving the efficient management and manipulation of reproductive organs for the purpose of establishing the New Puritanism. Shyness: egotism out of its depth. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Silence: (1) having nothing to say and saying it. (2) the door of consent. Silk: a material which enables women to go naked in clothes. Sin: ignorance. Sincerity: what a woman likes in a man, as opposed to honesty. / Skepticism: unbelief in cause and effect. Sleep: an eight-hour peep show of infantile erotica. Society: a cage for idiots. Sociologist: a scientist who blames crime on everything and everyone, except the person who commits it. Soft: untrue. / Song: that which is not worth saying is sung. Sophistication: the ability to yawn without opening your mouth. Sorcery: the ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. Sorrow: the future tense of love. Soul: nothing apart from the senses. Speech: the small change of silence. Spiritual: (1) anything enjoyable that is not easily or comfortably explained. / (2) golf. / Spring: spring has come when you can put your foot on three daisies at once. Statistics: figures used as arguments. Style: (1) the man himself. (2) a noble manner in an easy manner. (3) the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer to character than the face. (4) the best style is truth. (5) knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. Suburbia: (1) the projection of dormitory life into adulthood. (2) where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. Success: (1) consuming more irreplaceable resources than others. / (2) having something to offer that morons regard as valuable. / (3) earning more money than your wife can spend, or, for women, finding such a man. (4) go with the crowd. Suicide: what every gentleman promises to do if he breaks his vow to his beloved. Superior man: an uneasy obligation. Superstition: (1) a premature explanation that overstays its time. (2) the belief that all stage kisses give no satisfaction to the actor or actresses. Suspicion: a coward's virtue. Sweater: a garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. Tabloids: fast reading for the slow thinking. Tact: (1) tongue in check. (2) the ability to describe others as they see themselves. (3) the art of not saying what everyone else is thinking. (4) to lie about others as you would have them lie about you. Take: to acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth. Talk: to commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose. Teacher: (1) the vanity of teaching often tempts a man to forget he is a blockhead. (2) one who in his youth, admired teachers. (3) one whose mission it should be not to make Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer his pupils think, but to make them think right. (4) one who frees his students from extreme modernity. Telephone: an invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. Telescope: a device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice. Theology: (1) obsolete psychology. (2) the intent of which is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner. (3) an effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing . . . it is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is opposed to every other form of rational thinking. Theosophy: an ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. Thinker: a person who aims where your head ought to be. Thinking: often only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything. Thoughts: what you are today, what you will be tomorrow. Time: (1) the press-agent of genius. (2) the most valuable thing a person can spend. Today: yesterday's effect and tomorrow's cause. Tolerance: indifference. Tradition: (1) the democracy of the dead. (2) that part of history which has proven to be of value for the present age. Tragedy: (1) that there should one man die ignorant who had the capacity for knowledge. (2) the utter impossibility of changing what you have done. Translation: (1) commentary that is sometimes better than the source. / (2) the safest translation is word-for-word. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Travel: (1) too often, instead of broadening the mind it only lengthens the conversation. (2) a fools paradise. A childish delight in being somewhere else. (3) a traveller must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, and the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing. (4) life in a brothel. Treaty: an agreement which ceases to be when the parties come into conflict. Trial: a formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. Trouble: mistaking love for beauty, success for brains, and television for civilization. / True love: an old-fashioned sentiment. Truth: (1) the object of philosophy, but not of philosophers. (2) stranger than fiction but not as popular. (3) what keeps honest men poor. (4) what is true is possible. (5) a flower in whose neighbourhood others must wither. (6) often the refuge of those too cowardly to lie. / (7) truth should not be spoken, but communicated. / (8) realized by faith, once it has been arrived at by reason. / (9) an ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. T.V: (1) chewing gum for the eyes. (2) automated daydreaming. (3) the glass teat. (4) the plug-in drug. (5) the crystal bucket. (6) remote control death. (7) democracy at its ugliest. (8) the bland leading the bland. (9) that which enables you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home. Ugliness: a gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility. Unconscious, the: a realm of potential hell. Universe: anonymous. University: a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Useless: remembering how many days there are in a year. / Vacation: two weeks when you learn where to stay away from next year. Vagabond: when rich, is called a tourist. Verse: a special illness of the ear. Vice: a creature of such hideous mien that the more you see it, the better you like it. Virtue: (1) a quality which has never been as respectable as money. (2) insufficient temptation. (3) an inexpensive vice. (4) revenge Vituperation: satire, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit. Vulgarity: concealment of truth, or affectation. War: (1) the only sport that has any intelligible use. (2) a by-product of the arts of peace. Wealth: (1) any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband. (2) difficult to dignify. / Whole: that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. Wise: a reputation that is built by agreeing with everybody. Wit: (1) the epitaph of an emotion. (2) a form of sex display; a flexing of the superior muscles. / (3) the only weapon with which it is possible to stab oneself in one's own back. (4) the terse intrusion into an atmosphere of serene mental habit of some uncompromising truth. (5) so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it except in themselves. (6) cultured insolence. (7) the salt with which the humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out. Witticism: a sharp and clever remark; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke". Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Woman: (1) an animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. (2) a temple built upon a sewer. (3) a promise that cannot be kept. Women: the maintenance class. Women's rights: men's duties. Wonder: the effect of novelty on ignorance. Word: a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used. Words: (1) things to kill time until our emotions make us inarticulate. (2) the most powerful drug used by mankind. Work: (1) two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. (2) what you do so that some time you won't have to do it any more. (3) only one kind: discovering the truth about life and death and then living in accordance with it . . . all else is folly. / World: the prophecy of worlds to come. Writing: (1) giving the reader the most knowledge in the least time. (2) the art of putting black words on white paper in succession until the impression is created that something has been said. (3) the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators. (4) a real writer is someone who has something genuinely important to say to others, and not merely to himself. / X: in the algebra of psychology "x" stands for Woman's mind. Xerox: A trademark for a photocopying device that can make rapid reproductions of human error, perfectly. Yawn: a pertinent remark. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Yesterday: the tomorrow that got away. Youth: life as yet untouched by tragedy. Zoo: (1) a place which prevents people from getting at the animals. (2) an excellent place to study the habits of human beings. Wit forWisdom Compiled and Continued by Kevin Solway - Contents - Foreword This book is a compilation of words that I like, used in whichever way I see fit to convey my message. This is what books are for, or at least should be. I have chosen not to attribute the quotes to their supposed creators. Who knows who created them? And who cares! In any case, I do not claim to have created them myself, be they ever so deeply embedded in my heart. Even my own productions I submit with the knowledge that they can't be mine. To benefit from this book you must accept what you read as it stands, irregardless of the context in which the words were first used, and by whom. Imagine I wrote the lot - or perhaps God. If you are interested in finding out more about my writings I would be glad to hear from you. I would also be glad to hear from any publishers who would like to make this work more convenient to read by printing and binding it for me. Introduction Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Wit is rarely conducive to wisdom. It is more often a power-play and a fortification.Wit marries ideas lying wide apart, by a sudden jerk of the understanding. Like a bright blast of lightning, it flashes, strikes and vanishes in an instant. But only if this flash ignites a fire will there be any lasting good. For such a fire there must be fuel, the fuel of courage, openmindedness, and yearning for truth. And if there is no fuel, well then, the lightning flash of wit may still fell the odd tree or two, which will, in time, feed a killer fire. Wit is all too often used in the same way that forest fire-fighters use fire - to prevent or stop a larger blaze. Small truths eat-up the fuel and form a barrier against larger and more dangerous truths.Wit becomes an attempt to beat the Devil, in this case the truth, at his own game. If you would use reason in such a cowardly fashion then I would ask you to return this book to the shelf, where it might await more kindly eyes. But if you have the hunger of a giant and the heart of a lion, then read on my friend - not only will you become human, but then a god, and perhaps, a saint? For not only must there be intelligence, but courage also - an inhuman courage that seeks to walk alone, with none other than the sun and the moon for company. May wit sustain you till you find your walking legs, cutting the ground from under you. I have not designed this collection of writings for the use of public speakers, businessmen, public figures, lecturers, authors, clergymen, teachers and students. Quotes are not to be quoted. I work only for thinkers! A FinalWord There are two sides to my nature, the human and the superhuman, or the animal and the human, depending on how critical a stance I want to take. The contents of this book issue from my lower self, which aspires to finish itself, and are aimed at your lower self, with the aim of inflicting a mortal injury. I would like to have related some profound spiritual insights with you, but I cannot speak to your higher spiritual self when you have none. Realistically, while there is ego one must work with ego, and only when the ego becomes utterly disgusted with itself can it die. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer I hope this book has disgusted you. PERBALAHAN MALAIKAT RAHMAT DAN MALAIKAT AZAB Pada zaman dulu, ada seorang lelaki yang telah membunuh 99 orang. Dia ingin menjumpai pendita untuk meminta fatwa supaya dia dapat bertaubat dari dosanya. Sebaik saja berjumpa, dia pun menerangkan bahawa dia telah membunuh 99 orang dan bertanya sama ada dia masih ada peluang untuk bertaubat. Pendita dengan tegas mengatakan dia tidak boleh bertaubat kerana dosanya terlalu banyak. Lelaki itu mejadi marah dan terus membunuh pendita itu, menjadikannya mangsa yang ke-100. Dia masih ingin untuk bertaubat dan terus mencari kalau-kalau ada ulama yang boleh membantunya. Akhirnya dia berjumpa dengan seorang ulama. Dia menceritakan bahawa dia telah membunuh 100 orang dan bertanya sama ada Allah masih menerima taubatnya. Ulama itu menerangkan dia masih ada harapan untuk bertaubat. Seterusnya dia menyuruh lelaki itu pergi ke sebuah negeri di mana terdapat sekumpulan abid (orang beribadat). Apabila sampai di sana nanti, ulama itu menyuruhnya tinggal di sana dan beribadat bersama mereka. Ulama itu melarangnya pulang ke negeri asalnya yang penuh dengan maksiat. Lelaki itu mengucapkan terima kasih lalu terus menghala ke negeri yang diterangkan oleh ulama tadi. Sebaik saja sampai separuh perjalanan, dia jatuh sakit lalu meninggal dunia. Ketika itu terjadilah perbalahan antara dua malaikat, iaitu Malaikat Rahmat dan Malaikat Azab. Malaikat Rahmat ingin mengambil roh lelaki itu kerana pada pendapatnya dia adalah orang baik lantaran azamnya untuk bertaubat sementara Malaikat Azab mengatakan dia mati dalam su'ul-khatimah kerana dia telah membunuh 100 orang dan masih belum membuat sebarang kebajikan. Mereka saling berebutan dan tidak dapat memutuskan keadaan lelaki itu. Allah kemudian menghantar seorang malaikat lain berupa manusia untuk mengadili perbalahan mereka berdua. Dia menyuruh malaikat itu mengukur jarak tempat kejadian itu dengan kedua-dua tempat; adakah tempat kejadian itu lebih dekat dengan tempat kebajikan yang hendak dituju atau lebih dekat dengan tempat dia mula bertolak. Sekiranya jaraknya lebih dekat dengan tempat kebajikan, dia kepunyaan Malaikat Rahmat. Setelah diukur, didapati jarak ke negeri kebajikan melebihi kadar sejengkal saja. Lalu roh lelaki itu terus diambil oleh Malaikat Rahmat. Lelaki itu akhirnya mendapat pengampunan Allah. MORAL & IKTIBAR Allah Maha Pengampun Lagi Maha Mengasihani Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Orang yang berbuat dosa hendaklah diiringi dengan penyesalan dan taubat. Jangan merasa putus asa dari rahmat Allah meskipun telah melakukan dosa yang sangat banyak kerana rahmat Allah sangat luas dan lebih besar daripada dosa besar yang kita lakukan. Menjalankan amar makruf dan nahi mungkar hendaklah dengan hikmah dan bijaksana. Fatwa yang salah dan tidak berlandaskan hukum sebenar hanya menyusahkan diri sendiri Pelepasan dari azab diperolehi hanya dengan berlebihnya timbangan kebajikan meskipun dengar kadar yang sedikit. Orang yang hendak bertaubat mesti buktikan penyesalan dengan tindak-ikut yang sewajarnya. Orang yang bertaubat dengan sungguh-sungguh penyesalan dan berikrar tidak mengulangi kejahatannya akan diterima oleh Allah taubatnya. Mereka yang diterima oleh Allah akan taubatnya seolah-olah tidak mempunyai sebarang dosa. Mereka yang sempat bertaubat 'nasuha' sebelum roh sampai ke khalqum dimasukkan ke dalam syurga Topik 2 - Erti Sambutan Valentine Day (Hari Kekasih) NABIMuhammad s.a.w. merupakan Rasulullah yang bertanggungjawab menyebar Islam kepada umatnya setelah melalui pelbagai keperitan dan kejerihan. Paderi St. Valentino pula merupakan seorang paderi utama yang hidup pada zaman pemerintahan Ratu Isabella dan merupakan antara orang terpenting yang menjatuhkan dan menzalimi umat Islam Cordova, Sepanyol pada zaman lampau. Rasulullah lahir pada 12 Rabiulawal manakala tarikh kejayaan St. Valentino dan koncokonconya menawan Cordova daripada umat Islam ialah pada 14 Februari. Tetapi apa yang peliknya terutama di kalangan umat Islam sendiri, tarikh 14 Februari lebih senang untuk diingati berbanding 12 Rabiul Awal itu sendiri. Setiap tahun 14 Februari diingati sebagai Hari Kekasih yang di kalangan sesetengah umat Islam amat rugi jika dilupakan. Hari ini ia sekali disambut lagi dengan pelbagai acara yang dianggap oleh pasangan kekasih paling istimewa. Ada yang saling bertukar-tukar bunga ros, mengadakan acara makan malam dengan disinari cahaya lilin, bertukar-tukar perasaan di taman-taman bunga dan sebagainya. Ada pula yang berpendapat, Hari Mengingati Kekasih juga adalah untuk mengingati orang lain yang dikasihi selain kekasih seperti ibu bapa dan sebagainya. Misalnya, di Sarawak tahun lalu, media-media tempatannya juga tidak terkecuali. Tanpa mengira sama ada sidang pengarangnya terdiri daripada umat Islam atau tidak, ada media yang mengucapkan Selamat Hari Valentine, menganjurkan Pertandingan Hari Valentine malah ada juga media Melayu tempatan yang menganggap Hari Valentine sebagai legenda pada tajuk salah satu rencananya. Malah ada juga media elektronik yang mewujudkan satu program hiburan sempena Hari Valentine. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Siapakah sebenarnya orang yang bernama Valentine ini sehingga diangkat begitu agung sekali dan di kalangan umat Islam sendiri popularitinya melebihi Rasulullah. Pensyarah Perbandingan Agama, Akademi Islam, Universiti Malaya, Khadijah Mohd. Hambali berkata, Valentine atau nama sebenarnya St. Valentino merupakan seorang paderi paling berpengaruh di zaman pemerintahan Ratu Isabella dari Sepanyol. Kedudukannya dikatakan di tempat kedua selepas Pope. Kaitannya dengan Hari Valentine yang disambut oleh masyarakat dunia hari ini termasuk di kalangan umat Islam sendiri mempunyai dua versi. Versi pertama ialah dia merupakan orang terpenting Ratu Isabella yang berperanan menumpaskan kerajaan Islam Cordova, Sepanyol. Jasanya itu dianggap oleh Ratu Isabella sebagai amat bermakna sehingga Valentino dianggap kekasih rakyatnya sendiri. Justeru itu 14 Februari ditetapkan sebagai cuti umum di samping hari untuk merayakan kemenangan tersebut setiap tahun sekaligus mengenangnya sebagai mengingati St. Valentino sebagai rakyat Cordova. Sehingga ke hari ini, peristiwa kemenangan St. Valentino tersebut terus diingati dan rakyat Cordova mengingatinya semula dengan melakon semula kejayaan tentera Ratu Cordova Isabella itu. Menurut versi kedua pula, St. Valentino sebelum kejayaan itu dikatakan mempunyai dua orang kekasih. Kekasih pertama dikatakan beragama Islam manakala yang kedua beragama Kristian berfahaman Protestan. Oleh kerana lain agama, St. Valentino terpaksa melupakan kekasih pertama dan menumpukan perhatian kepada kekasih kedua. Apabila ditanya Ratu Isabella apakah bentuk ganjaran yang boleh dikurniakan berikutan kejayaannya mengalahkan umat Islam, St. Valentino terus menyatakan yang dia ingin berkahwin dengan kekasih keduanya itu. Ini terus menimbulkan kegemparan di kalangan rakyat Cordova sendiri kerana Valentino merupakan paderi Katolik yang tidak boleh berkahwin dengan pengamal Protestan sementelahan lagi paderi sememangnya tidak boleh berkahwin. Ratu Isabella pula dikatakan murka dengan hasrat St. Valentino lantas memenjara sementara paderinya itu. Begitupun, baginda tetap mahu cuba mengingati jasa paderinya itu dengan menetapkan 14 Februari sebagai Hari Mengingati Kekasih yang diuntukkan khas untuk St. Valentino sendiri. Berdasarkan kedua-dua versi itu, apakah asas yang kukuh sehingga umat Islam sendiri menganggap Hari Valentine itu begitu istimewa lebih-lebih lagi pada bulan Syawal yang mulia ini. Atau pun, mereka hanya mengikut budaya Barat secara membuta tuli sedangkan tidak mengetahui siapakah sebenarnya St. Valentino itu. Jika pun ingin mengingati kekasih atau orang-orang yang disayangi yang lain, tidak semestinya ia disambut pada setiap 14 Februari. Sambutan boleh juga dijalankan pada setiap kali tibanya hari kelahiran orang-orang yang disayangi melalui acara-acara yang lebih diredai seperti berkenduri doa selamat atau sebagainya. Bukankah Rasulullah sepatutnya lebih diingati setiap tahun kerana bagindalah manusia yang paling mencintai umatnya. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Topik 3 - Grand Design Yahudi di beberapa Negara Islam? Izinkan saya untuk menulis satu artikel yang sedang hangat diperkatakan dan sedang kita sama-sama saksikan betapa Yahudi telah melancarkan GRAND DESIGN secara tanpa disedari oleh umat Islam. GRAND DESIGN untuk melemahkan umat Islam sememangnya telah wujud sejak agama Islam diisytiharkan sebagai satu-satunya agama yang SAH di sisi Allah. Lebih kurang empat belas abad yang lalu, Rasulullah menghadapi GRAND DESIGN dari dua penjuru, iaitu dari kelompok Quraisy(musyrik) dan dari kelompok munafikin(Yahudi). Kelompok pertama dipelopori oleh Abu Lahab manakala kelompok kedua oleh Abdullah bin Ubay. Rasulullah bersabda yang bermaksud, Dari Abu Hurairah, Rasulullah S.A.W. bersabda,"Tidak akan tiba hari kiamat hingga kaum Muslimin berperang melawan kaum Yahudi, sehinggalah bersembunyi orang Yahudi di belakang batu dan pokok. Maka pokok dan batu itu berkata: Hai Muslim, di sini ada orang Yahudi, bunuhlah dia, kecuali pokok GHORQOD kerana ia pokok Yahud". (Riwayat Bukhari dan Muslim). APA KATA TOKOH ISLAM DAN ULAMA tentang Yahudi 1. Syed Qutb di dalam tafsir FIZILALIL QURAN menghukum HARAM mengadakan apa-apa rundingan dengan Yahudi. 2. Imam Abu Hasan Asyari berfatwa menyifatkan Yahudi sebagai musuh sepanjang zaman. 3. Imam Abu Hanifah diriwayatkan tidak mahu berkata-kata dengan orang Yahudi. KEJAHATAN-KEJAHATAN YAHUDI 1. William G. Carr, bekas perisik rahsia Inggeris mendedahkan dalam kenyataannya:"Bahawa setiap huru-hara yang mewarnai sejarah di setiap negara, pastilah Yahudi berada di belakangnya." 2. Majalah Tempo (No. 11 Th. XXI, 5 Mac 1989) melapurkan beberapa diplomat Yahudi datang ke Jakarta setiap tahun khusus untuk mengamati kehidupan umat Islam di negara yang jumlah umat Islam terbesar di dunia itu. 3. Majalah Warta NU (Ogos 1994), keluaran organisasi Islam terbesar di Indonesia, melapurkan adanya MAFIA Yahudi yang bergerak secara aktif di Asia Tenggara, terutama di Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Brunei, Thailand dan Filipina, yang cuba menasihati pemerintah di negara-negara berkenaan supaya tidak memberi ruang kepada-kepada gerakkan Islam yang boleh menggugat budaya tempatan. Mereka melebelkan gerakan ini sebagai Fundamentalis ataupun istilah mereka sekarang SESAT. Majalah ini juga menyiarkan adanya GRAND DESIGN yang bergerak di Asia Tenggara yang telah menasihati pemerintah di negara-negara sebelah sini supaya mengharamkan Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer sebuah badan Jemaah Islam yang berpengaruh (ARQAM) atas alasan membawa ajaran sesat dan boleh mengancam keselamatan negara. ADAKAH EKSIS GRAND DESIGN ITU? Untuk mengetahui cuba lihat dokumen rahsia mereka ke atas umat Islam. Dokumen rahsia Zionis telah diterbitkan pada 1902 dalam bahasa Rusia oleh Prof. Sergyei Nilus. yang berjodol "Protokolat Zionisme". Buku inilah yang menjadi inspirasi bagi Hitler untuk membantai Yahudi. Bagi Yahudi, peristiwa pembantaian itu merupakan bencana paling besar yang semakin mendorong mereka untuk mewujudkan Israel Raya. Antara kandungan mesej Yahudi dalam buku itu ialah; Protokolat Zionis No. 1. "Kejahatan adalah satu-satunya cara yang paling menarik mencapai suatu tujuan. Oleh itu kita tidak perlu ragu sedikit pun menggunakan cara-cara ini kerana ia membantu proses terwujudnya cita-cita kita". Protokolat Zionis No. XVII "Kita telah berjuang dengan gigih menghancurkan kehormatan ahli-ahli agama dari golongan umami (non Yahudi). Dengan itu kita berjaya mengacaukan misi mereka yang akan menghalang tujuan kita, dengan mematikan ulama=92 dari sehari ke sehari. Ahli-ahli agama kita pojokkan sehingga kehilangan kharisma. Maka pengaruh mereka tidak lagi diperhatikan. Ajaran mereka akan nampak kontradiksi dengan adat..." 4 STRATEGI DI BUMI UMAT ISLAM Seorang pakar Yahudi, Dr. Heigel, menggariskan 4 strategi di bumi umat Islam iaitu: 1. Hapuskan identiti Islam mereka 2. Jangan beri peluang kepada mereka untuk menghormati ulama, 3. Sogok mereka dengan budaya-budaya baru. 4. Beri mereka kebebasan. Keempat -empat startegi itu nampaknya sedang berjalan pantas di bumi umat Islam. Ambil contoh kes Arqam. Pertubuhan Islam yang cuba mempertahankan identiti Budaya Islam, samada dari segi pakaian, ekonomi, pendidikan dan perubatan telah dihentam badai"pengharaman". Tindakkan yang agresif ke atas pengikut-pengikutnya telah dilakukan seolah-olah Arqam merupakan HANTU KUBUR yang paling menakutkan di abad ini. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Untuk membunuh pertubuhan ini mestilah dengan melemahkan kedudukannya di tempat asal kelahirannya, termasuk menghancurkan ekonominya. Oleh itu kita tidak boleh menafikan adanya GRAND DESIGN di sebalik pengharaman Jemaah Islam itu. Musnahnya identiti Islam di beberapa negara Islam menyebabkan hilangnya harga diri dan kebesaran mereka. Tidak ada lagi yang berani menyuarakan:"Ini pakaian Islam","Ini budaya Islam","Ini ekonomi Islam". Maka di kebanyakan negara Islam, mereka telah MELEMPARKAN BUDAYA ISLAM dan SERONOK dengan BUDAYA BARAT.Implikasi selanjutnya adalah lemahnya semangat jihad di kalangan umat Islam. Akhirnya lihatlah, begitu mudah umat Islam dijajah, mulut mereka dipaku, fikiran mereka disuapi dengan doktrin-doktrin palsu. Umat Islam sentiasa menjadi mangsa, berpindah randah dari mulut harimau ke mulut buaya. Bukankah IA MERUPAKAN SATU GRAND DESIGN? Umat Islam seakan-akan diharamkan memiliki kekuatan politik Islam, kerana ia merupakan ancaman ke atas masa depan Yahudi. Di mana-mana saja ada gerakan Islam, mereka akan berlegar-legar memuntahkan peluru beracunnya untuk menyapu bersih hingga ke akar umbinya. APA JADI DENGAN NEGARA KITA ? Negara Malaysia, tanah air tercinta tidak terlepas menjadi sasaran Yahudi. Bermula dengan lawatan Tengku Abdullah disambut ketibaannya di Tel Aviv oleh Yitzhak Rabin pada Jun 1994. Selepas itu berlegar isu Dr. Mahathir satu hotel dengan Yitzhak Rabin di sebuah negara Eropah. Manakala pertapakan Yahudi di negara ini semakin kukuh kerana adanya RESTU dari pemerintah sehingga memberi keselesaan bagi kelompok Yahudi untuk melakukan GRAND DESIGN yang lebih besar lagi. Apakah kejohanan antarabangsa kriket yang membenarkan Israel menyertainya di negara kita sebagai TURNING POINT untuk membesarkan lagi grand design itu dengan alasan kononnya" ianya dapat mempengaruhi pemikiran mereka mengenai rejim Israel yang menekan serta menindas orand-orang Palestin?". ....SAMA-SAMALAH KITA RENUNGKAN... SEKIAN, Moga ada menafaatnya.......Wallahu alam....................... Disusun oleh : Ibnu Othman Jalan Hayton, Aberdeen Bahan-bahan rujukan; 1. Tafsir Al Quran oleh Syed Qutb - FIZILALIL QURAN 2. Sahih Al Bukhari 3. Majalah DUNIA ISLAM, bil. 52, Okt. 1994 Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer 4. Majalah TEMPO (Mac 1989) 5. Majalah WARTA NU (Ogos 1994) 6. 91Dokumen Protokolat Zionisme=92 1902 7. UTUSAN MALAYSIA (24 Mac, 1997) Topik 4 - Menolak As-Sunah/Al-Hadith Alhadis/Assunah adalah sesuatu yang datang dari Rasulullah saw sama ada perkataan, perbuatan, persetujuan atau sifatnya. Banyak firman Allah yang menyuruh kita taatkan Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Taat pada Rasulullah bererti wajib bagi kita menerima pengajaran Rasul dan hukum yang ditentukan dan dilarang kita mengingkarinya. Terdapat juga banyak ayat Al-Quran yang menerangkan bahawa Rasulullah telah diberi tugas untuk menjelaskan apa yang tidak nyata dari perintah-perintah Allah di dalam Al-Quran, antaranya adalah Firman Allah yang bermaksud, "Hai orang-orang yang beriman! Taatlah kepada Allah dan taatlah kepada Rasul, dan orang yang memegang kekuasan dari kalangan kamu..." (An-Nisa: 59) "Dan siapa yang taat kepada Rasul itu (Muhammad), maka sesungguh-nya dia telah taat kepada ALLAH dan siapa yang berpaling maka Kami tidak mengutus engkau (Muhammad) untuk menjadi penjaga mereka." (An-Nisa: 80) "Apa yang diberikan oleh Rasul kepada kamu hendaklah kamu terima, dan apa yang dilarang hendaklah kamu hentikan." (Al-Hasyr: 7) "Sebab itu, hendaklah mereka yang melanggar perintah Rasul itu berjaga-jaga bahawa mereka akan ditimpa fitnah atau ditimpa azab yang sangat pedih." (An-Nur: 63) "Dan Kami turunkan kepada engkau (Muhammad) pengajaran (Quran) supayaengkau jelaskan/terangkan kepada manusia apa yang telah diturunkan kepada mereka" (An-Nahl: 44) "Maka tidak! Demi Tuhan engkau, mereka tidak beriman sehingga merekamenjadikan engkau (Muhammad) hakim pada perkara-perkara yang merekaperselisihkan. Kemudian mereka tidak mndapati di dalam diri mereka sebarang keberatan untuk menerima apa yang telah engkau Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer putuskan dan mereka patuhi dengan sepenuhnya." (An-Nisa: 65) Ayat-ayat Al-Quran tadi adalah jelas menyuruh kita patuh kepada Nabi Muhammad saw. Caranya ialah dengan menurut Sunnahnya.Walaupun apa juga Hadis yang kurang sahih, yang ditekankan di sini ialah mengikuti Sunnah Rasul. Sesungguhnya Rasul itu tidak bercakap atau bertindak sesuka hatinya tanpa ilham dari Allah swt. Ulama-ulama Islam tidak pernah berselisih dalam menerima Assunah sebagai sumber hukum syarak selepas Al-Quran. Orang yang menolak Assunah ertinya menolak Al- Quran itu sendiri, kerana ia tidak percaya kepada sebahagian daripada Al-Quran. Ulama Islam telah sepakat tentang hukumnya iaitu orang yang berbuat demikian adalah bukan dari golongan orang Islam. Mereka adalah orang kafir. Topik 7 - Soal Jawab Iblis (Alaihi laknat) dengan Rasulullah S.A.W. Allah swt telah memerintahkan seorang Malaikat berjumpa Iblis supaya dia berjumpa dengan Rasulullah saw untuk memberitahu segala rahsianya; samada yang disukai mahupun yang dibencinya. Hikmatnya ialah untuk meninggikan darjat Nabi Muhammad saw dan juga sebagai peringatan dan perisai kepada umat manusia. Maka Malaikat itu pun berjumpa Iblis dan berkata, "Hai Iblis! Bahawa Allah Yang Maha Mulia dan Maha Besar menyuruh engkau menghadap ke hadrat Rasullullah saw. Hendaklah engkau buka segala rahsia engkau dan apa-apa yang disoal oleh Rasulullah hendaklah engkau jawab dengan sebenar-benarnya. Jikalau engkau berdusta walau satu perkataan pun, nescaya akan diputuskan segala suku-suku anggota badanmu, uratmu serta disiksa dengan azab yang amat keras" Demi mendengar sahaja kata Malaikat yang dahsyat itu, Iblis sangat ketakutan. Maka segeralah dia menghadap Rasulullah saw dengan menyamar sebagai seorang tua yang buta sebelah matanya dan berjanggut putih 10 helai; panjangnya seperti ekor lembu. Iblis pun memberi salam, sehingga 3 kali tidak juga dijawab oleh Rasulullah saw. Maka sembah Iblis(alaihi laknat),"Ya Rasulullah!Mengapa tuan hamba tidak mejawab salam hamba? Bukankah salam itu sangat mulia di sisi Allah?" Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Maka jawab Nabi dengah marah "Hai Aduwullah seteru Allah! Kepada aku engkau menunjuk baikmu? Jangan engkau cuba hendak tipu aku sebagimana engkau tipu Nabi Adam a.s sehingga keluar dari syurga Habil mati teraniaya dibunuh Qabil dengan sebab hasutan engkau, Nabi Ayub engkau tiup dengan asap racun ketika dia sedang sujud sembahyang hingga dia sengsara beberapa lama, kisah Nabi Daud dengan perempuan Urya, Nabi Sulaiman meninggalkan kerajaannya kerana engkau menyamar sebagai isterinya dan begitu juga beberapa Anbiya dan pendita yang telah menanggung sengsara akibat hasutan engkau. Hai Iblis! Sebenarnya salam itu sangat mulia di sisi Allah azza wajalla, cuma salam engkau saja aku tidak hendak menjawabnya kerana diharamkan Allah. Maka aku kenal baik-baik engkaulah Iblis, raja segala iblis, syaitan dan jin yang menyamar diri. Apa kehendak engkau datang berjumpa aku?" Sembah Iblis,"Ya Nabi Allah! Janganlah tuan hamba marah. Kerana tuan adalah Khatamul Anbiya maka tuan dapat kenal akan hamba. Kedatangan hamba adalah disuruh Allah untuk memberitahu segala tipu daya hamba terhadap umat tuan dari zaman Nabi Adam hingga akhir zaman. Ya Nabi Allah! Setiap apa yang tuan tanya hamba sedia menerangkan satu persatu dengan sebenarnya, tiadalah hamba berani sembunyikan." Maka Iblis pun bersumpah menyebut nama Allah dan berkata "Ya Rasulullah! Sekiranya hamba berdusta barang sepatah pun nescaya hancur leburlah badan hamba menjadi abu" Apabila mendengar sumpah Iblis itu, Nabi pun tersenyum dan berkata dalam hatinya, inilah satu peluang aku untuk menyiasat segala perbuatannya agar didengar oleh sekelian sahabat yang ada di majlis ini dan menjadi perisai kepada sekelian umatku. Soalan Nabi (1) - "Hai Iblis! Siapakah sebesar-besar musuh engkau dan bagaimana aku terhadap engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Ya Nabi Allah! Tuanlah musuh hamba yang paling besar di antara segala musuh hamba di muka bumi ini"Maka Nabi pun memandang muka Iblis, dan Iblis pun mengeletar kerana ketakutan. Sambung Iblis,"Ya Khatamul Anbiya! Adapun hamba dapat merupakan diri hamba seperti sekelian manusia, binatang dan lain-lain hingga rupa dan suara pun tidak salah sepertinya, kecuali diri tuan sahaja yang tidak dapat hamba tiru kerana ditegah oleh Allah. Kiranya hamba menyerupai diri tuan, maka terbakarlah diri hamba menjadi abu. Hamba cabutkan iktikad anak Adam supaya menjadi kafir kerana tuan berusaha memberi nasihat dan pengajaran supaya mereka kuat untuk memeluk agama Islam; begitu jugalah hamba berusaha menarik mereka kepada kafir, murtad atau munafik. Hamba akan tarik sekelian umat Islam dari jalan benar kepada jalan yang salah supaya masuk ke dalam neraka dan kekal di dalamnya bersama hamba" Soalan Nabi ke 2 - "Hai Iblis! Betapa perbuatanmu kepada makhluk Allah" Jawab Iblis - "Adalah satu kemajuan bagi perempuan yang merenggangkan kedua pehanya kepada lelaki yang bukan suaminya, setengahnya hingga mengeluarkan benih yang salah sifatnya. Hamba goda segala manusia supaya meninggalkan sembahyang, leka dengan makan minum, berbuat durhaka, hamba lalaikan dengan harta benda daripada emas, perak dan permata, rumahnya, tanahnya, ladangnya supaya hasilnya dibelanjakan Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer kejalan haram. Demikian juga ketika temasya yang bercampur lelaki perempuan. Di situ hamba lepaskan sebesar-besar godaan supaya hilang maruah dan minum arak. Apabila terminum arak itu maka hilanglah akal, fikiran dan malunya. Lalu hamba hulurkan tali cinta dan terbukalah beberapa pintu maksiat yang besar, datang perasaan hasad dengki hingga kepada pekerjaan zina. Apabila terjadi kasih antara mereka, terpaksalah mereka mencari wang hingga menjadi penipu, peminjam dan pencuri. Apabila mereka teringat akan salah mereka lalu hendak bertaubat atau amal ibadat, hamba akan galang mereka supaya mereka menangguhkannya. Bertambah keras hamba goda supaya menambahkan maksiat dan mengambil isteri orang. Bila kena goda hatinya, datanglaah rasa riak, takbur, megah, sombong dan melengahkan amalnya. Bila pada lidahnya, mereka akan gemar berdusta, mencela dan mengumpat. Demikianlah hamba goda mereka setiap saat." Soalan Nabi ke 3 - "Hai Iblis! Mengapa engkau bersusah payah dan berpenat melakukan pekerjaan yang tidak mendatangkan faedah bahkan menambahkan laknat yang besar serta siksa yang besar di neraka yang paling bawah? Hai kutuk Allah! Siapa yang menjadikan engkau? Siapa yang melanjutkan usia engkau? Siapa yang menerangkan mata engkau? Siapa yang memberi pendengaran engkau? Siapa yang memberi kekuatan anggota badan engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Sekelian itu adalah anugerah daripada Tuhan Yang Maha Besar juga. Tetapi hawa nafsu dan takbur menceburkan hamba menjadi sebesar-besar jahat. Tuan lebih tahu bahawa hamba telah beribu-ribu tahun menjadi ketua kepada sekelian Malaikat dan pangkat hamba telah dinaikkan dari satu langit ke satu langit yang tinggi. Kemudian hamba tinggal di dunia ini beribadat bersama sekelian Malaikat beberapa lama. Tiba-tiba datang firman Allah SWT hendak menjadikan seorang Khalifah di dunia ini, maka hamba pun membantah. Lalu Allah mencipta lelaki (Nabi Adam) lalu dititahkan sekelian Malaikat memberi hormat kepada lelaki itu, kecuali hamba yang ingkar. Oleh itu Allah murka kepada hamba dan muka hamba yang cantik molek dan bercahaya itu bertukar menjadi keji dan hodoh. Hamba berasa sakit hati. Kemudian Allah menjadikan Adam raja di syurga dan dikurniakan seorang permaisuri(Siti Hawa) yang memerintah sekelian bidadari. Hamba bertanbah dengki dan berdendam kepada mereka. Akhirnya dapat juga hamba tipu melalui Siti Hawa yang menyuruh Adam memakan buah Khuldi, lalu keduanya dihalau dari syurga ke dunia. Kedua mereka berpisah beberapa tahun dan kemudian dipertemukan Allah (di Padang Arafah), hingga mereka mendapat beberapa orang anak. Kemudian kami hasut anak lelakinya Qabil supaya membunuh saudaranya Habil. Itu pun hamba masih tidak puas hati dan berbagai tipu daya hamba lakukan hingga Hari Kiamat. Sebelum tuan lahir ke dunia, hamba serta bala tentera hamba dengan mudah dapat naik ke langit untuk mencuri segala rahsia serta tulisan yang menyuruh manusia berbuat ibadat serta balasan pahala dan syurga mereka. Kemudian hamba turun ke dunia, dan memberitahu manusia yang lain daripada apa yang sebenarnya hamba dapat, dgn berbagai tipu daya hingga tersesat dengan berbagai kitab bidaah dan karut-marut. Tetapi apabila tuan lahir sahaja ke dunia ini, maka hamba tidak dibenarkan oleh Allah untuk naik ke langit serta mencuri rahsia, kerana banyak Malaikat yang menjaga di setiap lapisan pintu langit. Jika hamba berkeras juga hendak naik, maka Malaikat akan melontar dengan anak panah daripada api yang menyala. Sudah banyak bala tentera hamba yang Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer terkena lontaran Malaikat itu dan semuanya terbakar menjadi abu. Maka besarlah kesusahan hamba dan tentera hamba untuk menjalankan tugas hasutan." Soalan Nabi ke 4 - "Hai Iblis! Apakah yang pertama engkau tipu akan manusia?" Jawab Iblis - "Pertama sekali hamba palingkan iktikadnya imannya kepada kafir sama ada dari segi perbuatan, perkataan, kelakuan atau hatinya. Jika tidak berjaya juga, hamba akan tarik dengan cara mengurangkan pahala. Lama-kelamaan mereka akan terjerumus mengikut kemahuan jalan hamba" Soalan Nabi ke 5 - "Hai Iblis! Jika umatku sembahyang kerana Allah, bagaimana hal engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Sebesar-besar kesusahan kepada hamba. Gementarlah badan hamba dan lemah tulang sendi hamba. Maka hamba kerahkan berpuluh-puluh iblis datang menggoda seorang manusia, pada setiap anggota badannya. Setengah-setengahnya datang pada setiap anggota badannya supaya malas sembahyang, was-was, terlupa bilangan rakaatnya, bimbang pada pekerjaan dunia yang ditinggalkannya, sentiasa hendak cepat habis solat, hilangkan khusyuknya - matanya sentiasa menjeling ke kiri kanan, telinganya sentiasa mendengar orang brcakap serta bunyi-bunyi yang lain. Setengah Iblis duduk di belakang badan orang yang sembahyang itu supaya dia tidak kuasa sujud lama-lama, penat atau duduk tahiyat dan dalam hatinya sentiasa hendak cepat habis sembahyang, itu semua membawa kepada kurang pahala. Jika para Iblis itu tidak dapat menggoda manusia itu, maka hamba sendiri akan menghukum mereka dengan seberat-berat hukuman" Soalan Nabi ke 6 - "Jika umatku membaca Al-Quran kerana Allah, apalah rasa engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Jika mereka membaca Al-Quran kerana Allah, maka rasa terbakarlah tubuh hamba, putus-putus segala urat hamba lalu hamba lari daripadanya." Soalan Nabi ke 7 - "Jika umatku mengerjakan haji kerana Allah, bagaimana rasa engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Binasalah diri hamba, gugurlah daging dan tulang hamba kerana mereka telah mencukupkan rukun Islamnya" Soalan Nabi ke 8 - "Jika umatku berpuasa kerana Allah, bagaimana hal engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Ya Rasulullah! Inilah bencana yang paling besar bahayanya kepada hamba. Apabila masuk awal bulan Ramadhan, maka memancarlah cahaya Arasy dan Kursi, bahkan sekelian Malaikat menyambut dengan kesukaan. Bagi orang yang berpuasa, Allah akan mengampunkan segala dosa yang lalu dan digantikan dengan pahala yang amat besar serta tidak dicatatkan dosanya selama dia berpuasa. Yang menhancurkan hati hamba ialah segala isi langit dan bumi; yakni Malaikat, bulan, bintang, burung dan ikanikan semuanya siang malam mendoakan keampunan orang yang berpuasa. Satu lagi Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer kemuliaan orang berpuasa ialah dimerdekakan pada setiap masa dari azab neraka. Bahkan semua pintu neraka ditutup manakala semua pintu syurga dibuka seluas-luasnya, serta dihembuskan angin dari bawah Arasy yang bernama Angin Syirah yang amat lembut ke dalam syurga. Pada hari umat tuan mula berpuasa, dengan perintah Allah datanglah sekelian Malaikat dengan garangnya menangkap hamba dan tentera hamba; jin, syaitan dan ifrit lalu dipasung kaki dan tangan dengan besi panas dan dirantai serta dimasukkan ke bawah bumi yang amat dalam. Di sana pula beberapa azab yang lain telah menunggu kami.Setelah habis umat tuan berpuasa barulah hamba dilepaskan dengan amaran agar tidak mengganggu umat tuan. Umat tuan sendiri telah merasa ketenangan berpuasa seperti mana mereka bekerja dan bersahur seorang diri di tengah malam tanpa rasa takut berbanding bulan biasa." Soalan Nabi ke 9 - "Hai Iblis! Bagaimana sekelian sahabatku kepada engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Sekelian sahabat tuan hamba juga adalah sebesar-besar seteru hamba. Tiada upaya hamba melawannya dan tiada satu tipu daya yang dapat masuk kepada mereka. Kerana tuan sendiri telah berkata yang "Sekelian sahabatku adalah seperti bintang di langit, jika kamu mengikut mereka, maka kamu akan mendapat petunjuk." Saidina Abu Bakar al-Siddiq sebelum bersama tuan lagi, hamba tidak dapat hampir kepadanya inikan pula setelah berdamping dengan tuan. Beliau begitu percaya atas kebenaran tuan hingga dia menjadi wazirul a'zam. Bahkan tuan sendiri telah mengatakan jika ditimbang sekelian isi dunia ini dengan amal kebajikan Abu Bakar, maka akan lebih berat amal kebajikan Abu Bakar. Tambahan pula dia telah menjadi mertua tuan kerana tuan berkahwin dengan anaknya, Saiyidatina Aisyah yang juga banyak menghafaz Hadis tuan. Saidina Umar Al-Khattab pula tidaklah berani hamba pandang akan wajahnya kerana dia sangat keras menjalankan hukum syariat Islam dengan saksama. Jika hamba pandang wajahnya, maka gementarlah segala tulang sendi hamba kerana sangat takut. Ini kerana imannya sangat kuat apalagi tuan telah mengatakan, "JIKALAU adanya Nabi sesudah aku maka Umar boleh menggantikan aku" kerana dia adalah orang harapan tuan serta pandai membezakan antara kafir dan Islam hingga digelar 'Al-Faruq'. Saidina Usman Al-Affan lagi hamba tidak boleh hampir, kerana lidahnya sentiasa bergerak membaca Al-Quran. Dia penghulu orang sabar, penghulu orang mati syahid dan menjadi menantu tuan sebanyak dua kali. Kerana taatnya, banyak Malaikat datang melawat dan memberi hormat kepadanya kerana Malaikat itu sangat malu kepadanya hingga tuan mengatakan,"Barang siapa menulis Bismillahir rahmanir rahim pada kitab atau kertaskertas dengan dakwat merah, nescaya mendapat pahala seperti pahala Usman mati syahid" Saidina Ali Abi Talib pun itu hamba sangat takut kerana hebatnya dan gagahnya dia di medan perang, tetapi sangat bersopan, alim orangnya. Jika iblis, syaitan dan jin memandang beliau, maka terbakarlah kedua mata mereka kerana dia sangat kuat beribadat serta beliau adalah budak pertama memeluk agama Islam dan tidak pernah menunduk kan kepalanya kepada sebarang berhala. Digelar 'Ali Karamullahu Wajhahu' - dimuliakan Allah akan wajahnya dan juga 'Harimau Allah' dan tuan sendiri berkata "Akulah negeri segala ilmu dan Ali itu pintunya". Tambahan pula dia menjadi menantu kepada tuan, lagilah hamba ngeri kepadanya." Soalan Nabi ke 10 - "Bagaimana tipu daya engkau kepada umatku?" Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Jawab Iblis - "Umat tuan itu ada tiga macam. Yang pertama seperti hujan dari langit yang menghidupkan segala tumbuhan iaitu ulama yang memberi nasihat kepada manusia supaya mengerjakan perintah Allah serta meninggalkan laranganNya seperti kata Jibrail a.s "Ulama itu adalah pelita dunia dan pelita akhirat" Yang kedua umat tuan seperti tanah iaitu orang yang sabar, syukur dan redha dengan kurniaan Allah. Berbuat amal soleh, tawakal dan kebajikan. Yang ketiga umat tuan seperti Firaun; terlampau tamak dengan harta dunia serta dihilangkan amal akhirat. Maka hamba pun sukacita lalu masuk kedalam badannya, hamba putarkan hatinya ke lautan derhaka dan hamba hela ke mana sahaja mengikut kehendak hamba. Jadi dia sentiasa bimbang kepada dunia dan tidak hendak menuntut ilmu, tiada masa beramal ibadat, tidak hendak mengeluarkan zakat, miskin hendak beribadat. Lalu hamba godanya minta kaya dulu, dan apabila diizinkan Allah dia menjadi kaya, maka dilupakan beramal, tidak berzakat seperti Qarun yang tenggelam dengan istana mahligainya. Bila umat tuan terkena penyakit tidak sabar dan tamak, dia sentiasa bimbang akan hartanya dan setengahnya asyik hendak merebut dunia harta, cakap besar sesama Islam, benci dan menghina kepada yang miskin, membelanjakan hartanya untuka jalan maksiat, tempat judi dan perempuan lacur" Soalan Nabi ke 11 - "Siapa yang serupa dengan engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang meringankan syariat tuan hamba dan membenci orang belajar agama Islam" Soalan Nabi ke 12 - "Siapa yang mencahayakan muka engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang berdosa, bersumpah bohong, saksi palsu, pemungkir janji" Soalan Nabi ke 13 - "Apakah rahsia engkau kepada umatku?" Jawab Iblis - Jika seorang Islam pergi buang air besar serta tidak membaca doa pelindung syaitan, maka hamba gosok-gosokkan najisnya sendiri ke badannya tanpa dia sedari" Soalan Nabi ke 14 - "Jika umatku bersatu dengan isterinya, bagaimana hal engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Jika umat tuan hendak bersetubuh dengan isterinya serta membaca doa pelindung syaitan, maka larilah hamba dari mereka. Jika tidak hamba akan bersetubuh dahulu dengan isterinya, dan bercampurlah benih hamba dengan benih isterinya. Jika menjadi anak maka anak itu akan gemar kepada pekerjaan maksiat, malas pada kebaikan, durhaka. Ini semua kerana kealpaan ibu bapanya sendiri. Begitu juga jika mereka makan tanpa Bismillah, hamba yang dahulu makan daripadanya. Walaupun mereka makan, tiadalah rasa kenyang." Soalan Nabi ke 15 - "Dengan jalan apa boleh menolak tipu daya engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Jika dia berbuat dosa, maka dia kembali bertaubat kepada Allah, menangis kesal akan perbuatannya. Apabila marah segeralah mengambil air sembahyang, maka padamlah marahnya." Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Soalan Nabi ke 16 - "Siapakah orang yang paling engkau lebih suka?" Jawab Iblis - "Lelaki dan perempuan yang tidak mencukur atau mencabut bulu ketiak atau bulu ari-ari (bulu kemaluan) selama 40 hari. Di situ lah hamba mengecilkan diri, bersarang, bergantung, berbuai seperti pijat pada bulu itu" Soalan Nabi ke 17 - "Hai Iblis! Siapakah saudara engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang tidur meniarap, orang yang matanya celik di waktu subuh tetapi menyambung tidur semula. Lalu hamba ulit dia lena hingga terbit fajar. Demikian jua pada waktu zohor, asar, maghrib dan isyak, hamba beratkan hatinya untuk solat" Soalan Nabi ke 18 - "Apakah jalan yang membinasakan diri engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang banyak menyebut nama Allah, bersedekah dengan tidak diketahui orang, banyak bertaubat, banyak tadarus Al-Quran dan solat tengah malam" Soalan Nabi ke 19 - "Hai Iblis! Apakah yang memecahkan mata engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang duduk di dalam masjid serta beriktikaf di dalamnya" Soalan Nabi ke 20 - "Apa lagi yang memecahkan mata engkau?" Jawab Iblis - "Orang yang taat kepada kedua ibubapanya, mendengar kata mereka, membantu makan-pakai mereka selama mereka hidup, kerana tuan telah bersabda,'Syurga itu di bawah tapak kaki ibu' " Topik 9 - Surat Berantai : Hukum dan Penjelasan Ini adalah contoh Surat Berantai bertajuk : "Wasiat untuk semua umat Islam di seluruh dunia daripada Sheikh Ahmad (Madinah)" yang pernah menakutkan kita sikit masa dahulu. Bismillahirahamanirahim Pada satu malam di kala hamba membaca al-quran di makam Rasulullah, selepas membaca hamba letih lalu tertidur. Di dalam tidur hamba bermimpi di mana Rasulullah mendatangi hamba lalu bersabda: "Dalam 60,000 orang di dunia di zaman ini, tiada seorang pun yang matinya di dalam keadaan beriman. Isteri-isteri tidak lagi mendengar kata-kata suami, ramai yang tidak berzakat dan tidak lagi membuat kebajikan. Oleh itu Sheikh Ahmad hendaklah kamu menyedarkan orangorang ini supaya membuat kebajikan, kerana hari penghabisan (kiamat) akan tiba, yang mana semua bintang-bintang akan terbit dari langit, Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer sesudah itu pintu (taubat) akan tertutup, tulisan di-dalam al-quran akan hilang dan matahari turun dekat di atas kepala". Pesanan hamba ini Berselawatlah untuk jujungan kita Nabi Muhamaad s.a.w, bertaubatlah dengan segera sementara pintu taubat masih terbuka. Sembayanglah jangan ditinggalkan, keluarkan zakat, berpuasalah dan tunaikan haji jika mampu. Perhatian Setelah membaca wasiat ini, maka hendaklah ditulis atau dicetak dan disampaikan pada orang lain atau dikirimkan sebanyak 20 keping. Sekiranya ini ada dilakukan anda akan dianugerahi Allah sesuatu niat atau hajat. Dan niat atau hajat anda akan dikabulkan oleh Allah. Kata Sheikh Ahmad lagi, jika apa yang hamba katakan tidak benar, biarlah hamba mati dalam kekufuran dan biarlah tidak dapat perlindungan atau syaffaat daripada Rasulullah s.a.w ( nauzubillah ) Oleh itu hendaklah dituliskan atau dicetak sebanyak 20 keping dan disampaikan kepada orang lain dalam masa dua (2) minggu dan beroleh kebahagian dan kesejahteraan. Lakukanlah ini dengan niat kerana Allah dan ingat apabila anda menerima surat ini, janganlah dibiarkan atau diabaikan. Untuk maklumat Seorang saudagar dari Bombay telah menerima wasiat dan beliau kemudiannya mencetak 20 salinan dan mengirimkannya kepada orang lain. Ia kemudian dianugerahkan Allah dengan mendapat keuntungan yang besar dalam perniagaannya. Tan Sri Ghazali bekas Menteri Besar secara tidak langsung telah dipecat jawatannya, kerana apabila beliau menerima wasiat ini beliau telah terlupa menulis 20 salinan untuk diedarkan kepada orang lain tetapi beliau telah mula menyedari kesilapan itu lalu beliau mencetak wasiat ini dan terus mengirimkan kepada orang lain dan berapa hari kemudian beliau dilantik menjadi menteri kabinet. Perdana Menteri Zulfiqar Ali telah menerima wasiat ini dan tidak percaya akan kebenaran dan mengangap ianya palsu lalu dibuangkannya ke dalam bakul sampah. Seminggu kemudian beliau telah dijatuhkan hukuman mati. Di Terangganu seorang hamba Allah telah menerima wasiat ini melalui kawannya dari Melaka. Malangnya beliau tidak mengindahkan surat wasiat ini dan mengatakan ianya bohong belaka dan sengaja diadakan untuk menakutkan orang yang membacanya Berapa minggu kemudian beliau mengidap penyakit Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer yang ganjil dan penyakitnya amat menyedihkan. Setelah hampir tiga minggu beliau dirawat di hospital dan malangnya penyakitnya sukar diubati oleh doktor yang merawatnya. Akhirnya baru beliau teringat akan surat wasiat yang masih dalam simpanannya lalu beliau suruh sepupunya mencetak wasiat ini dan dibahagikan kepada orang lain. Seminggu kemudian beliau berangsur pulih sehingga sekarang. Banyak lagi contoh orang yang menerima wasiat ini dan tidak mempercayainya dan tidak mengirimkan kepada orang lain dimana mereka mendapat berbagai malapetaka. Setelah mengenangkan kejadian yang menggemberikan dan menyakitkan ini diharap anda jangan lupa menyempurnakan 20 salinan dalam masa 90 jam dari masa anda membaca wasiat ini. Insya Allah anda akan memperolehi sesuatu yang dihajati dan akan menerima anugerah dari Allah dan berdoalah kepada yang Maha Esa dengan penuh keyakinaan. Pasti ianya akan menerangi hidup anda dengan nikmat ketenangan hidup. Sekian wassalam...... Penjelasan Surat Berantai Ini adalah penjelasan yang saya dapat menerusi kiriman email daripada seorang sahabat. Semoga perkara ini menjadi pengiktibaran kepada kita dalam kehidupan seharian. Wallahu 'alam. Soalan: Saya telah terbaca satu surat (wasiat) dan amat terkejut dgn isi kandungannya. Ia dikatakan sebagai satu wasiat daripada Sheikh Ahmad (pemegang anak kunci makam Rasullullah s.a.w) kepada semua umat di seluruh dunia. Di akhir wasiat itu beliau berkata, "Di Bombay terdapat seorang yang telah menyalin wasiat itu sebanyak 30 salinan dan dia telah dikurniakan Allah rezeki sebanyak 25000 rupiah. Seorang lagi menyebarkan wasiat itu diberikan rezeki 6000 rupiah oleh Allah. Terdapat seorang yang mendustakan wasiat ini, maka dia telah kematian anaknya pada hari itu juga. Dia berkata bahawa sesiapa yang menerima wasiat ini dan tidak menyebarkannya akan ditimpa musibah yang besar. Apakah pandangan tuan terhadap wasiat ini? Adakah ia benar atau dusta?. Dr. Yusof Al-Qardawi menjawab: Ramai orang tertanya-tanya tentang wasiat ini. Sebenarnya ia bukanlah perkara baru. Saya telah melihatnya semenjak puluhan tahun dahulu. Wasiat ini dikaitkan dgn seorang lelaki bernama Sheikh Ahmad, pemegang kunci makan Rasullulah s.a.w. Jika kita Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer bertanya kepada penduduk Madinah atau Hijaz tentang Sheikh Ahmad ini dan tugasnya, kita tidak akan dapat mengesannya atau mendengar khabar berita mengenainya. Iannya tidak pernah dikenali dan tidak pernah dilihat oleh penduduk Madinah. Tetapi terdapat orang yang menyebarkan apa yang dikatakan sebagai wasiat ke negara-negara Islam. Wasiat itu tidak mempunyai apa-apa nilai di sisi agama. Persoalan yang dikemukakan dalam surat itu tidaklah berhajat kepada wasiat Sheikh Ahmad atau Sheikh Omar. Sesungguhnya Al-Quran dengan jelas telah menyatakan sebahagian daripada itu. Kita sudah ada Al-Quran dan Sunnah, kedua-duanya sudah lebih daripada mencukupi. Allah berfirman dalam Surah Al-Maidah: "Hari ini Aku sempurnakan bagimu agama kamu (Islam) dan Aku sempurnakan ke atasmu nikmat-Ku serta Aku reda Islam sebagai agama kamu" Sesiapa yang menyangka bahawa agama Islam, setelah disempurnakan dan dilengkapkan oleh Allah, masih lagi berhajat kepada wasiat orang yang tidak diketahui asal-usulnya, sesungguhnya telah timbul keraguan dan syak di hatinya akan kesempurnaan dan kesyumulan Islam itu. Terdapat tanda-tanda pembohongan dan kejahatan pada wasiat tersebut. Orang yang melakukannya telah mengancam serta menakut-nakutkan orang ramai, iaitu sekiranya wasiat itu tidak disebarkan, mereka akan ditimpa musibah, kematian anak-anak atau kehilangan harta benda. Inilah yang tidak pernah diucapkan oleh manusia bahkan tidak ada dalam kitab Allah dan sunah Rasul-Nya. Manusia tidak pernah menerima perintah seperti 'sesiapa yang membaca Al-Quran hendaklah disalin 25 salinan dan menyebarkannya. Jika tidak melakukan demikian, dia akan ditimpa musibah.' Maka bagaimana pula dengan wasiat yang khurafat ini?. Perkara ini tentulah tidak dapat diterima oleh akal muslim yang memahami Islam dengan kefahaman yang sebenar. Wasiat tersebut menyatakan bahawa si fulan dari negeri tertentu yang menyebarkan wasiat itu telah memperolehi puluhan ribu rupiah. Ini adalah usaha untuk menyeleweng dan menyesatkan orang-orang Islam dari jalan yang sebenar. Juga menyelewengkan umat dari sunah alam dan konsep sebab dan musabab yang telah dijadikan Allah sebagai undang-undang alam ini. Memperolehi rezeki ada cara-caranya. Berpegang kepada. Perkara-perkara khurafat seumpama ini menyelewengkan pemikiran umat Islam. Kita bimbang kalau-kalau umat Islam mempercayai khurafat ini dan menyangka bahawa sesiapa yang menyebarkannya akan mendapat shafaat khusus daripada. Rasulullah s.a.w. Sesungguhnya shafaat Rasulullah adalah untuk orang-orang yang tidak melakukan dosa-dosa besar di kalangan umat-umatnya sebagaimana sabda baginda dlm sebuah hadis: Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer "Orang yang paling merasa bahagia dengan syafaatku di hari kiamat adalah orang yang mengatakan "tiada tuhan yang lain daripada Allah" dengan penuh keikhlasan hatinya"Kita memohon kepada Allah memberikan kefahaman yang benar tentang urusan agama, menunjukkan jalan yang lurus serta dijauhkan daripada mempercayai khurafat, rekaan-rekaan dan kebatilan. Wassalam First created : Saturday, 09 May 1998, 4.20 pm. RESIPI MENJAUHKAN TABIB Seorang tabib dihantar oleh penguasa Mesir ke Medinah sebagai menunjukkan tanda persahabatan. Sepanjang dua tahun tabib itu berada di sana, tidak ada seorangpun yang datang untuk mendapatkan rawatan perubatan. Tabib menjadi hairan dan bosan kerana tidak dapat memberikan perkhidmatan apa-apa kepada penduduk Medinah. Tabib itu berjumpa Nabi Muhammad saw untuk mendapatkan kepastian. Dia bertanya Nabi, "Adakah penduduk sini takut untuk berjumpa tabib?" Nabi menjawab "Tidak! Dengan musuh mereka tidak takut, apatah lagi dengan tabib." Tabib bertanya lagi, "Tapi mengapa sepanjang 2 tahun saya di sini, seorang pun tidak berubat dengan saya?" Nabi menjelaskan "Sebab penduduk Medinah tidak ada yang sakit." Tabib itu kurang mempercayai Nabi dan berkata, "Masakan tidak ada satu orang pun yang sakit." Melihat keraguan tabib itu, Nabi mempersilakan tabib itu menjelajah ke merata pelusuk Medinah untuk membuktikan kebenaran kata-katanya. Tabib itu beredar dan menjelajah ke pelusuk Medinah. Puas dia mencari pesakit tetapi tidak menjumpai walau seorangpun. Terbuktilah kepadanya kebenaran kata-kata Nabi itu. Didorong oleh perasaan ingintahu dan kekagumannya, tabib itu sekali lagi berjumpa Nabi saw. lalu berkata, "Benar seperti kata-kata baginda. Apakah petua sehingga semua penduduk Medinah sihat-sihat belaka?" Nabi menerangkan, "Kami adalah satu kaum yang tidak akan makan jika tidak lapar. Dan jika kami makan, kami tidak makan sehingga terlalu kenyang. Itulah petua untuk kesihatan. Yakinilah makanan yang halal dan baik. Makanlah untuk bertaqwa kepada Allah bukan sekadar memuaskan hawa nafsu." MORAL & IKTIBAR Petua untuk sihat: Makan ketika lapar. Berhenti sebelum kenyang Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Agama Islam suatu agama yang syumul; ia mencakupi bidang jasmani dan rohani Semua kata-kata Nabi adalah BENAR belaka; tidak boleh mempertikannya. Berpegang kepada ajaran Nabi membawa keselamatan bukan saja di akhirat malahan di dunia juga. Bertawakkal kepada Allah menjauhkan diri dari menyerahkan nasib kepada selain Allah Menyendatkan perut dengan pelbagai makanan yang banyak menyebabkan kesihatan terganggu dan mengurangkan kecerdasan otak dan jiwa. Sebaliknya mengosongkan perut dengan amalan puasa boleh melahirkan ketajaman otak dan kejernihan jiwa. Para Nabi dan orang-orang soleh memilih lapar di dunia supaya kenyang di akhirat. Dari Al Barra' bin 'Azib ra. berkata: Rasulullah saw. menyuruh kami untuk menjenguk orang sakit, mengiringkan jenazah, menjawab do'a orang yang bersin, menepati sumpah, menolong orang yang teraniaya, memenuhi undangan dan menyebarluaskan salam. (HR Bukhari dan Muslim) Seorang pujangga barat pernah menulis: Dalam dunia ini, kita tidak punya sesiapa kecuali diri sendiri...tetapi dalam kita bersendiri, kita beruntung kerana mempunyai seorang sahabat yang memahami kita. Sebagaimana kita mengharapkan keikhlasan dan kejujuran seorang sahabat, begitu juga dia. Tetapi kita sering terlupa akan hal itu. Kita cuma mengambil kira tentang harapan dan perasaan kita. Kita rasa dikhianati bila dia tidak menepati janjinya. Kita tidak memberi dia peluang untuk menerang keadaannya. Bagi kita, itu alasannya untuk menutup kesilapan dan membela diri. Kita terlupa, kita juga pernah membiarkan dia ternanti-nanti....kerana kita juga ada janji yang tidak ditepati. Kita beri beribu alasan, 'memaksa' dia menerima alasan kita. Waktu itu, terfikirkah kita tentang perasaannya??? Seperti kita, dia juga tahu rasa kecewa....tetapi kita sering terlupa. Untungnya mempunyai seorang kawan yang sentiasa di sisi kita pada waktu kita memerlukan dia. Dia mendengar luahan perasaan kita, segala rasa kecewa dan ketakutan, harapan dan impian kita luahkan, dia memberi jalan sebagai laluan penyelesaian masalah. Selalunya kita terlalu asyik bercerita tentang diri kita hingga kadang-kadang terlupa kawan kita juga ada cerita yang ingin dikongsi bersama kita. Pernahkah kita memberi dia peluang untuk menceritakan tentang rasa bimbangnya, rasa takutnya? Pernahkah kita menenangkan dia sebagaimana dia pernah menyabarkan kita? Ikhlaskah kita mendengar tentang kejayaan dan berita gembiranya? Mampukah kita menjadi sumber kekuatannya seperti mana dia meniup semangat setiap kali kita merasa kecewa dan menyerah kalah? Dapatkah kita yakinkan dia bahawa kita boleh dipercayai, kita boleh dijadikan tempat untuk bersandar bila terasa lemah, agar tidak rebah? Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Bolehkah kita menjadi bahu untuk dia sandarkan harapan? Sesekali jadilah kawan yang mendengar dari yang hanya bercerita. Ambillah masa untuk memahami hati dan perasaan kawan, kerana dia juga seorang manusia; dia juga ada rasa takut, ada rasa...bimbang, sedih dan kecewa. Dia juga ada kelemahan dan dia juga perlukan kawan sebagai kekuatan. Jadilah kita kawannya itu. Kita selalu melihat dia ketawa, tetapi mungkin sebenarnya dia tidak setabah yang kita sangka. Disebalik senyumannya itu, mungkin banyak cerita sedih yang ingin diluahkan, disebalik ketenangannya, mungkin tersimpan seribu kekalutan, kita tidak tahu.......tetapi jika kita cuba jadi sahabat seperti dia, mungkin kita akan tahu. SAIDINA ALI DAN PEMINTA SEDEKAH Siti Fatimah, isteri Saidina Ali didatangi seorang peminta sedekah. Ketika itu Saidina Ali mempunyai 50 dirham. Setelah menerima wang, pengemis itu pun balik. Di tengah jalan, Saidina Ali bertanya berapa banyak yang diberi oleh Saidatina Fatimah. Apabila diberitahu 25 dirham, Saidina Ali menyuruh pengemis itu pergi sekali lagi ke rumahnya. Pengemis itu pun pergi dan Fatimah memberikan baki 25 dirham kepada pengemis itu. Selang beberapa hari, datang seorang hamba Allah berjumpa Saidina Ali dengan membawa seekor unta. Orang itu mengadu dalam kesusahan dan ingin menjualkan untanya. Saidina Ali tanpa berlengah menyatakan kesanggupan untuk membelinya, meskipun ketika itu dia tidak berwang. Dia berjanji akan membayar harga unta itu dalam masa beberapa hari. Dalam perjalanan pulang, Saidina Ali berjumpa dengan seorang lelaki yang ingin membeli unta itu dengan harga yang lebih tinggi daripada harga asal. Saidina Ali pun menjualkan unta itu kepada orang itu. Setelah mendapat wang, Saidina Ali pun menjelaskan hutangnya kepada penjual unta. Beberapa hari kemudian, Rasulullah saw berjumpa Saidina Ali lalu bertanya "Ya Ali, tahukah kamu siapakah yang menjual dan membeli unta itu?" Apabila Saidina Ali mengatakan tidak tahu, Nabi menerangkan yang menjual itu ialah Jibril dan yang membelinya ialah Mikail. MORAL & IKTIBAR Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer o Allah membalas atau memberi ganjaran berlipat ganda jika kita menolong orang yang dalam kesusahan. o Memberikan bantuan kepada orang yang susah merupakan satu aset yang balasannya akan diterima di dunia lagi. o Berikanlah bantuan kepada orang yang berada di dalam kesempitan kelak Allah akan melepaskan kita semasa kita berada dalam kesusahan. o Keyakinan kepada balasan baik Allah merangsang kita untuk melakukan amalan dan kebajikan dengan lebih banyak. SETEGUH IMAN BILAL Saidina Bilal (berkulit hitam) adalah di antara 7 orang yang pertama menzahirkan keIslaman secara terangan meskipun diancam oleh kafir musyrik. Apabila mengetahui hambanya, Bilal telah memeluk Islam, tuannya telah menyeksa Bilal dengan memakaikan baju besi dan kemudian dijemur di padang pasir yang sangat panas. Ketika ditanya tentang pegangan agamanya, Bilal tetap mengatakan 'Ahad! Ahad!' (Allah Yang Esa, Yang Esa). Bilal kemudian diseret hingga ke lereng-lereng gunung tetapi Bilal tetap memperkatakan 'Ahad! Ahad!'. Imannya tidak bergoncang sedikitpun. Melihatkan tidak apa perubahan berlaku dalam diri Bilal, mereka kemudian mempertingkatkan seksaan dengan meletakkan batu besar di atas badannya yang terjemur di tengah kepanasan matahari. Namun tiada ucapan lain yang keluar dari mulut Bilal kecuali 'Ahad! Ahad!' Bilal rela mati daripada menukar pegangan agamanya yang haq kepada yang bathil. Apabila Saidina Abu Bakar diberitahu tentang seksa yang dialami oleh Bilal, Abu Bakar terus berjumpa Umaiyah yang sedang menyeksa Bilal dan kemudian meminta Bilal dibebaskan. Sebagai ganti Abu Bakar menyerahkan seorang hamba hitam yang lebih kuat sebagai tebusan. Sebaik saja ditebus, Saidina Abu Bakar pun membebaskan Bilal dari perhambaan. MORAL & IKTIBAR o Iman yang kental dan pegangan aqidah yang kukuh tidak dapat digugat sekalipun diseksa dengan pelbagai seksaan o Kemanisan iman tidak ada tolong banding di dunia dan akhirat o Allah tidak melihat kecantikan fizikal seseorang tetapi yang paling utama ialah kecantikan hati o Allah mempertingkatkan tahap atau darjah keimanan seseorang, dengan mengenakan ujian dan cubaan. o Selagi tidak diuji dengan kesusahan, tahap keimanan belum dapat dipastikan kebenarannya o Bertambah kuat iman seseorang, bertambah hebat ujian yang Allah kenakan ke atasnya Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer o Ujian dan bala yang dikenakan ke atas seseorang bukan bererti Allah membencinya, sebaliknya ia adalah satu rahmat untuk meninggikan darjatnya di sisi Allah. o Bala sebenarnya bukan 'bala' tetapi adalah satu nikmat yang patut disyukuri Kekayaan dan kesenangan hidup belum tentu menjadi satu nikmat, bahkan ia satu cubaan/bala untuk menguji sama ada kita mensyukuri Allah atau sebaliknya SEKADAR RENUNGAN Sayyidina Ali K.w.b. pernah menegaskan bahawa: "Ilmu (hikmah) itu laksana harta yang hilang bagi orang mukmin. Oleh itu ambil ia walaupun daripada orang munafiq." "Kamu janganlah suka melihat kejatuhan orang lain kerana kamu sendiri tidak tahu akan perubahan masa." Nasihat Imam al-Ghazali: "Wahai anakku! Pelajarilah ilmu berdasarkan pengetahuan, agar menerangi fikiran dalam menegakkan agama Allah dan memimpin umat ke jalan yang benar. Hendaklah semua amal dan usahamu didasari niat semata-mata untuk berbakti kepada Allah yang telah menjadikan engkau, bukannya kerana maksud yang lain. Abdullah bin Abbas pernah mengatakan: "Ilmu itu didapati dengan lidah yang gemar bertanya dan akal yang suka berfikir." Nasihat Imam al-Ghazali dalam Kitab al-Mawaa'iz: Bahawasanya Allah s.w.t telah berfirman di dalam di dalam sebuah hadis Qudsi yang mafhumnya: "Hai anak-anak Adam! Aku sungguh hairan kepada orang-orang yang yakin dengan kematian, akan tetapi bagaimanakah ia masih boleh bergembira?" "Aku hairan melihat mereka yang percaya adanya sesuatu perhitungan, akan tetapi kenapakah ia masih leka mengumpulkan harta?" "Aku hairan orang-orang yang yakin dengan wujudnya alam kubur, lalu bagaimanakah ia maih boleh ketawa?" "Aku hairan dengan orang yang yakin bahawa dunia ini akan musnah, tetapi bagaimanakah ia masih tenang di atasnya?" "Aku hairan melihat orang yang alim lidahnya tetapi jahil hatinya." "Aku hairan orang yang membersihkan dengan air tetapi tidak dengan hatinya." Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer "Aku hairan orang yang suka mengambil tahu keburukan orang lain sedangkan ia lupa dengan keburukan dirinya. Atau orang yang tahu sesungguhnya Allah akan membongkar segala maksiat yang dilakukan, atau orang yang tahu ia akan mati keseorangan di dalam kubur serta akan dihisab keseorangan, bagaimanakah ia masih lagi bersukaria sesama manusia?" "Tidak ada Tuhan selain Aku dan Muhammad itu hamba-Ku dan Rasul-Ku." Kata-kata Hikmah Imam Syafie: 1. Barangsiapa menghendaki akhirat wajib baginya ikhlas pada ilmu. 2. Tidak ada sesuatu yang lebih indah pada ulama' melainkan dengan kefakiran dan memadai apa yang ada dan redha dengan keduanya. 3. Hendaklah kamu berilmu pengetahuan sebelum kamu menjadi ketua sebab sesudah kamu menjadi ketua, tiada jalan lagi bagi kamu mencari pengetahuan. 4. Orang yang berakal itu ialah orang yang akalnya dapat mengawal segala sifatsifat mazmumah(keji). 5. Barangsiapa mencintai bahawa Allah menutupi baginya dengan kebaikan maka hendaklah dia sangka baik dengan manusia. Kata-kata Hikmah Imam Malik: 1. Bukanlah ilmu itu dengan membanyakkan riwayat tetapi ilmu itu cahaya yang Allah letak dalam hati. 2. Apabila seseorang itu memuji dirinya maka hilanglah cahayanya. 3. Wajiblah di atas orang yang menuntut ilmu bahawa dia memiliki kebesaran, ketenangan dan ketakutan. Luqmanul Hakim menasihati anaknya: "Wahai anakku dampingilah selalu para ulama' dan engkau jangan banyak berdebat terhadap mereka agar jangan dibenci oleh mereka itu." "Ambillah dari dunia sekadar keperluan dan biayakan(belanjakan) lebihan hasil usahamu untuk akhirat. Dunia jangan ditolak habis agar lain dan tidak membalas apa-apa) yang memberati manusia lain." "Selalu-selalulah berpuasa untuk menundukkan nafsumu, tetapi janganlah sampai meletihkan badan sehingga merosakkan acara sembahyang kerana sembahyang lebih utama dari puasa. Janganlah engkau berteman duduk dengan orang yang bodoh sombong dan jangan dirapati orang yang bermuka dua." Dengan Siapa Engkau Duduk ...? Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Barang siapa yang duduk dengan lapan macam manusia maka akan ditambah oleh Allah baginya lapan corak hidup iaitu: 1. Barangsiapa suka duduk bersama orang kaya, akan ditambah Allah kecintaannya kepada dunia dan keinginan kepadanya. 2. Barangsiapa suka duduk bersama orang miskin, akan dijadikan Allah baginya kesukaan bersyukur dan redha menerima pembahagian yang ditentukan Allah. 3. Barangsiapa yang suka duduk dengan Sultan (pemerintah negara), akan ditambah Allah kasarnya dan sombongnya. 4. Barangsiapa yang suka duduk dengan perempuan, akan ditambah Allah bodoh dan syahwatnya. 5. Barangsiapa suka duduk bersama kanak-kanak, akan ditambah kesukaannya bermain-main dan bersenda gurau. 6. Barangsiapa yang suka duduk dengan orang fasiq, akan bertambahlah beraninya berbuat dosa dan menunda-nunda untuk bertaubat. 7. Barangsiapa yang suka duduk dengan orang-orang soleh, akan bertambahlah keinginannya untuk taat. 8. Barangsiapa yang suka duduk dengan para Ulama' maka bertambahlah ilmu dan waraknya. Hari ini anda mampu... "Hari ini anda mampu mandi sendiri tetapi suatu hari nanti orang lain yang akan memandikan anda." "Hari ini anda mampu pakai pakaian sendiri tetapi suatu hari nanti orang lain yang akan memakaikan pakaian untuk anda." "Hari ini anda mampu pakai pakaian yang cantik dan mahal tetapi suatu hari nanti anda hanya mampu memakai sehelai kain putih sahaja (kafan)." "Hari ini anda punya ramai saudara dan teman tetapi suatu hari nanti anda keseorangan di dalam kubur." "Hari ini anda bebas bergerak ke mana sahaja anda suka tetapi suatu hari nanti anda akan tinggal di dalam liang lahad yang sempit." "Hari ini anda diterangi oleh lampu yang terang tetapi suatu hari nanti anda akan tinggal di dalam kubur yang gelap gelita." "Hari ini anda mampu makan dan minum sesuka hati tetapi suatu hari nanti tubuh anda akan dimakan oleh ulat, ular dan kala jengking didalam kubur." Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer "Anda sayang pada anak, isteri, ibubapa dan keluarga tetapi suatu hari nanti anda akan meninggalkannya buat selama-lamanya." "Dengan wang anda mampu pergi kemana sahaja di dunia ini tetapi dengan wang anda belum tentu mampu membeli syurga Allah yang tinggi nilainya itu." Sama-samalah kita renungi dan insafinya ...sahabat-sahabat yang diingati. "Anggaplah ilmu yang kita perolehi itu ibarat setitik air yang kecil sahaja. Oleh itu, berusahalah untuk menambah setitik air itu agar menjadi lautanyang luas." Ilsor. SI-SOPAK, SI-BOTAK DAN SI-BUTA Pada suatu hari Allah memerintahkan malaikat bertemu dengan tiga orang Bani Israil. Ketiga-tiga mereka cacat; seorang botak, seorang sopak dan seorang lagi buta. Malaikat yang menyamar seperti manusia itu bertanya si-sopak "Jika Allah hendak kurniakan sesuatu untuk kamu, apakah yang kamu mahu?" Si-sopak menjawab, "Saya mahu kulit saya sembuh seperti biasa dan diberi kekayaan yang banyak." Dengan takdir Allah, kulitnya kembali sembuh dan dikurniakan rezeki yang banyak. Kemudian malaikat bertanya si-botak soalan yang sama. Si-botak menjawab, "Saya mahu kepala saya berambut semula supaya kelihatan kacak dan diberikan harta yang banyak." Tiba-tiba, dengan kurnia Allah si-botak itu kembali berambut dan diberikan harta yang banyak. Selepas itu malaikat bertanya si-buta pertanyaan yang sama. Si-buta menjawab, "Saya hendak mata saya dicelikkan semula dan diberikan harta yang banyak." Dengan takdir Allah, mata si-buta menjadi celik dan dikurniakan kekayaan yang melimpah. Selang beberapa bulan, Allah memerintahkan semula malaikat untuk berjumpa dengan ketiga-tiga orang cacat itu. Kali ini malaikat menyamar sebagai peminta sedekah. Dia berjumpa dengan orang pertama yang dulunya sopak dan meminta sedikit wang. 'Si-sopak' itu tidak menghulurkan sebarang bantuan malah mengherdik malaikat. Malaikat berkata, "Saya rasa saya kenal kamu. Dulu kamu sopak..dan miskin. Allah telah menolong kamu." Si-sopak tidak mengaku. Dengan kuasa Allah, si-sopak yang sombong itu bertukar menjadi sopak semula dan bertukar menjadi miskin. Kemudian malaikat berjumpa dengan si-botak yang telah menjadi kaya dan berambut lebat. Apabila malaikat meminta bantuan, si-botak juga enggan membantu, malahan dia tidak mengaku bahawa dia dulu botak. Oleh sebab sombong dan tidak sedar diri, Allah menjadikan kepalanya botak semula dan bertukar menjadi miskin. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Malaikat berjumpa dengan orang buta yang telah diberikan penglihatan. Apabila malaikat meminta bantuan, si-buta memberikan keseluruhan hartanya dan berkata, "Ini semua harta pemberiaan Allah. Ambillah kesemuanya. Mata saya yang kembali celik ini adalah lebih berharga daripada kesemua harta ini." Malaikat tidak mengambil pemberian itu. Dia memberitahu bahawa dia adalah malaikat yang pernah datang dulu. Kedatangannya kali ini ialah untuk menguji siapa di antara mereka bertiga yang bersyukur. Si-buta yang bersyukur itu terus dapat menikmati kekayaan dan penglihatannya. Manakala si-sopak dan si-botak kekal dengan keadaannya yang asal. MORAL & IKTIBAR o Allah mengurniakan kesenangan dan keselesaan adalah sebagai ujian untuk melihat siapakah di antara mereka yang bersyukur o Manusia yang bersyukur Allah akan tambah kurniaan sebaliknya manusia yang kufur akan diazab oleh Allah o Manusia seringkali lupa daratan apabila diberikan kemewahan dan kesenangan o Sangat sedikit hamba Allah yang bersyukur o Siapa yang tidak bersyukur kepada manusia, dia tidak akan bersyukur kepada Allah o Allah memberi kurnia kepada sesiapa yang dikehendakiNya dan menarik nikmat daripada siapa sahaja yang dikehendakiNya Sifat syukur adalah satu sifat yang terpuji, sebaliknya kufur (kufur nikmat) adalah sifat yang dicela oleh Allah. SYAITAN BER'MOU' DENGAN NAFSU Hakikat bahawa syaitan adalah musuh manusia memang telah diketahui umum. Semua orang mengetahui bahawa syaitan adalah musuh utama mereka. Tetapi tidak ramai mengetauhi bahawa musuh paling ketat adalah di dalam diri mereka sendiri. Musuh itu ialah NAFSU. Nafsu jahat yang berada di dalam diri manusia menyamai dengan 70 syaitan. Nafsu ada dua jenis, iaitu nafsu yang baik dan jahat. Nafsu yang baik seteru syaitan manakala nafsu jahat kawan syaitan. Oleh itu hati kita perlu dibersihkan supaya tidak dipengaruhi oleh nafsu yang jahat. Hati sebenarnya adalah 'rumah Allah' dalam ertikata tempat kita mengingati Allah. Kenapa hati kita jarang mengingati Allah sama ada secara zikir lisan atau hati. Ini tidak lain berpunca daripada pengaruh jahat Syaitan dibantu oleh musuh dalam selimut - nafsu kita. Lantaran perjanjian MOU antara syaitan dan nafsu untuk menjerumuskan manusia ke dalam neraka, maka kita sering diabaikan dengan perkara-perkara lain selain Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer mengingati Allah. Syaitan telah bersumpah dari azali lagi untuk merosakkan seluruh manusia. Syaitan yang menjadi tentera Iblis sentiasa mencari peluang untuk menyesatkan manusia. Kita tidak nampak dia tetapi syaitan nampak kita. Susah bagi kita memerangi musuh yang kita tidak nampak. Syaitan ada di mana-mana. Bilangannya juga banyak. Bagaimana hendak mempertahankan diri dari serangan iblis yang kita tidak nampak. Walaupun kita tidak nampak syaitan, tapi kita mempunyai Allah untuk meminta perlindungan dari gangguan syaitan yang kena rejam. Syaitan takut orang yang banyak mengingat Allah. Oleh itu, senjata ampuh untuk melawan syaitan ialah dengan cara mengingat Allah. JAUH DENGAN MANUSIA DEKAT DENGAN ALLAH " Masa berlalu dengan cepat meninggalkan kita. 40 atau 50 tahun yang lalu kita seorang bayi yang tidak tahu apa-apa kecuali tangisan. 15 atau 20 tahun selepas itu kita serong remaja yang mempunyai ramai kenalan dan sahabat handai. Kemudian kita menjadi dewasa menempuh banyak pengalaman pahit manis. Dan akhirnya kita menjadi seorang tua yang sudah lemah anggota dan tidak setampan atau secantik dulu. Ketika itu orang ramai sudah menjauhkan diri dari kita, bahkan anak-anak kadangkala tidak suka bergaul atau melayan kita seperti biasa. Inilah hakikat hidup yang dikatakan tipu daya. Tidak ada yang kekal. Paras yang handsome tak kekal lama, akhirnya berkedut. Gigi yang penuh dan putih berseri lama-kelamaan mula rapuh dan rongak, rambut hitam yang segar kini menjadi putih dan lesu, deria telinga yang tajam mula berkurangan. Begitu juga tubuh yang tampan dah mula lemah dan berpenyakit. Ingatlah amaran Allah telah tiba - bahawa dunia akan meninggalkan kita dan kita sedang menuju alam lain iaitu alam kubur (barzakh) dan kemudian ke alam akhirat yang abadi. Di alam inilah kita akan hidup selama-lamanya. Kita akan tinggal di syurga atau neraka, bergantung kepada amalan semasa hidup di dunia. Allah bersifat dengan Rahman (Pengasih kepada semua) dan Rahim (Penyayang khusus kepada orang mukmin). Semasa peringkat bayi, Allah tugaskan kepada ibu bapa untuk menjaga dan membesarkan kita. Mereka mengasuh dan mendidik serta mentarbiah dengan akhlak dan agama. Semasa remaja, kita beramal dengan ilmu yang kita perolehi melalui usaha mereka dan juga masyarakat keliling. Ketika dewasa, kita pula menjadi pembimbing kepada anak cucu serta orang-orang lain. Ibarat pokok asalnya benih disirami air, kemudian membesar mengeluarkan bunga dan akhirnya mengeluarkan buah untuk dimakan oleh manusia dan haiwan. Tetapi apabila kita sudah tua dan tidak bermaya lagi, kita tidak begitu diperlukan. Kita mula disisih dari orangramai. Pergerakan kita terhad. Minda kita mula merosot. Ingatan sudah tidak begitu kuat. Kesihatan kita makin terjejas. Apakah ini menjadi Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer tanda bahawa Allah sudah tidak menyayangi kita lagi? Tidak sekali-kali! Malahan kesayangan Allah tetap sama. Apabila Allah renggangkan manusia daripada kita, itu bermakna Allah hendakkan kita mendampingi diriNya. Supaya hati kita bertambah tertambat dan lebih bertawakkal kepadaNya saja. Penyerahan diri hanya kepada Allah apabila manusia sudah mula renggang dari kita. Masa tua kita banyak menyendiri dan tidak disibukkan dengan pelbagai urusan dunia. Jadi amatlah sesuai untuk kita melipatgandakan amalan sambil bertafakkur, berzikir dan muhasabah diri tentang amalan yang kita buat selama ini. Kita punya masa yang banyak untuk koreksi diri dan bertaubat. Selagi nyawa belum sampai di khalqum (ghargharah), pintu taubat masih terbuka buat kita. Amalan kita yang biasa kita lakukan semasa muda atau ketika sihat, walaupun sudah tidak mampu dilakukan lagi kerana sudah uzur, namun pahalanya tetap kita perolehi meskipun kita tidak lakukan. Contohnya semasa muda, sudah menjadi amalan atau budaya untuk bersolat jemaah atau menghadiri majlis ilmu di masjid. Tetapi apakan daya amalan itu tidak dapat dilakukan lagi semasa tua. Sungguhpun begitu pahala amalannya itu terus diperolehi walaupun kita tidak membuatnya. Nabi Muhammad saw pernah berpesan supaya kita merebut 5 perkara sebelum datang 5 perkara. Di antaranya ialah beramal ketika muda sebelum datang masa tua. Masa muda ialah masa yang amat baik untuk beramal kerana ketika itu badan dan jiwa kita masih kuat. Jadi apabila sudah tua, amal yang kita buat akan terus mengalir walaupun kita tidak membuatnya. Masa muda ibarat masa menanam dan tua ialah masa untuk kita tuai hasilnya. Meskipun demikian kita seharusnya berdoa supaya tidak menjadi seorang tua yang tidak sedarkan diri. Semakin tua semakin menjadi. Umur sudah menjangkau 50 tapi masih merasakan seolah-olah masih remaja. Usia sudah tua tapi berperangai macam orang muda. Inilah yang kita takuti kerana hati kita mudah terbalik. Nabi pernah bersabda sekiranya umur sudah mencapai 2/3 (40 tahun) tetapi amal kejahatan lebih banyak daripada kebajikan, maka bersiap sedialah (gulung tikar bantal) untuk menempah tempat di neraka. Kita juga seharusnya berdoa supaya umur kita tidak terlalu panjang sehingga menjadi nyanyuk dan kembali seperti perangai bayi yang tidak dapat membezakan sesuatu. "Ya Allah, kami memohon kepadaMu supaya hidupkan kami sekiranya ia baik bagi kami. Dan Engkau matikanlah kami sekiranya ia baik bagi kami. Janganlah Engkau tarik hidayah yang telah Engkau berikan kepada kami. Ampunilah kami di atas kelemahan kami, sesungguhnya Engkau Maha Pengampun lagi Maha Penyayang. Ya Allah, matikanlah kami dalam husnul-khatimah dan janganlah Engkau akhiri hidup kami dengan suul-khatimah. Akhirkanlah lisan kami dengan kalimah Lailahaillah, semoga Engkau masukkan kami di dalam golongan Abrar. Sepeninggalan kami kelak, ya Allah Engkau jadikanlah anak cucu kami sebagai pewaris Nabi yang menegakkan kalimah dan agamaMu di saat mana manusia telah banyak melupakanMu. Akhirnya Ya Allah, berkatilah saki baki umur kami yang tinggal sedikit ini untuk berbakti kepadaMu dan Engkau redhailah kami menjadi hambaMu. Amin ya Rabbal Alamin... 12 Rejab 1420 Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer JALAN KE SYURGA PENUH DURI " Perjalanan ke syurga dilingkungi dengan duri dan onak. Manakala jalan ke neraka dikelilingi dengan keinginan syahwat. Demikian ditegaskan oleh Nabi Muhammad saw. mengenai dua jalan yang ditempuhi oleh manusia. Syurga ialah tempat kenikmatan dan kebahagiaan di akhirat yang dikurniakan kepada hamba-hamba Allah yang beramal soleh. Neraka pula tempat azab keseksaan disediakan untuk mereka yang beramal tholeh (kejahatan). Untuk melayakkan diri ke syurga, seseorang itu mestilah menempuh banyak ujian seperti melaksanakan suruhan Allah dan rasul serta menjauhi laranganNya. Kesemua ini memerlukan semangat dan kekuatan yang bermula dari keimanan kepada Allah. Sudah tentu untuk mengerjakan solat, puasa, haji dan amal kebajikan lain amat payah kecuali bagi mereka yang beriman. Sebab itulah Nabi mengatakan jalan ke syurga penuh dengan kesusahan. Bukan mudah untuk masuk ke syurga. Kita kena bermujahadah atau berjuang melawan nafsu untuk melakukan kebaikan. Syaitan dan nafsu memang menyuruh kita berbuat kejahatan dan tidak menggalakkan kita melakukan kebajikan. Jika kita turutkan kehendak syaitan sudah tentu kita tidak mampu melakukan sebarang kebajikan. Sebaliknya jalan ke neraka amat mudah kerana dikelilingi dengan kehendak syahwat. Semua manusia memang cenderung mengikut kehendak nafsu dan syahwat. Syaitan pula sentiasa mendorong manusia mengikut hawa nafsu. Amat mudah melakukan kejahatan. Nah, di depan kita terbentang dua jalan. Terpulang kepada kita jalan mana untuk diikuti. Tepuk dada dan tanyakan iman - bukan tanya selera yang memang suka kepada nafsu. Betapa tak susah masuk syurga? Dalam satu keterangan dinyatakan: orang jahil semuanya binasa kecuali yang berilmu. Orang berilmu semuanya binasa kecuali yang beramal. Orang beramal semuanya binasa kecuali yang ikhlas. Untuk mencapai darjah keikhlasan perlu banyak berjuang. Ibarat mendaki bukit yang tinggi, hanya orang yang lasak saja berjaya sampai ke mercu. Kebahagiaan di dunia belum menjadi pasport untuk ke syurga. Malahan adalah menjadi kesalahan jika kekayaan yang didapati tidak diperolehi dan dibelanjakan secara Islamik. Semua manusia inginkan hidup senang. Kesenangan di dunia hanya sementara manakala kesenangan akhirat kekal abadi. Orang yang bijak sudah tentu memilih kesenangan yang hakiki bukan yang bersifat sementara. Hanya orang yang cetek akal saja memilih kesenangan dunia dan mengenepikan kesenangan akhirat. Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer Syaitan selalu membisikkan kepada kita tentang amal kita yang banyak walaupun baru sikit benar. Kita gembira apabila dipuji manusia. Timbul rasa ujub dan riak yang memusnahkan pahala. Kita tak perasan kita sebenarnya berdosa sebaliknya menyangka kita masih beramal soleh. Kita mesti mengawas dari serangan penyakit batin seperti ria, ujub, bongkak, sombong, dengki yang kesemuanya merosakkan amalan. Di sini peranan ilmu tasauf yang perlu kita pelajari dan dalami. Perlu kita ketahui sebelum kita melakukan sebarang ketaatan, Allah sudah terlebih dulu mendahului dan mengingati kita. Kalau Allah tak gerakkan kita untuk beramal, kita tak akan beramal. Ini maknanya Allah mendahului kita. Jangan sangka kita yang beramal, sebenarnya Allah menggerakkan kita beramal. Jadi soal pahala tak timbul. Sepatutnya kita bersyukur kerana Allah gerakkan kita beramal. Bagaimana kita mahu mendabik dada tentang amalan kita? Saidina Ali yang sudah dijamin masuk syurga pun mengeluh kerana bimbang kurang amalan sedangkan perjalanan ke syurga amat jauh. Saidina Ali memang terkenal dengan zuhud dan banyaknya melakukan amal ibadat. Bagaimana dengan diri kita? Saidina Ali Menggigil mengenangkan bekalan yang sikit untuk perjalanan ke akhirat yang jauh. Kesimpulannya kita terpaksa mengharung kesusahan mencari ilmu akhirat serta mengamalkannya. Kesusahan dalam hal akhirat adalah rahmat. Dengan kesusahan ini Allah mengampun dan meninggikan darjat kita. Dunia bukan tempat bersenanglenang. Kesenangan hanya di akhirat. Seseorang tidak diberi pahala jika tidak bersusah-payah menempuh dugaan dan cabaran. Ingat sekali lagi pesanan Nabi saw "Jalan ke Syurga dikelilingi dengan kepayahan. Jalan ke Neraka pula dikelilingi dengan nafsu dan syahwat." Oleh itu, utamakanlah kepayahan kerana itu jalan ke syurga. Jauhilah kesenangan berbentuk nafsu syahwat kerana itu jalan ke neraka. Wallahu 'Alam. . Create PDF with GO2PDF for free, if you wish to remove this line, click here to buy Virtual PDF Printer

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