I am a Muslim lifestyle enthusiast and observer. I am an Indonesian, I travel a lot to see Muslim in various countries. I am pretty much into Muslim consumerism, culture, mindset, and habits. I study them, I poke them, I laugh with them and sometimes I laugh at them as well.
This site just pops up during my procrastinating period and what could be more productive than not doing my actual job because I am too busy blabbering about the Muslim world in which Muslim people I blabber will mostly ignore this site and my posts. I am perseverance, though, in sharing my opinion of the world. Not just I will procrastinate more, but also because I think my writing is the honest, subjective, lone voice that you miss secretly. You miss my writing secretly, like those date you hide under your garments to eat secretly during your fasting. Like that water, you sip and gulp during ablution, accidentally, again when you are fasting. Why yes, you don’t think I know.
I am not here to preach about Islamic rules and code of conduct (google it, lazy!), you have enough variety of imam and syaikh in youtube that you can listen to. I am just like you, there are days when i feel most spiritual i would cry on falling leaves and marching ants, there are days when i skipped reading Qur’an just because i want to blog. I am the Muslim’s average joe.
I recommend product, rituals, brands, hotels, anything worthy of my humble recommendation. You can expect honest things to me. I suggest things that I mostly used myself, if i don’t, it should come from trusted friends of mine and contributors to this blog. I will notify when it is a sponsored or given freely for me but rest assured, i never put anything me or my contributors, haven’t tried.
A lot of things i share lovingly in this site is from Indonesia since i currently resides in Depok, outskirt of the capital city, Jakarta. Next is Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam since those three countries are mostly where i travel and spend time. You will have my reviews on Qatar, Dubai, Japan, Netherlands, as well as my umrah travel. Don’t expect fancy things, i do things meticulously frugal. After all, statistically speaking, the Muslim world is mostly developing countries. I don’t discriminate rich Muslim, they can have bits of my experience too.
About the Misykat
Taken from the verse An Nur: 35, which often referred to as the Light verse, Misykat is from the word of ‘kamisykatin’.
I put the explanation about this verse from this site http://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem.php?sura=24&verse=35&to=36, which i think is clear enough for common people to comprehend.
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“In this parable, Allah has been likened to the Lamp and the universe to the Niche. The glass shade is the veil behind which Allah has concealed Himself from His creation. This veil is not a physical veil for concealment, but a veil caused by the intensity of divine manifestation. The human eye is unable to see Him not because of the intervening darkness but because of the intensity of the all-pervading, all-embracing Light radiating through the transparent veil. The human vision which is limited in nature cannot comprehend it. It can only comprehend and perceive limited physical lights which vary in brightness, which disappear and reappear, and Which can be perceived only by contrast to existing darkness. But the Absolute Light has no confronting darkness. It does not vanish, it shines forth and pervades all around with ever existing glory; it is beyond human perception and comprehension.
As for the lamp which is lit with the oil of a blessed olive tree, which is neither eastern nor western, this is a metaphor to give an idea of the perfect light of the lamp and its brilliance. In antiquity, the source for brilliant light was the olive lamps, and the most superior oil for the purpose was that obtained from a tree standing in an open and elevated place. The epithet of Lamp for Allah in the parable does trot mean that Allah is deriving His energy from some external source. It only means that the Lamp of the parable is not an ordinary lamp but the most brilliant lamp that can be imagined. Just as a brilliant lamp illuminates the whole house, so has Allah illuminated the whole universe.
Again, the words “its oil is (so fine) as if it were going to shine forth by itself though no fire touched it”, are also meant to emphasize the brilliance of the light of the lamp, which is being fed by the finest and most readily combustible oil. The olive and its being neither eastern nor western, and high combustibility of its oil by itself’ (without fire), are not the essential elements of the parable, but attributes of the lamp, which is the primary element of the parable. The essential elements of the parable are only three: the Lamp, the Niche and the transparent Glass Shade.
The sentence: His light may be likened, dispels the possible misunderstanding that one could have from the words: Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. This shows that the use of the word light for Allah does not at all mean that the essence of His Being is nothing but light. In essence, He is a Perfect Being, Who is All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All-Wise etc. and also possessing all Light has been called Light itself because of His Perfection as a source of Light, just as somebody may be called Grace on account of his being highly gracious and beneficent and Beauty because of his being highly beautiful and attractive.
That is, although Allah’s Light is illuminating the whole world, everybody does not and cannot perceive it. It is Allah alone Who blesses whomsoever He wills with the capacity for perceiving His Light and benefiting by it. Just as the day and night are alike to a blind man, so is the case of a man without the gift of inner perception. He may see the electric light, the sunlight, the moonlight and the light from stars, but he cannot perceive the Light of Allah. For him, there is nothing but darkness in the universe. Just as a blind man cannot see the stone in his way unless he stumbles over it, so is the man without the gift of inner perception, who cannot perceive even those realities around him which may he all brilliance and shining by Allah’s Light. He will perceive them only when he is overtaken by the consequences of his own misdeeds.
This means two things: First, He knows what parable can best explain a certain reality, and secondly, He knows who is entitled to receive this bounty and who is not. Allah has no need to show His Light to the one who has no desire or longing for it and who is utterly lost in worldly pursuits and in seeking material pleasures and gains. This bounty can be bestowed only on the one who in the knowledge of Allah has a sincere desire for it”.
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Therefore the name of this site, i intend it to be the Misykat, pearl-like star, a niche light, but it may, if Allah’s will, brighten the universe.
Your little guidance light 