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It’s Ramadan: Zahid, Rohana, Najib and His Lawyer, Shafee All Looked Good.
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright April 2022
For Muslims Ramadan is a month of giving, doing charitable deeds and for self-reflection. They know Allah rewards those who feed the poor, give alms and offer assistance to the destitute. According to the Prophet (pbuh) “Ramadan is an honourable and blessed month, and the rewards for generosity are multiplied in it“.
Every Muslim when contributing to charity, ought to do so in secrecy because Islam prefers humility and discourages arrogance or haughtiness amongst the faithful where appearing superior and disdainful in the act is frowned upon by God.
So, the faithful would more often than not, go forth, during this month giving alms and providing donations quietly for Islam preaches in doing good deeds the left hand should not even be aware of what the right was doing.
While ordinary Malaysians generously donated to charities nationwide, giving alms and feeding the less fortunate through mosques and surau, we learned during the second week of Ramadan, that three Malaysian personalities too, were not to be left behind in doing good this holy month.
Zahid facing 47 charges, declared in court he donated generously, more than RM109 million he claimed, were given away by his foundation to charity. The same, Akal Budi Foundation that he was charged with making use of to serve his own personal interests.
In declaring that he gave more than what was submitted as evidence he used the often quoted phrase in Islam that the left hand should not know what the right was doing. He sounded good and generous indeed. We were sure he felt likewise when he stood alone in the dock reading out his testimony.
How marvellously appropriate that statement was because that was indeed the very point that the prosecution had tried to show happened in this case. Except we cannot preempt what the court would do in determining whose hand it was that Zahid was referring to!
Similarly, Najib did likewise, in court denouncing his management for unlawful payments that they claimed he was solely responsible for, making himself look good before the judge and the general public.
Rohana did well too in agreeing to hand over assets given by Leissner (her long time partner) back to MACC when she “found out” it was stolen from 1MDB-linked funds that belonged to the people of Malaysia. Except, she would have looked even better had she returned those assets earlier, perhaps before Leissner spilt the beans in court.
In the eyes of the people, Rohana superficially looked good, in giving back what belonged to the country. But in Islam, it is not just appearances that count. Besides the quantity, the quality of the deeds is greatly emphasised, more so in Ramadan when a good deed might earn more than a tenfold reward. On the other hand, quality refers to the reward that is made even greater and more abundant.
However, for a bad deed, it is multiplied in terms of quality where the thresholds of punishment for sinful acts far exceed those committed outside the month of Ramadan.
Since Ramadan is also a time for reflection, Rohana, Najib and Zahid like all Muslims, we assume would be looking inwards to examine their deeds or misdeeds in this holy month.
Perhaps in looking back they might gain better insights and would be grateful for what little divine blessings they could attain for the good that they had done and seek forgiveness for the bad, the ugly or even obscene acts they might have inadvertently committed.
We are mere mortals, after all, and do tend to succumb to temptations laid out in front of us by the devils who had sworn before God that he would mislead us until the end of time.
We know how hard it had been for Najib, Rohana and Zahid. How they struggled to avoid those worldly temptations that were presented before them. Perhaps it would not be too late yet for them to repent and seek redemption!
Lastly, for Shafee there was no need to repent or seek redemption like the other three but he looked the best amongst all, offering his services pro bono, to help a lady in distress over an accident in Johor.
May God bless them all in this holy month!
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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