I waited.

Waited patiently for two hours before it was finally my turn to be taught by my Ustazah*. (A term we used to address our religious teacher).

I used to remember it being a very dreadful routine that I had to endure every single day after school hours. It doesn't matter if you had remedial lessons, CCA or other appointments once school ended. Because in the eyes of my Ustazah, no excuse is ever good enough for skipping any religious lesson.

On certain days, I'd learn how to read the Arabic language, word by word, phrase by phrase. We'd each be given a small book, in which we'd use to write the Arabic alphabets over and over again. (More than 100 times per alphabet so that we'd never forget.)

On other days, I'd be taught on how to pray to our god. If you're good, you'd be given a packet of drink and a chocolate swiss roll. If you're not, you'd be asked to stay back even longer and she'd make sure you learn whatever you're supposed to learn for the day.

And while you're waiting for two hours, you're expected to do nothing but read your Qur'an.. over and over again even if your butt went numb or you felt like urinating. Everyone in the room was silent. Some even fell asleep with their Qur'an covering their face. Nobody dared uttered a word or two. We feared our Ustazah. Or at least I did.

Because in the eyes of my Ustazah, I could have probably been her worst student ever.

I have been called to stay back plenty of times. "I feel that you have come for religious lessons for all the wrong reasons. Instead of studying and gaining knowledge about the religion of Islam, you're here yapping your mouth away. Go sit at the corner there and bring your Qur'an as well and do some self-reflection." was what she'd said to me on one occasion.

For two hours, I just can't sit still. I guess she expected me to keep mum for the entire 2 hours of wait before it was finally my turn to be taught by her.

I eventually stopped going for religious classes. Probably as an act of rebel or maybe I had just gotten lazy. I assume my Ustazah was overjoyed the moment I stopped going for lessons, as there wasn't anyone for her to scold and nag. But I was glad for my two hours of waiting is now over. I was finally free.. like a bird finally released from its cage.

I make my Ustazah sound like a mean person. But she did teach me a lot of things though most of it went in from one ear and out of the other ear. From what I've learnt from my Ustazah, there are certain things that you're encouraged to do.. and some that you're not supposed to do. It's like as if my own religion came with its own set of instruction manual. Whether you choose to follow it or not.. is a whole different story altogether.

Being a Muslim boy, I am expected to...

• Perform my daily ritual solat prayers, 5 times a day.
• Go to the mosque every Friday for prayers. (And if you don't, you're not considered a Muslim no more.)
• Learn the Arab language, because our Holy Qur'an is written in that language.
• Starve myself for 30 days (We call this fasting) before we have our Eid celebration at the end of it.
• Consume only non-alcoholic water and avoid Pork.
• And the list goes on and on. (You can't expect me to write everything here right? I might as well paste the entire Qur'an here if that's the case. Joke.)

Then, we have prayers for almost everything. It's ridiculous by how many prayers we have to memorise in our head. We recite our prayers before we eat or go to sleep, whenever we enter the toilet, when we are stressed, when we have misplaced something, when we step out of the house, even before we have sex (yes, can you believe it?!) and etc.

That's the thing about religion.

It makes us so paranoid about everything that we resort to prayers. Like, when we don't know what else to do, we pray. Does it help?


To put it simple, If you're broke, you can keep on praying for money to drop from the sky. (I wish it was that easy, really!) Or you can get your ass out there and get a proper job for yourself that allows you to earn a stable income for yourself, resolving all of your problems.

And that.. is my take on my religion. Thoughts?

Labels: 30 Days Of Truth

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