1. I have never been to Uzbekistan before, but I read an interesting article about the country a few years ago which I still remember till today.
2. I have a friend who once asked me why I wanted to become rich that much (I guess he probably got that kind of impression after he read the second article of this blog, 'Peluang memilih politik atau harta' by Adam Kadir where I mentioned that I wanted to start my own business one day). I got another person who is very, very close to me who asked the same question to me too. She came from an upper class family but she does not feel anything special for being wealthy nor understand the reason why other people would work so hard to become like her family.
3. I started to have the 'desire' when I read an article in a local paper (in Berita Harian kot, but I couldn't retrieve it back anymore) about what is going on in Uzbekistan now. It was 9, or 10 years ago (I was about 12 or 13yrs old) but I still remember what it was in that article. The 'reason' was getting stronger after I went to Egypt a few years ago and saw many lil kids begging for money there. And moreover, it is partly because I wanted to fulfill 'the dream' of my father. He graduated from US for his bachelor and master degrees, and he was very much inspired by the story of the great American John D. Rockefeller (an entrepreneur/oil tycoon turned philanthropist who found the great Rockefeller Foundation in early 20th century, one of the earliest and largest private foundation in US). After spending 5 years of his youth studying in the States in early 70s, my father always wanted to have a foundation to help others like John Rockefeller had done for the Americans. So if someday my 'dream' comes true, I will name a foundation on my father's name.
4. As I mentioned above, I had never been to Uzbekistan before, but someday I wish I could go there and other parts of Central Asia for visits. As part of the Silk Road, it is rich of culture and history. It used to be part of the greater Soviet, part of the Turkistan, part of the Genghis Khan empire, and a few more that I couldn't recall now.
5. At the height of the Islamic empire, Uzbekistan produced one of the greatest Islamic scholars of all time, the Imam al-Bukhary. His family was originally from Bukhara (where he got his family name from), which was one of a few famous and world known Islamic centres in Uzbekistan at that time, along with Samarkand. Muslims are proud of him, besides being thankful for his contributions to our religion. Uzbeks (people of Uzbekistan) are proud of him too for sure. His (Imam al-Bukhary's) hometown has became a main tourist attraction in Uzbekistan nowadays.
6. Up till 1990s, Uzbekistan was under the occupation of Soviet Union. During this Soviet period, Uzbek people are becoming less and less religious due to the ban of religion under the communist Soviet. After so many years, the people no longer go to the mosque, nor have enough Holy Quran in Uzbekistan. Even after their independence, only the older people are returning to attending the mosque. Sad but true, the younger generations know nothing about their own religion after years of Soviet occupation. They are muslims just by the name.
7. That article in the paper (which I read many years ago) was about the life of our muslim brothers and sisters in Uzbekistan. Uzbeks are poor in general, oweing to the lack of resources or fertile lands for farming, unlike their neighbours in Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan whose land are rich of oil and gas (Note : Uzbekistan do have oil and gas, not as much as its neighbours, and the fields are mostly undeveloped or still under exploration) . The main highlight of the article was about how the difficult life in Uzbekistan pushed the people to their limits, in many cases some are willing to abandon or trade their faith for the past many generations --- Islam, for a few dollars. Most of the time, for less than 100 US dollars.
8. According to the article, Christian missionaries are very active in Uzbekistan, as they have always been in many other poor countries (including many poor muslim countries). They helped distribute the foreign aids (many foreign aids are from UN or other developed countries, most of these missionaries are just helping to distribute them) to the poor Uzbek people. Times to times, these Christian charity organizations will hire the locals to help them distributing the aid whenever in need.
9. In underdeveloped countries such as Uzbekistan, job opportunities are scarce. These local Uzbek people who worked for these Christian missionaries will somehow fell 'grateful' for being given an opportunity to work. According to that article, after a while, some of these local workers will convert to Christianity (by the way they have not been practising Islamic teaching for a long time due to the occupation of Soviet Union). As a 'reward', each of these converts will receive 50USD after converting to Christianity. Furthermore, they will receive another 100US dollars cash 'reward' if they managed to help convert another muslim to Christian. Maybe 'reward' is a sensitive word here, I dare say it is more like financial help for new converts.
2. I have a friend who once asked me why I wanted to become rich that much (I guess he probably got that kind of impression after he read the second article of this blog, 'Peluang memilih politik atau harta' by Adam Kadir where I mentioned that I wanted to start my own business one day). I got another person who is very, very close to me who asked the same question to me too. She came from an upper class family but she does not feel anything special for being wealthy nor understand the reason why other people would work so hard to become like her family.
3. I started to have the 'desire' when I read an article in a local paper (in Berita Harian kot, but I couldn't retrieve it back anymore) about what is going on in Uzbekistan now. It was 9, or 10 years ago (I was about 12 or 13yrs old) but I still remember what it was in that article. The 'reason' was getting stronger after I went to Egypt a few years ago and saw many lil kids begging for money there. And moreover, it is partly because I wanted to fulfill 'the dream' of my father. He graduated from US for his bachelor and master degrees, and he was very much inspired by the story of the great American John D. Rockefeller (an entrepreneur/oil tycoon turned philanthropist who found the great Rockefeller Foundation in early 20th century, one of the earliest and largest private foundation in US). After spending 5 years of his youth studying in the States in early 70s, my father always wanted to have a foundation to help others like John Rockefeller had done for the Americans. So if someday my 'dream' comes true, I will name a foundation on my father's name.
4. As I mentioned above, I had never been to Uzbekistan before, but someday I wish I could go there and other parts of Central Asia for visits. As part of the Silk Road, it is rich of culture and history. It used to be part of the greater Soviet, part of the Turkistan, part of the Genghis Khan empire, and a few more that I couldn't recall now.
5. At the height of the Islamic empire, Uzbekistan produced one of the greatest Islamic scholars of all time, the Imam al-Bukhary. His family was originally from Bukhara (where he got his family name from), which was one of a few famous and world known Islamic centres in Uzbekistan at that time, along with Samarkand. Muslims are proud of him, besides being thankful for his contributions to our religion. Uzbeks (people of Uzbekistan) are proud of him too for sure. His (Imam al-Bukhary's) hometown has became a main tourist attraction in Uzbekistan nowadays.
6. Up till 1990s, Uzbekistan was under the occupation of Soviet Union. During this Soviet period, Uzbek people are becoming less and less religious due to the ban of religion under the communist Soviet. After so many years, the people no longer go to the mosque, nor have enough Holy Quran in Uzbekistan. Even after their independence, only the older people are returning to attending the mosque. Sad but true, the younger generations know nothing about their own religion after years of Soviet occupation. They are muslims just by the name.
7. That article in the paper (which I read many years ago) was about the life of our muslim brothers and sisters in Uzbekistan. Uzbeks are poor in general, oweing to the lack of resources or fertile lands for farming, unlike their neighbours in Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan whose land are rich of oil and gas (Note : Uzbekistan do have oil and gas, not as much as its neighbours, and the fields are mostly undeveloped or still under exploration) . The main highlight of the article was about how the difficult life in Uzbekistan pushed the people to their limits, in many cases some are willing to abandon or trade their faith for the past many generations --- Islam, for a few dollars. Most of the time, for less than 100 US dollars.
8. According to the article, Christian missionaries are very active in Uzbekistan, as they have always been in many other poor countries (including many poor muslim countries). They helped distribute the foreign aids (many foreign aids are from UN or other developed countries, most of these missionaries are just helping to distribute them) to the poor Uzbek people. Times to times, these Christian charity organizations will hire the locals to help them distributing the aid whenever in need.
9. In underdeveloped countries such as Uzbekistan, job opportunities are scarce. These local Uzbek people who worked for these Christian missionaries will somehow fell 'grateful' for being given an opportunity to work. According to that article, after a while, some of these local workers will convert to Christianity (by the way they have not been practising Islamic teaching for a long time due to the occupation of Soviet Union). As a 'reward', each of these converts will receive 50USD after converting to Christianity. Furthermore, they will receive another 100US dollars cash 'reward' if they managed to help convert another muslim to Christian. Maybe 'reward' is a sensitive word here, I dare say it is more like financial help for new converts.
10. At the time muslims in other countries wasting money fighting each other, or wasting resources (especially in oil-rich muslim countries) on unnecessary luxuries, these Christian missionaries are distributing 'cash rewards' to the new converts in Uzbekistan (or in many other countries as well that I do not know). I believe these missionaries received financial supports and resources mainly from developed countries, which mostly happened to have pre-dominantly Christian populations like the US and EU. This is because for the on-going of missionary works as well as 'rewards' for hundreds (in Uzbekistan alone) of converts every year, it sure consumed a lot of money and resources.
11. Many of these converts (or murtad in Malay language) are 'forced' to do so by the circumstances. Many of them are living below the poverty line (UN definition: any household which is earning less than two(2) US dollars in a day, or less than 30 US dollars a month or kurang daripada 100 ringgit sebulan bagi setiap rumah). They have kids or baby at home unfeed. Not enough money to buy milk or other basic necessities like wheat. Or whatever the reason is. The only way to survive for these people, is to get the mercy from these missionaries. So some will end up converting to Christianity to get the 50 dollars for living, while some other will go as far as bring the whole family to convert in order to 'earn' extra few hundred dollars. Mind here, 50 dollars can go really far in poor countries like this. It could be enough to feed the whole family for a few months. I don't really blame them somehow. They were desperate and forced by the poverty. Who in this world could stand seeing his own kids or babies crying for not getting food or milk? I believe some would resort to any means, including 'trading' his religion (since they are not practising it anymore kan?) for a few buck. Sad but true, our religion is THAT cheap for some people.
12. For every single muslim converted to other religion, we will end up losing a few hundred muslims down the years and generations. I think this responsibility will be held on every single living muslim in this world in the dayafter, for not doing our part and our best efforts in this world, to help other muslim brothers and sisters who are in need. We might all be sharing the murtad sin of these people. Wallahualam. Converting to other religion (or what we call murtad) and commit suicide are the biggest sins in Islam. One who did any of these two sins will never go to heaven.
13. I myself do not think that I have done enough good deeds nor being a good muslim to cover up my own sins. And yet I might still have to carry the sins and the responsibility for every time we lose a muslim to other religion. Wallahualam.
14. I came from a chinese school and I know that I am not religious. I wasn't at all. But as a muslim, I would dream to be a good muslim someday, and dream to go to heaven. In Islam, most deeds (or pahala in Malay language) will stop when we die, except for a few. Charity is one of them. Thus, if I have the opportunity (with God's Will), I would love to dedicate myself or my wealth (if I do have it when I'm gone lah kan) for charity (a foundation that I create) to help others, especially muslims around the world who are in need. Partly, for my own benefits in the afterlife of coz, but more importantly, I am sadden by the fact that some people are using money to 'force' these unfortunate muslims to convert to other religion. How sarcastic is it that on the Uzbekistan land which had produced one of the greatest muslim scholars of all time--Imam al-Bukhary, the religion Islam has become so cheap? If 50 dollars would help a muslim to keep his faith, I can't imagine how much a foundation with proper financial supports could help these unfortunate people. I personally envy and admire what Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary did with his al-Bukhary Foundation (I'm not sure where he got his family name from, but coincidently it is similar to Bukhara too. Could be from there too, I don't know).
15. If someday I have to leave this lovely world before I have the chance to fulfill my dream, I would atleast make sure that I pass this dream on to my kids (if I do have any of coz), and make sure they try to make it comes true. If they can't, I'll make sure they ask their kids to do it. This 'dream' will pass on in my family till someday someone in my family bloodline will eventually do it.
Cheers!
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14. I came from a chinese school and I know that I am not religious. I wasn't at all. But as a muslim, I would dream to be a good muslim someday, and dream to go to heaven. In Islam, most deeds (or pahala in Malay language) will stop when we die, except for a few. Charity is one of them. Thus, if I have the opportunity (with God's Will), I would love to dedicate myself or my wealth (if I do have it when I'm gone lah kan) for charity (a foundation that I create) to help others, especially muslims around the world who are in need. Partly, for my own benefits in the afterlife of coz, but more importantly, I am sadden by the fact that some people are using money to 'force' these unfortunate muslims to convert to other religion. How sarcastic is it that on the Uzbekistan land which had produced one of the greatest muslim scholars of all time--Imam al-Bukhary, the religion Islam has become so cheap? If 50 dollars would help a muslim to keep his faith, I can't imagine how much a foundation with proper financial supports could help these unfortunate people. I personally envy and admire what Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar al-Bukhary did with his al-Bukhary Foundation (I'm not sure where he got his family name from, but coincidently it is similar to Bukhara too. Could be from there too, I don't know).
15. If someday I have to leave this lovely world before I have the chance to fulfill my dream, I would atleast make sure that I pass this dream on to my kids (if I do have any of coz), and make sure they try to make it comes true. If they can't, I'll make sure they ask their kids to do it. This 'dream' will pass on in my family till someday someone in my family bloodline will eventually do it.
Cheers!
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wow mohaz ur blog is really2 good! i was browsing fb pages of old classmates including urs, mohaz i hv to say ur insights on stuff got me thinking bout lots of stuff =) keep up the good work k, for all of us (^_^)
ReplyDelete-fida-
I love this post Mohaz. Your heart is pure. I'll see you when you get back home bro. Take care!
ReplyDeleteMuhammad
Interesting.. apparently thats why most Hindus convert out of Hinduism as well. Particularly in Malaysia, most Indian Christians come from particularly poor families approached by Churches and other charitable religious foundations.
ReplyDelete