You can also download the paperworks presented during the seminar by clicking the links below:
http://www.pmcisoc.org/pdf/ibadah_pesakit_dr_latiff.ppt
http://www.pmcisoc.org/pdf/panduan_ibadah_pesakit.pdf
http://www.pmcisoc.org/pdf/persediaan_menghadapi_orang_nazak.ppt
Farewell final exam… but no holiday for me.
Immediately after my final paper, I rushed to prepare materials for several programs. Wednesday was the day for my Maghrib Kulliyyah in Wangsa Maju. Thursday occupied me with a leadership camp for some teenagers in Cheras and I have only one day to concentrate on preparing materials for tomorrow seminar in Penang. That is today.
Tomorrow, Penang Medical College Islamic Society is organizing an event which is ‘Seminar Ibadah Pesakit’. This is basically a seminar to educate Muslim medical personnels (especially medical students) on how to perform obligatory prayers and ablution (wudhu’) in the situation when somebody is sick or in bedridden state.
Me and Prof. Dr Abd Latiff Mohamed (Dean, Postgraduate Study, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences / the President of Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia) will present our paperwork on how to deal with patients in terms of helping them to perform the Ibadah while under treatment in the hospitals and also some guidelines on how to deal with dying patients.
Don’t ask me why I don’t prepare everything earlier. PMC ISOC contacted me months earlier which I highly appreciate, but this semester almost every single day was a die knot. I was fully occupied with exams and so many assignments which I think can be combined to a thesis-like compilation.
Why so difficult?
Wudhu’, Tayammum, Prayer standing or sitting… what so hard about that?
Well, my concern is not about the theoretical part. The practical side is the one that is problematic.
I have my own guideline which I use while helping my patients in the National Heart Institute (IJN), but when the subject is to be discussed in public… I will have to be smart in dealing between two extreme approaches. Some would be very open about mazhab, which in my opinion is good, but they forget about the level of patients’ understanding in this matter.
It is common to my own experience that when you guide them on how to perform the Salat, they will ask, is this Syafie? Well, mumbling about differences between mazhabs would be the last thing you want to do while patients are connected to all those wires and machines. With the intention to help them, you might be the most effective cause of death!
Another group would be so hard in defending Syafie’s view and simply forget about the practical side. Do you want to help the patients to perform the Salat, or you want to find as many excuses as possible so that the patients cannot pray while in the hospital.
I believe that, we should balance between the two. Theory is academic and practical is industry. Not all what you gain in the academic field would be useful in industry. Analogy I got from prismantiq.com.
“You cannot perform wudhu while having something covered around your arm unless you took wudhu’ before the bandage or the Plaster of Paris is placed on the injured part of your body”… this is a common theory suggested by many ustaz… but the reality is different. It is almost impossible for someone who is badly injured to ask the doctor to allow him to perform the wudhu before the plaster is placed. This is just a small example on how theory does not fit the reality.
So, the keyword is, while processing our theory into guideline, we should be patient-oriented and consciously embrace the concept of easiness (read as practicalness) of Islam.
Because of our inability to come into agreement in many cases, we fail to provide Fiqh into the form of a standard guideline. We prefer to indulge ourselves in differences of opinion, leaving Islam as something that is viewed by many as a religion that is not applicable to the contemporary challenges.
We disagree on deciding the 1st day of Shawwal (Muslims in the foreign lands) that we could never dream of being granted with public holiday even though the British government had the intention to do so. We let ourselves agree to disagree on so many things that Islam cannot be formularized into a standard guideline, even for patients in the hospital.
This is what bothers me and I am leaving my house to LCCT now…
See you guys on Sunday, Insya Allah…
ABU SAIF @ www.saifulislam.com
56000 Kuala Lumpur
