The New Function of Higher Learning Institution

The institutions of higher learning today function as brokers for their two clients:
on the one hand ensuring the supply of manpower with the necessary skills to the market,
and on the other teaching the students marketable skills to assure them of high standards of living.


~Yedullah Kazmi~

Live a Life That Matter

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant

Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built;

not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.

It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

~Unknown~

Beggarly Heart

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder

~Rabindranath Tagore~

Exclusive Devotion

O Muzammil (folded in garments- one of the nick names of the Prophet Muhammad).

Stand in prayers at night, but not the whole night, half of it or little less, or a little more; and recite the Quran with measured tone. Soon We are going to send you a weighty message.

Surely, the getting up at night for prayer is most effective for controlling the self and most suitable for understanding the Word of Allah (the Quran) as well, because during the day you are hard pressured with worldly affairs.

Remember the name of your Rabb and devote yourself to Him exclusively.

~Quran, Surah al Muzzammil, 73: 1-9~

Travel and Think

O believers! If you help the cause of Allah, He will help you and establish your feet firmly.

As for the unbelievers, they shall be consigned to perdition, and He will bring their deeds to nothing. That is because they hate the revelations of Allah; therefore they rendered their deeds fruitless.

Have they not traveled through the land and seen what was the end of those who have gone before them? Allah destroyed them utterly and a similar fate awaits these unbelievers. This is because Allah is the protector of the believers while the unbelievers have no protector.

~Surah Muhammad, 47: 7-11 ~

Social Intelligent

O beleivers!

Let no men laugh at other men who may perhaps be better than themselves; and let no woman laugh at another women, who may perhaps be better than herself.

Do not defame through sarcastic remarks about one another, nor call one another by offensive nicknames. It is an evil thing to be called by a bad name after being a believer, and those who are not repent are the ones who are the wrongdoers.

O beleivers!

Avoid immoderate suspicion, for, in some cases, suspicion is a sin.

Do not spy an one another, nor backbite one another ( to say something about one another behinds one back that if one hears it, dislikes it).

Would any of you like to eat the flesh his dead brother? Surely, you would abhore it.

Fear Allah, for Allah is the Accepter of repentance, Merciful.

~Al-Hujurat, 49: 11-12~

Pure Charity

The parable of those who spend their wealth in the way of Allah, is that of a grain that sprouts into seven ears, each bearing one hundred grains.

Allah gives manifold increase to whom he wishes. He wishes. Allah has boundless knowledge. Those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allah and do not follow their charity with reminders of their generosity or injure the feeling of the recipient shall get their reward from their Rabb; they shall have nothing to fear or to grieve.

Kind words and forgiveness are better than charity followed by injury.

Allah is Self-sufficient, Forbearing.

~Al-Baqarah, 2: 261-263~

The One

“The One remains, the many change and pass,
Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth‘s shadow fly.
Life, like a dome of many colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until death crushes it to fragments”

~Shelly~

Living Creatively

Living creatively means being sensitive to seeds of dissatisfaction, and willing to nurture with patient interest and attention

~Guy Claxton & Bill Lucas, The Creative Thinking Plan~

Mechanism of Understanding

Every understanding requires pre-understanding. The understanding develop by extracting the meaning from society. It is what we call as 'structural meaning' or 'meaning system'. Family is the starting point of 'structural meaning'. Everyone might have same 'structural meaning', but not identical. The meaning is various, based on our 'situated' in society. To understand better, we must have flexible 'structural meaning'. If the structural meaning is rigid, we cannot get better understanding.

~Yedullah Kazmi~

*notes on Avanced History and Philosophy of Islamic Education, Dr. Yedullah Kazmi, UIAM

Precious Moment

Being a student is one of the most precious moment in our life.