The Preaching Colleague

In Dentsu, I was left with no one (1 plump colleague who were always on diet, one boss who were almost 24/7 not around, 1 colleague who annoyed me the most and whom I blogged the most during my internship and I couldn't be eating with my guy supervisor right? Feels so odd...) but this colleague of mine to have lunch with almost daily. She is 24 years old, as young as me, and the friendliest among all, bringing me to different places to eat for lunch... She's really nice, but the thing is, unexpectedly, our usual topic is about Muslim and Islam. It wasn't me who talked about Islam, it was I who has to bare with the topic:

1. There are similarities between Islamic and Christianity. Both believe that the first person on earth is Adam and Eve (their Eve is known as Hawa).

2. Muslims believe the existence of Jesus but only Muhammad is the real prophet.

3. Muslims' dream place is Makkah which is the holiest meeting place in Islamic region.

4. Muslims were to behave holy during Ramadan month as this is the month when all evil spirits are tied up. And if one does not behave well, that means it comes from you yourself but not the devil. This including of having sex. Strictly no sex in Bulan Ramadan. (When 2 of my colleagues knew about it, they were so shocked about it..)


5. Al-Quran's wordings are Arabic. There are old school's and new school's. But the proper one will be the old school's. And many strong Muslims learn Arabic the language in order to understand the Al-Quran (their kind of bible). They believe that bible has some missing text and so Al-Quran is the complete version.

6. Arabic is not easy to learn. One needs to emphasize strongly on the intonation just like Chinese's pinyin. Once wrongly emphasized, the meaning will be different. It is a lot of inner breath exercise. The writing is from right to left, not left to write. And each dots placed brings different letters and words.

7. These words may sound familiar to you: (note: the spellings below is just a rough spelling)
* Alhamdulilah - all praises to God
usually use after eating, or whenever there are something blessed happening
* Insyaallah - if the God is willing
"Insyaalah I will see you there..."
* Sunnah - Prophet's behavior
Muslims tend to follow the Sunnah for they feel that the prophet's behavior is the holiest
* Ustaz- preacher

8. Female Muslims should at all times cover up all parts of body that is not at work. Hence, female Muslims should only show their faces and hands. The rest should be covered up for they should not attract unwanted attention, and this included making up. For some Arabians who even cover up their entire body except for their eyes is because there is a slight differences in believing. For them, they believe that it is necessary to cover up until their nose.

There are a lot more she shared with me. But these were the things that interest me the most. Sometimes I felt that she was a little too excited in sharing with me about Islamic that she has forgotten that I am a Christian. She even taught me Arabic, their alphabets, pronunciation, writing and shown me videos on Youtube. I showed less and less interest in the end to avoid any misunderstanding.

I may not be a strong Christian, but I know that there maybe many Gods in this world but there's only one God in my heart.

Anyhow, it was a lovely sharing and I get to understand more about Muslims and Islamic. Isn't that good, understanding one another?