Spiritual Talk

As a senior student, I have to do so many examinations before final day –farewell party-. Practical test which i had just finished was one of them. Physics, chemistry, biology, entrepreneurship ed., physical ed., indonesian, javanese, english and religion ed were the subject to test. Which one is my favorite? Of course Indonesian and English writting test because the way they’re lol. Well, i mean those were very easy as I didn’t have to speak it out loud to get the marks.

in my deeply honest thought practical test is always something I wish I could avoid. It makes me look dumber than I really am. Can you imagine how I could fluently sing a javanese song when I was somewhere outside the test room and sing it very badly in front of my teachers who was playing as the judge? But it didn’t matter to me because marks themselves never really matter to me.

What matters is religion practical test. Ive had this test 3 times since elementary school and i learned that no matter how fluent I am to recite the prayers at home or anywhere else, i always fail when I perform it. So that day I was sort of prepared to re-do it again. When i performed salah jenazah (prayers done when somebodys dead) i couldn’t do it really well. I even wavered when i recite assalatul ibrahimiyah.

“You never do salah?” asked my teacher while i was trying hard to recite the last sentence of assalatul ibrahimiyah.

My teacher asking that was beyond my expectation. I immediatly left my performance and replied, “I do salah.”

“Why can’t you recite it well?”

“I don’t recite it” i said as in my understanding reciting assalatul ibrahimiyah is not compulsory.

“people have to recite it.”

I was shocked, really. I knew people who consider it recommended  but i had never known someone who actually consider it compulsory.

“Oh” I simply answered.

“You never memorized it all this time?”

“It’s all in my head, but it’s always this way.” I said in slightly emotional way.

“okay, do it again later.”

Then I sat next to door acting as if i was trying to memorize those prayers while i was actually being so upset of being said so. It felt much worse than when you had done 34 kilometers run and then the judge said you had done nothing.

I can't believe that my teacher sort of couldn't accept that I do salah in different way as him. But i get a lesson than this is probably what causes all this chaos happening in Indonesia. We don’t understand each other. We don’t understand that all four jurisprudences (Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi) are basically the same in purpose.