Saturday, June 23, 2007

The driver and the kopiah


There's this one common sighting on the roads of kelantan: Incompetitive and inconsiderate drivers. These drivers drive very slooowwly on the fast lane or on the highway, causing jam, and then they turn left or right without giving signals, or a little bit of signals, thus giving hard times for the cars behind them to break and avoid them (hope you can picture what i am trying to say). Sometimes, these drivers would enter the main road from a junction without first considering the incoming car, again giving hard times for the incoming car to break and avoid them.
More often than not, these drivers they drive old fourth-hand cars. Then, if you peek, you can see that the driver is actually a pak cik who wears kopiah. God forbid, but my heart always taunt this kind of drivers when i met them. Upon seeing this kind of driver, i'll spontanoesly spurt out words of fitnah to them: "pakai kopiah tapi menyusahkan orang". Astaghfirullah.. Ya Allah forgive me.
Let us examine this. Kopiah in Malay culture is so significant of religious people or to be exact islamic people. One who wears kopiah or ketayap would be expected by the common population to be a good mannered person. Because from the perspective of the general population of Malaysians, kopiah symbolizes piety. Just try once. Wear a jubah, equipped with serban, kopiah and buah tasbih. walk around pasar malam. i bet people will call you Ustaz even though you are a lawyer. hehe.
Since the perspective of the general population is like that i would say that those who wears kopiah actually carry great responsibilities. They must materialize or actualize the pious image that they bring when they wear kopiah. This can be done by being professional, considerate, do charities, help people and all those good deeds told by Qur'an and hadith. A pious muslim will surely be a good and professional muslim loved by everybody, just like prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
That's why at times, when i wear kopiah while driving, i will take it off if i found myself driving incompetitively. im putting a fitnah on Islam. For me, wearing kopiah will always remind myself that i need to be a good and professional muslim. Its a good thing to wear a kopiah then. It can become a tool of muhasabah.


1 comment:

Black coral skeletons from Indonesia said...

Please search < emeraldnile.com >

On the first page is a "kopiah" or a "kufi." Which is it? On Lombok Island, Indonesia, it is refered to as "kopiah." Is that a local use of the term?

"Jilbaab" and "hijab" are two other similar items. Are they in fact considered one-and-the-same ?

Thanks for your claification of these terms.