.......... وعليكم السّلام

Resting in my home thanks for my occurring sickness.
... This is also the first update in ages for this blog....

Yesterday, I found something very interesting to rethink about, it's a trivial thing really... yet, this strengthen my believes that the Yin and Yang philosophy really is true: No matter how bad you think a person is, you can always find a good side inside them.

I was carrying the DVD Player the Japanese Language Extracurricular used for their activity. The rest of the extracurricular members are girls and the only boy beside me who was attending the extracurricular looks like very busy as he packing up his laptop. That left no one but me to take the things up to where it were.

I thought the Teacher's Room was empty. My sensei rushed behind, knowing it was a little bit late to go home: 17.00 PM. The movie, "Tegami" was good, therefore no one noticed about the ticking clock which you can't find in most of classrooms (I wonder why my school is doing this, perhaps it's to prevent their students to pay attention to the clock rather than teacher's lecture). Then suddenly one of the cleaning service came to the class, we noticed that the school is about to close. But no one was leaving since the movie is not finished yet, that forced sensei to made a hard decision, she ordered me to fastforward the movie to the ending scene. The fact that we didn't really watch the entire movie doesn't matter though, the movie was ended with claps from the girls.

Now then, everyone left but me, sensei, and the cleaning services. I wouldn't want to be the last person in the school aside of the cleaning services and in fact I was the last student there. Quickly I picked up my pace and arrived at the Teacher's Room.

Like I mentioned, I expected no one to be there.

... rather, I saw a very familiar teacher--- it is THE math teacher, sitting by the computer with "POWER DVD" window on it, I assume he was watching a movie. He watched me silently for a few seconds before his glance returned to the computer screen.

Sensei followed up with a rush, and quickly picked up her belongings, and ordered me to put the DVD Player beside another computer by the room's edge. When I'm done, it seemed Sensei haven't finished tidying up yet, so I say goodbye to her and intent to leave.

But it will be too impolite to not say the same thing to the math teacher, so before I opened the door, I turn my eyes to him and say, "Assalāmu'alaykum" (السلام عليكم : peace be upon you). I didn't expect any replies, since he is not really the type to answer greetings. What I found is quite opposite, just before I got out, I heard a reply, "Wa'alaikumussalam" (وعليكم السّلام : and upon you be peace")

I didn't expect that. Now I know the math teacher is quite religious, perhaps he refused to answer to greetings because it was western-conventional or something. But when I used the salam greeting to him, he answered it. Perhaps he is well aware of the laws of not answering salam.

"Hukum memberi salam itu adalah "sunnah" dan Nabi Muhammad s.a.w melakukan demikian serta malazimi dan membiasakan diri dengan memberi salam. Manakala hukum menjawab salam adalah "wajib" iaitu sekiranya tidak menjawab hukumnya berdosa. (Rujuk Imam Al-Hafiz Abi Al-Ali Muhd. Abdul Rahman b. Abd. Rahim. 1353H. 469)" - http://tilmiz.multiply.com/journal/item/33://url


Ha, I guess I can gradually remove my stereotype on him.


Note: you should always reply salams, except when you are attending Shalat, or when you're in the restroom, and of course, if you are not a muslim.