He Wrapped The Quran. Then, Continued The Robbery.

He knew how to respect the Quran.

He just forgot how to respect the One it belongs to.

This is the unsettling story of a thief who carefully wrapped the holy book in cloth before continuing his robbery — a small act of reverence in the middle of a greater act of wrongdoing.

But perhaps the story is not really about the thief.

Perhaps it is about us.

About the words we say so often, they no longer reach the heart. About the Bismillah that leaves our mouth before our soul arrives. About the quiet danger of knowing the rules while forgetting what they were meant to awaken inside us.

A reflection on faith, habit, mercy, and the sacred pause we may have lost.

 KOPITALK JIWA

Some of us know all the rules. We just forgot what they were for. 

Decades ago, somewhere in Brunei, a thief broke into a house.

He was good at it. Methodical. He moved through the rooms, picked what he wanted, and left what he did not. When he reached a cabinet, he found a Quran inside.

He did not take it. He did not leave it carelessly on the floor either.

He wrapped it in cloth. Carefully. Set it aside. Then carried on with the robbery.

And if you knew him — if you knew people like him — you might even believe he said Bismillah before he started.

When the police arrived and surveyed the scene, that one detail told them much about the thief. He was a Muslim. He knew he was not in wudhu. He knew touching the Quran in that state was disrespectful — to the book, and to the One it belongs to. So he wrapped it carefully. Set it aside. Then carried on with the robbery.

He knew what was disrespectful.

He had simply lost sight of what respect was meant to lead him to.

 

I have been thinking about that story since Sunday morning.

A small group of us had gathered after Subuh for a taddabur class on Surah Al-Fatiha. Somewhere in the discussion, that incident came up — and it stopped the room. Not because it was shocking. Because it was uncomfortably familiar.

Not the robbery part.

The other part.

The part where a person carries the forms of faith perfectly intact — the knowledge, the vocabulary, the habits — while something essential has quietly gone dark inside.

 

Think about Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.

You have said it thousands of times. Before eating. Before driving. Before an exam, a meeting, a journey. Maybe you said it before opening this article. Some people — and this is more common than we would like to admit — have even been known to say it before doing something they already know is wrong.

The mouth moves by muscle memory.

The heart has already left the room.

That is not a Gen Z problem. That is not a Gen X problem. That is a human problem, across every generation, in every era. We are creatures of habit. And habit, left unattended, can hollow out even the most sacred words.

 

So what does Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim actually mean?

Break it down slowly, the way it deserves.

Bismillah — In the name of Allah. Not as a password. Not as a good luck charm. As an acknowledgement. As in: whatever I am about to begin, I am beginning it in full awareness of who I am standing before.

Rahman — the mercy that covers everything and everyone, without condition, without application form. The sun rises on the grateful and the ungrateful alike. The rain falls on the good neighbourhood and the bad one. That is Rahman. A mercy so vast it does not wait to be deserved.

Rahim — something closer. More specific. A mercy that attends. That stays near. That sees you not merely as part of the general population of creation, but as you — with your particular mess, your particular hopes, your particular Tuesday morning.

When you say Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, you are not flicking on a switch. You are saying: I am beginning this in the name of the One whose mercy holds everything in existence, and I am asking to be held by that mercy, right now, in whatever I am about to do.

That is not a small thing to say.

It was never meant to be automatic.

 

Here is the thing about this generation — and in truth, every generation that has learned to recognise performance from sincerity — we are quite good at detecting hollow things.

We can tell when someone is performing. When the words do not match the energy. When something is said because it is expected, not because it is felt. Many young people, especially, have finely tuned sensors for inauthenticity.

Turn that same sensor inward for a moment.

How many times today have you said something — religious or otherwise — that left your mouth before your mind caught up? How many times has Bismillah become the verbal equivalent of a seatbelt click — automatic, unreflective, done because it is what you do before the car moves?

That thief was not a bad Muslim in the cartoon-villain sense. In some ways, he was a very well-trained one. He knew the fiqh. He applied it correctly, even mid-crime. But the living connection to what all of it meant — to who it was all pointing toward — had gone quiet somewhere along the way.

And so he said Bismillah. Broke the door. Wrapped the Quran. Took what he came for.

Every box ticked.

Nobody home.

Faith reduced to compliance is just another set of rules. And rules, without the relationship behind them, become hollow very quickly.

 

I am not asking you to become more religious.

I am asking for something smaller, and perhaps harder than that.

The next time Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim forms in your mouth — before the meal, the drive, the scroll, the decision — let one breath pass first.

Just one.

In that breath, remember: Rahman. The mercy that is already holding you, right now, unrequested and unearned. The fact that your lungs are working, that your mind is reading these words, that you made it to this moment — none of that was guaranteed. All of it is mercy.

Then remember: Rahim. That this is not impersonal. That somewhere in the vastness of creation, there is a mercy that sees you specifically. Not the version of you that is composed and presentable. You, as you actually are.

Then begin whatever you are beginning.

That pause — barely a second — is the difference between reciting and meaning it. Between going through the motions and actually being present for your own life.

 

The thief wrapped the Quran in cloth because he felt, on some level, that it deserved care.

He was not wrong about that. He simply could not see that the same care was owed to the One the Quran belongs to — and that the robbery he was committing was, in its own way, a disrespect far greater than an unwashed hand.

Most of us are not thieves.

But most of us, at some point in the rush of an ordinary day, have said the most extraordinary thing a human being can say — In the name of God, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful — and meant almost nothing by it.

And still, the Almighty heard us.

Even the hundred times we forgot we were speaking.

 

KopiTalk Jiwa is a column about the quieter things — faith, feeling, and the examined life.

Brunei’s First Spirulina Pilot Project Takes Root in Jalan Jerudong

A small farm. A bigger question.     

By Malai Hassan Othman | KopiTalk with MHO 

 

Last Tuesday morning, in a modest facility at Jalan Jerudong, Brunei took a small but deliberate step into a new corner of the agri-food economy.

 

Barakah Bioindustries Company, or BBIC, held the soft launching of its Spirulina Pilot Project on 28 April 2026 — marking what it describes as Brunei’s first photobioreactor-based spirulina cultivation operation. The event was officiated by Yang Berhormat Awang Zainol bin Haji Mohamed, Member of the Legislative Council, who performed the ribbon-cutting at the pilot site located at No. 15, Simpang 323, Jalan Jerudong. The programme included presentations on spirulina farming and its commercial applications, a live bioreactor demonstration and a discussion session with guests.

 

On the surface, it was a small launch. No grand factory. No large commercial farm. No dramatic announcement.

 

But perhaps that is exactly why the moment matters.

 

In a country where national ambitions are often announced in big halls, under big banners, with big words, this was a quieter kind of beginning — five spirulina photobioreactors assembled at a small site, run by a local company, with the help of Australian technical partners, placed directly within Brunei’s continuing search for food security, economic diversification and practical innovation.

BBIC Managing Director Syed Abdul Hadi was careful not to oversell the moment.

 

“What you see here today is not a grand launch. It is not a factory. It is not a finished product. It is the beginning of something — and that is exactly how we want to present it,” he said in his welcoming speech. “Every meaningful journey begins with a single, deliberate step. And this is ours.”

 

That honesty gave the event its strength.

 

Brunei does not need another polished announcement that disappears after the applause. It needs working examples — however small — of people turning national priorities into something real, testable and expandable.

 

The timing was hard to ignore.

 

Just days before the BBIC launch, Brunei had hosted the 38th FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific — APRC38 — from 20 to 24 April 2026. It was the first time Brunei hosted the UN regional food and agriculture conference, bringing together ministers and senior officials from 46 nations under the theme “Nurturing Innovation for Agri-Food Systems Transformation.”

 

The message from that conference was unambiguous. Food security is no longer simply about having enough on supermarket shelves. It is about access, nutrition, resilience, local production and regional cooperation. For Brunei — a country where food imports account for more than 90 per cent of consumption and where the food import bill reached BND 686.3 million in 2025 — the question is simple but serious: how much longer can the country talk about food security without building more of its own production capacity?

 

This is where spirulina enters the picture.

 

Spirulina is a blue-green microalgae known for its high protein content and potential use in nutrition, health products and aquaculture feed. In BBIC’s project presentation, spirulina was introduced not only as a health supplement, but as a possible local feed ingredient for hatcheries, fish farms and other aquaculture operations.

 

That matters because much of Brunei’s food and feed system still depends heavily on imports. When prices rise, local producers feel it. When shipments are delayed, small operators absorb the cost. When global supply chains become unstable, countries that cannot produce enough for themselves become exposed. A small spirulina pilot will not solve all that. Nobody should pretend it will. But it points to the kind of thinking Brunei needs more of: produce locally where possible, build technical capability, reduce unnecessary dependence, create new skills, and test new industries before the window narrows.

 

The project investment figure was not disclosed at the launch. What BBIC did disclose is arguably more important: how the investment is being used.

 

The pilot was developed through a Memorandum of Understanding between BBIC and Selvanex Projects of Australia. The Australian team — Dr Ken Street, Mr James Irving and Dr Farouq Sharifpour of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University — spent the week in Brunei assembling five photobioreactor units alongside the Barakah team, transferring operational knowledge in the process.

Syed Abdul Hadi described the partnership plainly: Barakah and Selvanex were not in a buyer-seller relationship. The Australians did not ship equipment, collect payment and leave. They came to build alongside the local team.

 

“What we are gaining from this partnership is not a product. It is a capability,” he said.

 

That sentence deserves attention. For too long, too many projects in Brunei have been measured by what is bought, installed or launched. Real development is not just about hardware. It is about whether Bruneians learn to operate, maintain, improve, adapt and eventually scale the system themselves. That is the difference between buying technology and acquiring capability.

 

The soft launch brought together representatives from universities, government agencies, business chambers, industry players and community groups. Among those present were Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali, Jabatan Perikanan, the Brunei Economic Development Board, the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Serikandi Aquaculture, Serikandi Poultry Farm and the Australian High Commission.

 

That mix of attendees was important. Spirulina cannot grow into a serious local industry if it remains inside one small facility in Jalan Jerudong. It needs researchers to study it under Brunei’s tropical conditions. It needs regulators who understand its potential as feed or food. It needs fish farmers and poultry operators willing to test its usefulness. It needs young Bruneians to see it as a skills pathway. It needs business partners who can help turn a pilot into a repeatable model.

 

In BBIC’s project presentation, the site was described as a working learning facility, not a full-scale factory. The immediate task is to test whether spirulina can be grown reliably and affordably under Brunei’s climate, while building standard practices and quality controls. That is the right language. A pilot project should be allowed to be a pilot project — tested, challenged, measured and improved.

 

The danger in Brunei is that too many initiatives are either celebrated too early or abandoned too quietly. What is needed is disciplined follow-through.

 

The road ahead, according to BBIC’s presentation, begins with proving the system at Jalan Jerudong, then expanding with partner farmers, and eventually scaling across Brunei if the model works. That “if” is important.

 

The real test is not whether the launch was successful. It was. The real test is what happens after the chairs are cleared, the guests go home, and the tanks continue running. Can the system produce consistently? Can costs be controlled? Can spirulina be processed to the standard local farms need? Can young Bruneians be drawn into a new kind of agri-tech work? Can universities engage it as research? Can government agencies support it without slowing it with red tape?

 

These are the questions that will determine whether last Tuesday was a pleasant ceremony or the start of something more substantial.

 

For now, what BBIC has done is place a small working example on the table. It is not the whole answer to food security. It is not yet an industry. It is not yet an export story. But it is a visible attempt to respond to a national challenge with action rather than rhetoric.

 

And sometimes, that is where change begins — not with a slogan, but with a working system that people can touch, question, improve and build upon.

 

In a Brunei that often asks what diversification really looks like, the answer may not always begin in a boardroom or a masterplan. Sometimes it begins quietly, last Tuesday morning, beside five green tanks in Jalan Jerudong.

The National Health Check: Brunei's Results Are In

Malai Hassan Othman | KopiTalk with MHO

Sit down. The doctor has gone through every number. And we need to talk honestly.

 

You know that feeling when you walk into the doctor's office, results in hand, hoping for the best but half-expecting to hear something you do not want to hear? That is where Brunei is right now.

 

The Department of Economic Planning and Statistics has published the Brunei Darussalam Key Indicators 2025 — the BDKI — a full annual health check of the nation. Every vital sign measured. Every organ examined. The blood work done. The scan completed. I have gone through it the way a doctor goes through your test results — not looking only for what is reassuring, but for what is real.

 

We now have less than ten years left to reach Wawasan 2035. This is the final lap. And no one should run a final lap without first knowing the true condition of the body carrying them.

 

Your Heart: GDP Growth at 0.7%

 

Brunei's economic heartbeat came in at 0.7 percent in 2025. It is beating — we are not flatlining. But GDP per capita fell from BND 44,996 in 2024 to BND 42,860 in 2025. The country ended the year with less income per person than before.

 

Oil and gas still contributed 46.1 percent of the entire economy. But the non-oil economy — the part Wawasan 2035 was meant to strengthen — contracted 1.5 percent. The private sector contracted 2.1 percent. A heart where one valve does most of the work while the others weaken is a heart under strain it was never designed to carry alone. No nation should arrive at 2035 on artificial support.

 

Your Cholesterol: Oil Dependency

 

The average export price of crude oil was USD 72.33 per barrel in 2025, down from USD 83.85 the year before. Oil and gas revenue fell to BND 2.36 billion — from BND 2.51 billion in 2024 and BND 2.83 billion in 2023. Three years in a row. Consistently falling. FDI came in at BND 219.8 million — positive, but thin, and driven more by debt than by fresh equity confidence. You can live with cholesterol. 

But it catches up. And the longer you wait, the fewer options you have.

 

Your Blood Sugar: The Fiscal Deficit

 

2023 deficit: BND 2.34 billion

2024 deficit: BND 2.75 billion

2025 deficit: BND 3.09 billion

 

The government spent BND 6.43 billion and earned BND 3.34 billion. The gap is BND 3.09 billion — every single year. The damage happens quietly: kidneys strain, circulation weakens, nerves lose sensitivity. And then something that should have healed — does not. The time to address blood sugar is not when the damage is already visible. It is now.

 

Your Lungs: Female Unemployment Rising

 

Overall unemployment rose to 5.2 percent. Male unemployment: 4.2 percent. 

Female unemployment: 6.7 percent — up from 5.6 percent the year before. Female labour force participation fell to 67.2 percent. Our daughters complete their degrees and enter an economy that increasingly cannot place them. This is one lung underperforming. And no nation can run the final lap breathing with one lung.

 

Your Liver: Maintenance Crowding Out Investment

 

Personnel emoluments reached BND 2.31 billion. Recurrent ordinary expenditure: BND 4.86 billion. Development expenditure — money spent on building tomorrow — was BND 324.8 million. For every dollar spent on maintaining what already exists, only seven cents went toward building what needs to exist.

 

Your Kidneys: Food Security Outsourced

 

Food imports in 2025: BND 686.3 million. We import the overwhelming majority of what 458,600 people eat every day. Shipping lanes face geopolitical pressure. Climate events disrupt harvests. Local production is improving — fisheries reached 25,386.5 metric tonnes, rice 2,593.6 metric tonnes — but remains a fraction of national need. Dialysis keeps people alive. But building your own kidney function is what resilience actually looks like.

 

Your Pancreas, Colon & Brain

 

Inflation was -0.3 percent. The Retail Sales Index fell 3.9 percent — third consecutive year of decline. The Services Sales Index fell 7.9 percent. Household spending contracted 1.8 percent. Gross Capital Formation fell 6.0 percent. The economy has lost its appetite and its digestion has slowed.

 

Yet literacy stands at 96.8 percent. 102,880 students are enrolled. Tertiary institutions are producing graduates — qualified, educated, ready. The brain is sending strong signals. But the private sector contracted 2.1 percent, non-oil industries contracted 1.5 percent. The brain is one of Brunei's strongest assets. The problem is the rest of the body has not been built out to match it.

 

The Doctor's Verdict

 

You are not ready for the final lap.

 

The Prescription

 

Free the private sector — genuinely.

 

Every layer of friction discouraging new business, new investment, new industries — identify it, confront it, remove it. The non-oil economy must grow. This is not a preference. It is a survival requirement.

 

Address the fiscal deficit structurally.

 

Not managed year to year — restructured. Development expenditure must take a larger share. Recurrent costs must be honestly reviewed. Oil revenue will not rescue the balance sheet much longer.

 

Open the other lung.

 

Female economic participation is a growth lever, not a social programme. The barriers in hiring, workplace structures, and sector development must be identified and dismantled.

 

Build your own kidneys.

 

Food security is a national security issue. Scale up investment, land policy, research support, and market development with urgency.

 

Feed the pancreas.

 

Stimulate domestic demand. Give small and medium businesses genuine access to financing, markets, and a regulatory environment that does not exhaust them before they can grow.

 

Some people walk out of the clinic, fold the results, and go back to life as it was. But the body keeps its own schedule. If these issues are not addressed before 2035, the year will arrive — as it must — and the story will be the gap between what Wawasan promised and what the nation delivered. Not a collapse. Something quieter: an educated generation without full economic opportunity. A fiscal system stretched thin. A food supply exposed. A private sector still too thin to stand alone.

 

The plan is in the prescription. The warning is written across the numbers. The deadline is 2035 — less than ten years away, with no extensions.

 

The discipline to change before the body forces us to.

 

Malai Hassan Othman is an investigative journalist, political advisor, and policy analyst based in Brunei Darussalam. He writes KopiTalk with MHO at kopitalkmho.blogspot.com and serves as Chairman of the NDP Advisory Board. Data: BDKI 2025, Department of Economic Planning and Statistics, Brunei Darussalam.

 

 

When the World Comes to Your Kitchen Table

For the first time, Brunei hosted and chaired the UN's premier Asia-Pacific food conference. Here is what was said, what it means, and what must happen next.

 

By Malai Hassan Othman

 

Something quietly significant happened in Brunei this week. Something that deserves more attention than it is getting.

Ministers of Agriculture from 46 countries — from giants like China, India and Australia to smaller island nations most of us have never had reason to think much about — gathered here in Bandar Seri Begawan for the 38th Session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific. The agenda was simple to state, but enormous in consequence: how to feed people. Enough of them. Affordably. And without destroying the planet in the process.

For a country that has hosted ASEAN leaders and APEC economies before, welcoming a major international gathering is nothing new. But this one was different. The FAO's Asia-Pacific Regional Conference — the UN's premier forum for food and agriculture policy across a region that carries half the world's population — was being held in Brunei for the very first time.

And we did not merely host it. On April 23, His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, officially opened the high-level Ministerial Session at The Empire Brunei in Jerudong. In his sabda, he spoke with unmistakable urgency. He called on the region to build resilience and deepen cooperation to safeguard food security. He named the pressures directly — climate change, geopolitical tensions including the conflicts in the Middle East, and the fragility of global supply chains. And he reminded the gathered ministers that behind every disrupted supply chain are real people: the farmer whose income collapses, the fisher whose catch cannot reach market, the family whose table grows a little emptier each time the system fails.

He also broadened the frame. Food security, he said, is no longer just about having enough to eat. It is about nutrition and access. And it is about bringing the young and women into the agrifood sector — not as afterthoughts, but as its future.

Those words, spoken at the opening of a conference that Brunei was hosting for the first time, carried weight beyond ceremony.

Our minister, Dato Dr. Abdul Manaf, then chaired the Ministerial Session itself — presiding over the substantive negotiations between 46 governments. For those three days, Brunei held the gavel.

That matters. It matters more than much of the noise that has filled our feeds this week.

— — —

Let me explain why.

Asia and the Pacific is home to nearly one billion people facing food insecurity, and more than 1.2 billion who cannot afford a healthy diet. Even as economies across this region have grown, hunger has not disappeared. Asia and the Pacific still accounts for 42 per cent — some 285 million people — of the world's undernourished population. These are not distant statistics from somebody else's misery. They are the backdrop against which Brunei's own food policies will be judged, and the wider context in which our export ambitions will either find real markets or run into familiar excuses.

We are an import-dependent nation in a region under strain. The blockage of key shipping lanes is already pushing up energy and input costs worldwide, while fertiliser shortages threaten crop yields and food prices. Every disruption in the global food system lands, sooner or later, on the shelves of our supermarkets and on the tables of ordinary Bruneian families. Sometimes it shows up quietly — in the price of essentials, in the shrinking comfort of household budgets, in the uneasy knowledge that so much of what we eat still depends on forces far beyond our control. That vulnerability has not gone away. What has changed is that Brunei is, for the first time, beginning to answer it with action rather than mere acknowledgement.

— — —

In 2025, Brunei exported approximately 22 million eggs to Singapore, worth more than B$3 million. Our fisheries sector — tuna, shrimp, the prized ikan selungsong — brought in nearly B$5.7 million in export earnings. And for the first time, Brunei began selling halal meat-based food products to Sarawak and Sabah. Not buying from them. Selling to them.

These are not large numbers by global standards. But they are beginnings. And beginnings matter, especially when they are deliberate.

The strategy being pursued is straightforward enough: stop trying to compete on price alone. Sell quality instead. Omega-enriched eggs. Organically raised shrimp. The Arus cantaloupe, grown here and branded with a story. A product that commands a higher price because it earns trust — certified, traceable, clean.

The FAO's Director-General said plainly this week that public resources alone will not be enough, and urged countries to channel more investment into agrifood systems through private-sector and international partnerships. That is also Brunei's challenge in one sentence. Government can build the policy architecture — plug-and-play infrastructure, certifications, cold-chain support. But the farmers, the cooperatives, the small agri-entrepreneurs — they are the ones who will have to fill the containers. The conference has given Brunei a platform. A platform is only worth something if it helps accelerate that work at home.

— — —

Hosting this conference gave Brunei a shop window to the world. The Agri-Tech Food Zone that ran alongside the ministerial sessions was Brunei's opportunity to show — not just tell — what we are producing and how. In diplomacy, as in business, proximity matters. When decision-makers from across Asia sit in your conference hall and sample your local produce at your gala dinner, you have done something no trade catalogue can truly replicate.

This conference also helps shape where the FAO directs its technical support, training and international funding over the next two years. What gets discussed in rooms like this influences where future attention and resources flow. Brunei was in the room. Brunei chaired the room. But chairing a room is a moment, not a policy. The real measure of this week will not be the photographs from The Empire. It will be whether the conversations that began there lead to agreements signed, markets opened and supply chains built.

— — —

Dato Dr. Abdul Manaf has set a target of B$1.5 billion for Brunei's food sector by 2035. That is nine years away — long enough to get serious, and long enough to drift into the old habit of mistaking ambition for achievement. Reaching it will require more than encouraging words. It will require honest infrastructure: food-safety certifications that buyers trust, a cold chain that works, logistics that move produce from farm gate to airport gate without waste or spoilage. It will also require young Bruneians to see agriculture not as a last resort, but as a genuine future — one shaped by technology, science, enterprise and access to real markets beyond our shores.

The Crown Prince said it plainly at the opening: food security is about more than supply. It is about people. About who gets to eat well, who gets to earn a living from the land and sea, and who gets to build a future in it.

The world came to our kitchen table this week. The table was set well. But a well-set table does not feed a nation. The real cooking begins now — and that part cannot be performed for applause, or postponed until the next conference.

 

Malai Hassan Othman writes KopiTalk with MHO, a column on public affairs,

politics and the issues that shape everyday Bruneian life.

kopitalkmho.blogspot.com

 

Al-Balad: Negeri yang Paling Dekat Itu Bernama Hati

Dalam kesibukan dunia, kita sibuk mengejar, menilai dan membetulkan banyak perkara di luar diri, sedangkan ada satu negeri yang selalu terbiar tanpa perhatian — negeri hati kita sendiri.

 

By Malai Hassan Othman
KopiTalk Jiwa

Kita cepat melihat yang rosak di luar — pada orang, pada masyarakat, pada keadaan. Tetapi Surah Al-Balad mengajak kita merenung sesuatu yang lebih dekat dan lebih menentukan: bagaimana keadaan negeri di dalam dada kita sendiri? Di situlah bermula jatuh bangun seorang manusia.

“Sebelum kita terlalu jauh mahu membetulkan dunia, kita perlu terlebih dahulu belajar mentadbir hati.”

Dalam kesibukan dunia, kita sibuk mengejar, menilai dan membetulkan banyak perkara di luar diri, sedangkan ada satu negeri yang selalu terbiar tanpa perhatian — negeri hati kita sendiri.

 

Surah Al-Balad datang menyapa dari sisi yang sangat dekat ini. Ia tidak sekadar membawa kita memahami sebuah negeri bernama Makkah, tetapi mengajak kita merenung sebuah negeri yang lebih hampir daripada segala yang hampir: hati manusia.

 

Al-Balad berarti negeri. Dalam surah ini, ia merujuk kepada Makkah — bumi yang mulia, bumi yang pernah menyaksikan perjuangan, pengorbanan, luka, air mata, dan juga cahaya wahyu. Tetapi Al-Quran tidak pernah sempit maknanya. Di balik nama sebuah kota, tersimpan isyarat untuk manusia membaca dirinya sendiri.

 

Bukankah hati juga sebuah negeri?

 

Di dalamnyalah tertegak hukum yang tidak tertulis. Di situlah iman dibela atau dikhianati. Di situlah nafsu boleh bangkit menjadi penguasa, atau hidayah datang menjadi pemimpin. Di situlah sunyi menjadi cermin, dan di situlah juga segala keputusan besar seorang manusia sebenarnya bermula.

 

Kalau sesebuah negeri boleh makmur kerana pimpinan yang adil, hati juga boleh tenang kerana pimpinan nur Ilahi. Kalau sesebuah negeri boleh rosak kerana salah guna kuasa, hati juga boleh hancur kerana ego yang diberi takhta. Dan kalau sesebuah negeri memerlukan undang-undang untuk menjaga tertibnya, hati juga memerlukan iman untuk menjaga arahnya.

 

Barangkali sebab itulah ramai manusia kelihatan hidup, tetapi tidak benar-benar tenang.

 

Segala yang zahir kadang-kadang nampak cukup. Rumah ada. Kereta ada. Gaji masuk. Wajah masih mampu tersenyum. Tetapi di dalam, ada negeri yang sedang kacau. Ada lorong-lorong jiwa yang gelap. Ada angin resah yang bertiup tanpa bunyi. Ada beban yang tidak nampak pada mata manusia, tetapi beratnya hanya Tuhan dan empunya dada yang tahu.

 

Surah Al-Balad seolah-olah tidak membiarkan kita terus hanyut menatap dunia luar. Ia memanggil kita pulang. Pulang meninjau negeri yang paling hampir. Negeri hati.

 

Dan di dalam negeri itulah, manusia selalu diuji oleh satu musuh lama: keangkuhan.

 

Betapa mudah manusia merasa dirinya kuat. Betapa mudah dia menyangka tiada siapa berkuasa ke atasnya. Betapa mudah dia percaya bahawa apa yang ada di tangannya adalah hasil mutlak kebijaksanaan dan kehebatannya sendiri. Bila dia punya harta, dia berasa besar. Bila dia punya kuasa, dia mula lupa batas. Bila dia mampu membeli, membina, memerintah, menahan atau menghalang, dia perlahan-lahan memuja dirinya sendiri.

 

Padahal manusia, walau setinggi mana berdiri, tetap makhluk.

 

Dia melihat kerana diberi mata. Dia berkata-kata kerana diberi lidah. Dia menyusun bicara kerana diberi bibir. Bahkan kekuatan yang dibanggakan itu pun sebenarnya hanya pinjaman. Hidup ini sendiri pun pinjaman. Maka apalah sangat yang hendak dibesarkan oleh seorang hamba yang datang ke dunia dengan tangan kosong dan akan pergi juga dengan tangan kosong?

 

Namun angkuh itu tidak selalu datang dengan wajah garang.

 

Kadang-kadang ia halus seperti debu. Ia hadir ketika kita sukar menerima teguran. Ia tumbuh ketika kita yakin diri sentiasa betul. Ia menyelinap ketika kita memandang rendah orang yang lemah, yang lambat, yang miskin, yang tidak seperti kita. Ia juga boleh bersembunyi di balik amal, di balik ilmu, malah di balik imej baik yang kita jaga di hadapan manusia.

 

Sebab itulah peringatan bahawa Allah melihat menjadi penawar yang sangat besar.

 

Ramai manusia hanya takut kepada pandangan manusia. Takut nama jatuh. Takut imej retak. Takut dipersoalkan orang. Tetapi seorang mukmin diajar untuk lebih takut kepada pandangan Allah. Kerana manusia hanya melihat yang di luar, sedangkan Allah melihat hingga ke dasar niat yang paling tersembunyi.

 

Orang mungkin tidak tahu apa yang kita simpan di sebalik senyum. Orang mungkin tidak tahu bagaimana kita menggunakan kuasa. Orang mungkin tidak tahu niat di balik sedekah, di balik jawatan, di balik kata-kata manis, atau di balik wajah yang tampak baik. Tetapi Allah tahu.

 

Dan apabila kesedaran itu benar-benar hidup, manusia akan belajar menundukkan dirinya. Bukan kerana dia lemah, tetapi kerana dia tahu dirinya hamba.

 

Surah Al-Balad juga mengingatkan bahawa Allah telah menunjukkan kepada manusia dua jalan.

 

Betapa indah dan betapa beratnya hakikat itu.

 

Ada jalan yang lurus, ada jalan yang bengkok. Ada jalan yang membawa cahaya, ada jalan yang menambah gelap. Ada jalan yang mudah dipijak kerana ia menuruti hawa nafsu. Dan ada jalan yang sukar didaki kerana ia menuntut kesabaran, keikhlasan dan pengorbanan.

 

Itulah sebabnya hidup ini bukan sekadar soal mahu atau tidak mahu. Hidup ialah soal memilih.

 

Dan manusia moden, barangkali lebih daripada zaman-zaman sebelumnya, terlalu mudah jatuh cinta kepada yang mudah. Kita mahu segala-galanya segera. Segera berjaya. Segera kaya. Segera dipandang tinggi. Segera selesai. Kita menjadi generasi yang dipujuk oleh keselesaan, hingga kadang-kadang mula menganggap bahawa apa yang sukar itu tidak baik untuk kita.

 

Padahal dalam agama, jalan yang benar sering kali bukan jalan yang paling lunak untuk hawa nafsu.

 

Menjaga solat ketika jiwa penat bukan mudah. Menahan marah ketika hati terbakar bukan mudah. Memaafkan ketika luka masih basah bukan mudah. Menjaga lidah daripada melukai orang bukan mudah. Menghulurkan harta ketika kita sendiri sangat sayang kepadanya bukan mudah. Memilih yang halal ketika yang haram lebih cepat dan lebih lumayan juga bukan mudah.

 

Tetapi justeru kerana itulah ia bernilai.

 

Ketinggian akhlak tidak dibina di jalan yang rata. Ia lahir daripada pendakian. Dan pendakian sentiasa menuntut nafas yang panjang.

 

Surah Al-Balad menyebut tentang jalan yang sukar itu. Jalan yang mendaki. Jalan yang tidak semua orang mahu pilih. Antaranya membebaskan hamba, memberi makan kepada yang lapar, membantu anak yatim yang dekat hubungan, dan menolong orang miskin yang terlantar. Ini bukan sekadar seruan untuk berasa kasihan. Ini panggilan untuk bertindak. Ini pendidikan jiwa agar manusia sanggup melepaskan sesuatu daripada dirinya demi meringankan beban orang lain.

 

Hari ini bentuk perhambaan mungkin tidak lagi sama, tetapi manusia masih banyak terbelenggu. Ada yang terbelenggu oleh kemiskinan. Ada yang terbelenggu oleh kesunyian. Ada yang terbelenggu oleh tekanan hidup. Ada yang terbelenggu oleh rasa putus harapan. Ada keluarga yang terpenjara dalam beban yang tidak pernah mereka ceritakan. Ada pekerja yang diam-diam menderita kerana layanan yang tidak adil. Ada jiwa yang kelaparan bukan sahaja kepada makanan, tetapi juga kepada perhatian, kasih sayang dan pertolongan.

 

Maka kadang-kadang satu huluran kecil pun boleh menjadi kerja besar di sisi Allah.

 

Satu panggilan telefon. Satu pinggan makanan. Satu peluang kerja. Satu kunjungan. Satu kata yang menguatkan. Kebaikan memang tidak selalu megah. Ia jarang dipalu gendang. Ia tidak sentiasa dijulang tajuk besar. Tetapi sering kali, yang kecil di mata manusia itulah yang besar di langit.

 

Dan kerana jalan yang sukar itu berat, manusia tidak disuruh memikulnya sendirian.

 

Di sini Surah Al-Balad menjadi sangat indah. Ia tidak hanya bercakap tentang amal, tetapi juga tentang teman seperjalanan. Tentang orang beriman yang saling berpesan untuk sabar dan saling berpesan untuk kasih sayang. Seolah-olah Al-Quran mahu memberitahu kita bahawa perjalanan menuju Tuhan ini bukan perjalanan seorang diri.

 

Betapa benarnya.

 

Ada waktu kita kuat, ada waktu kita goyah. Ada hari kita mampu menasihati, ada hari kita sendiri memerlukan nasihat. Ada ketika kita menjadi bahu tempat orang bersandar, dan ada ketika kita pula mencari bahu untuk bersandar. Maka hidup ini memang memerlukan insan-insan yang saling menguatkan — yang menolak kita ke depan saat kita hampir menyerah, yang mengingatkan kita saat hati mula jauh, yang meniupkan semula harapan saat semangat hampir padam.

 

Sabar tanpa kasih sayang boleh menjadi keras. Kasih sayang tanpa sabar pula boleh menjadi rapuh. Tetapi bila kedua-duanya berpaut, lahirlah kekuatan yang menenangkan jiwa.

 

Sebab itu Islam tidak membina manusia hanya dalam kesunyian ibadah peribadi. Islam juga membina manusia dalam jemaah, dalam ukhuwwah, dalam budaya saling memikul beban. Kita bukan dicipta untuk menang sendirian. Dan kita juga tidak dibiarkan tumbang sendirian.

 

Apabila direnung lebih dalam, Surah Al-Balad sebenarnya sedang bercakap dengan kita hari ini.

 

Ia bercakap kepada orang yang ada harta supaya jangan mabuk dengan miliknya. Ia bercakap kepada orang yang ada kuasa supaya jangan lupa bahawa setiap kuasa ada hisabnya. Ia bercakap kepada orang yang ada pengaruh supaya jangan menjadikan pengaruh itu alat meninggikan diri. Dan ia juga bercakap kepada orang biasa — yang mungkin tidak punya banyak apa-apa, tetapi sedang berjuang memerintah negerinya sendiri di dalam dada.

 

Kerana akhirnya, sebelum kita terlalu jauh mahu membetulkan dunia, kita perlu terlebih dahulu belajar mentadbir hati.

 

Kalau hati dipimpin hidayah, manusia lebih mudah memilih yang benar walaupun pahit. Kalau hati dikuasai ego, manusia akan terus mencari alasan untuk membenarkan yang salah. Kalau hati hidup, dia akan terasa apabila melihat orang susah. Kalau hati mati, dia akan lalu di hadapan penderitaan seolah-olah tiada apa-apa.

 

Mungkin sebab itulah Surah Al-Balad terasa begitu jujur. Ia tidak memanjakan kita dengan mimpi bahawa hidup ini akan sentiasa mudah. Ia tidak menabur khayal. Sebaliknya, ia mendidik kita bahawa hidup ini memang perjuangan. Ada pendakian. Ada pilihan. Ada pengorbanan. Ada ujian terhadap harta, kuasa dan hati. Namun di tengah semua itu, Allah tidak pernah membiarkan manusia berjalan tanpa petunjuk.

 

Diberi mata untuk melihat.
Diberi lidah untuk berkata benar.
Diberi bibir untuk menjaga adab.
Diberi akal untuk memilih.
Diberi agama untuk memandu.
Diberi saudara untuk saling menguatkan.

 

Maka soalnya bukan sama ada kita sudah ditunjukkan jalan atau belum.

 

Soalnya ialah: jalan mana yang sedang kita pilih hari ini?

 

Dan lebih dalam daripada itu, bagaimana keadaan negeri dalam hati kita sekarang?

 

Kerana apabila negeri itu baik, langkah hidup akan lebih lurus, walaupun jalan masih berbatu. Tetapi apabila negeri itu kacau, dunia yang luas pun boleh terasa sempit dan gelap.

 

Maka sebelum kita terlalu jauh berbicara tentang memperbaiki masyarakat, menegur dunia, atau menilai salah orang lain, mungkin ada baiknya kita pulang sejenak ke negeri yang paling dekat ini.

 

Negeri hati.

Di situlah bermula jatuh dan bangun seorang manusia.
Di situlah bermula bening atau keruhnya pandangan hidup.
Di situlah bermula mulia atau rebahnya akhlak.
Dan di situlah juga, jika Allah mengizinkan, bermulanya jalan pulang.

Catatan KopiTalk Jiwa:

 
Kadang-kadang kita terlalu cepat mahu memperbaiki dunia, sedangkan pembaikan yang paling menentukan bermula pada wilayah yang tidak dilihat orang — hati. Moga kita tidak hanya menjadi manusia yang petah menilai di luar, tetapi juga berani meninjau ke dalam.