Takaful: Background, Branding and Concept [2011] 6 MLJ lxxvi

Alhamdulillah :)

All praises be to Allah and to Him alone.

When I was a law student back in Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws (AIKOL), Malayan Law Journal (MLJ) was the most famous law journal that publishes local cases. In the older journals, they even had pictures of the judges published and they also report some of the funniest stuff (read this!)

This year, MLJ gave me a Christmas present!

Weeeee!!!!

I got a letter from them last week telling me that they have published my article Takaful: Background, Branding and Concept [2011] 6 MLJ lxxvi  in one of its journal. They also gave me one complimentary copy for my safekeeping.

(one single copy? Bagila one or two extra copies!)

You can drop me an email and I would be more than happy to email you a copy for your reading pleasure.

Or if you have an account with lexisnexis, you can log on to MLJ online via lexisnexis, type “takaful” at the article segment and you should be able find it there.

It’s kinda long so I won’t be posting it here.

After you have read it, I would very much appreciate your feedbacks, comments or suggestions.

Many thanks in advance!

Blog adjourned.

Working On A Saturday

Can you believe it?

I’m in the office today. On a Saturday, 24^th December 2011, when most people are busy doing their last minute Christmas shopping.

Here I am sitting comfortably in front of my trustworthy laptop, not doing anything.

Haha.

No, I was not thrown out of the house by the Bride. I’m on my Saturday office duty. It’s where the Firm gets one of its associates to come and sit at the office and wait if there are any urgent matters that come on a Saturday morning. I guess it would be more relevant back when the Government office operates half day on a Saturday. Thankfully, it’s only for half day (although I would probably miss the Bride’s bestfriend’s sister’s baby’s Aqiqah which would certainly be accompanied with some delicious meal) but it’s ok.

I had wanted to bring along my Nirvana- Come As You Are book but as I was rushing, I sort of left in my room. Deng! Would have been nice to finish that book today.

So yeah...

Here I am, in my chambers, thinking what the hell am I gonna do for the next few hours.

I guess I’ll have to go and finish up the article I’m drafting for my firm’s newsletter.

I have heroically declared to the Editor of SKRINE Legal Insights that I would be providing one Shariah article for its every publication. It is published on a quarterly basis. The next one would be this December 2011. I have already contributed one article there on Islamic Corporate Governance. Right now, I’m drafting something on Maqasid Shariah (The Objectives of the Shariah) and Islamic Wealth Management. It’s drafted in a simple way and it’s not technical or super philosophical so that readers would be able to read and relate instead of flipping the pages. Or so I hope so...

I’ll post it up when it’s published.

OK then, I have to get back to work.

 *Work is worship. Sleep is worship. Work is to sleep. Genius!*

Yeah right!

Blog adjourned.

The Sweet Advice

Before we give advice, it is necessary that we put ourselves in check first.

This reminds me of a story that y father once told me.

There was a little boy who loved sweets. He would eat sweets, drink sweet drinks and never fails to add sugar in his meal. His mother was concerned of this unhealthy lifestyle so she asked her husband to take the boy to meet the Sheikh in their town to advice the boy to stop taking too much sweet.

The father took his son to meet the Sheikh and told him of the story. Instead of advising the boy, the Sheikh told the father to return back after about a week.

The father had to oblige and went back. As he told the story to his wife, she got confused. But they decided to wait to the next week to see what the Sheikh had in mind.

After a week, the father brought his son to meet the Sheikh.

This time, the Sheikh had the boy sat in front of him and slowly advised the boy not to consume too much sweet and to be moderate in sugar consumption.

It was a very simple advice.

The father couldn’t understand why the Sheikh needed a whole week to render such common sense advice to his son.

The Sheikh replied:

Last week when you came, I myself like to take sweet stuff. So I had to give myself a week to discipline myself to reduce my sugar intake before I can render to your son a sincere advice.

I’d like to pick two points here.

1.    See how relevant the Sheikh is to this family? Even for a dietary advice, they go back to the Sheikh and not to dieticians. This approach goes two ways. One is that Sheikhs must be relevant to the society that they live in and two is that the society must understand the importance of the Sheikh.

2.    See the adab or the attitude of the Sheikh? Before he gave an advice to which he knows he himself practices contrary to that advice, he took time to correct himself so as not to make him a hypocrite. This to him will allow him to render a more sincere advice. Sometimes, what catches someone is not the content of the advice (as he may have already known about it but chooses to ignore it) but the sincerity of the advisor.

There are many more morals that we can derive from this story such as the manner in which the Sheikh chooses to advice the boy, how he allowed the boy’s father to be together when he advises, how the father feels it free and open to question the Sheikh why he needed a week to advice such simple advice and many more. You can start thinking about it yourself.

Blog adjourned.

The Handshake

Dreams. 

Some say it is our brain playing back what happened during the day but through some artistic way that our mind perceives it to be. Considering that we are not saints thus I am sure most of our dreams are not divinely inspired as how the Prophets had them.

I dream a lot. In fact, I dream every night. Sometimes, I remember and most of the other time I forget. And even if I remember a dream so very clearly, as much as I want to remember it for life, it often fades away from my memory after about 3-4 hours after waking up.

Anyhow, last night, I had this dream. I dreamt that I was somewhere and I saw a partner at my firm.

He held out his hand.And I held out mine to grab his hand to give him a handshake.

I remember seeing his hand.

And I also remember grabbing it and giving it a good shake.

The manly macho handshake.

But although he had a normal hand with five fingers and all, our handshake didn’t feel right. It actually felt really awkward.

Then I opened my eyes.

I saw my hand grabbing the Bride’s face.

I was like, “Eh?”

Then I realised I was dreaming.

I giggled to myself, rolled over to the other side and went back to sleep.

The Bride told me she felt me grabbing her face and heard me laugh. When I told her about my dream, she laughed too.

“At least”, I said, “I wasn’t dreaming of having another akad nikah right?” LoL!

*I don't think I was this gentle when i 'handshaked' the Bride's face hehe*

But this got me thinking. I guess when I say that a dream may be a form of way your mind replays the day’s incident? It also includes the stuff around you. To think that I knew where the Bride’s face to grab it in acting out my dream, it’s like knowing where to walk when you are sleep walking.

But the thing is, our eyes are closed!

Could this mean we could see without our eyes?

Hmmm...scary... but interesting...

I knew my cousin sleepwalked all the way from his room upstairs to the living room downstairs. This meant that he even went down the stairs while he was sleeping. And when everyone else woke up, they thought he ran away from the house but later found him sleeping in the living room. Haha. He’s a doctor now. I hope he doesn’t treat his patient while sleeping. Haha.

God knows best.

Blog adjourned.

A Gem In Petition Writing (1948) 14 MLJ xix

I have to share this with all of you. I just read this last week.

Sometime in July 1948, two thirsty grass cutter in Teluk Ansun, Perak went for a drink after a day’s work of grass cutting. Regrettably for them, they went for a drink with their grass cutting knives.

On the way home (being drunk) the fell to belabouring (attack / assault) one another with their knives.

They woke up in a hospital and the most unfortunate thing happened... they were charged in court. It is not mentioned what were they charged for but presuming that they had knives and injured each other to the extent of being admitted to the Hospital, causing grievous hurt would’ve been an apt charge against them.

Ask any lawyer or Judicial Officers and generally, they would say that one would not be freed easily for a grievous hurt charge. A short jail sentence would usually be the common sentence.

But these two men were lucky.

If you were in practice long before the new Jalan Duta Court was open, you might remember the uncles with the portable typewriters outside the Court typing court stuff for anyone who needed their services. I think these two men got a fine uncle who managed to type for them their petition to the Magistrate in charge of their case.

They were just cautioned and discharged.

Yes you read it. Cautioned and discharged. Not even convicted. Hehehe.

Want to know why?

Click the image below and read what they “wrote” to the Magistrate.

I have attached the scanned copy from the original 1948 MLJ as I am sure not many of you have that copy. It’s not even on the Lexis and Nexis MLJ online! I had to go to the library and search for this “gem” the old school way. But it’s really worth it. Read it.

It’s sooooo funny!!!

So any defence lawyer or Magistrate who needs some authority from the law journal can use this as a nice precedent when to ask / grant caution and discharge.

Blog adjourned.