Religious guide to lead a happy life

Reviewed by U.L.A. Majeed

'Path to a good life' is a combination of several matters, such as spiritual, legal, marital and other worldly affairs concerning human life. Ameen has selected some vital matters which can lead a person on a path to a good life. The book contain 14 Chapters; and for the purpose of my review, I have grouped the contents in the following manner.

Chapter 1 to 5 deal with Life on Earth, Life hereafter, Personal Qualities, Love the Humanity, and Peaceful marriage.

The above chapters contain the qualities necessary for a good life of a person, namely, Meaning of life in the present world and to get ready for the life hereafter, Spiritual life, Personal qualities of person that makes him a good person in the eyes of others.

Path to a Good Life

The author while giving the ways to lead a good life, speaks about the following characters one should have.

Good conduct is most important for a good life. The Holy Prophet (Sal) said "Innamal Aghmalu Bin Niyyat" The conduct of a man depends on the intention.

Punctuality is a cardinal principle in Islam. For example, all the five prayers are performed at the prescribed times. The funeral is taken in quick time, to say within 24 hours of the death of person. The author laments that though funerals are taken quickly, wedding are not taking place at the fixed time. He quotes an incident where the invitation said the invitees to be present at 7.45 p.m. He had gone on time. He says the bride came to hotel at 9.20 p.m. and the bridegroom at 9.40 p.m. and the dinner was served at 10 p.m. This practice must be corrected.

He concludes that punctuality is an essential factor for good life. We find punctuality in Islam in several other matters also. Compulsory fasting and pilgrimage to Hajj are also done according to set schedules and in particular months.

The author speaks about criminals, and mentions Lombroso's theory that the criminals are born as criminals. 'This theory is now rejected and there are no born criminals'. But the author says that there are born defectives who become criminals. He says that "in reality, many criminals as normal. They are often cleverer than policemen and judges."

It is said that Saints had a past and sinners have a future. This saying is true in many respects. The prison and other authorities take steps to rehabilitate criminals as well as terrorists to bring them back to normal life and to mix with the other people in the society. But one thing is certain, however much training or rehabilitation programs are conducted for the criminals, unless they themselves have the mind to come back to normal life, nothing will give a good result.

In this respect, some of us know the story of a criminal who killed 99 persons and decided to reform himself and went to meet someone who could guide him. He met a priest on the way and told him about his past and that he wanted to become a good citizen. The priest said "Oh you murderer!, you have killed 99 persons. You will never enter heaven and hell is the place for you." The criminal got angry and killed the priest and made his record at 100. Thereafter, he proceeded to walk further. On the way, he met another priest.

The criminal told the priest his past story. The priest advised him that he has a good future and told him to go to a nearby village where there are good people with whom he can associate and become a good man. On the way God had ordered the Angels (two of them) to take his life. Between the two Angels there is a difference of opinion as to whether to send his soul to heaven or to hell, and finally they decided to measure the length of distance he had already walked and the distance he had to walk. They found the distance he walked was more than the distance he had to walk. Since he has walked more distance towards a good cause, they decided to send his soul to the heaven. This story reminds us how a criminal became a good man by his own corrective intention.

Kindness to parents is also another matter the author has gone into. Whilst the author finding fault with children in the affluent families to sent their parents to Elder's Home, and thereafter they do not take any care of them. Which is un-Islamic, he mentions a story where a son brought tea for his father to drink and found him asleep, the son waited till the father woke up and to give the tea as he did not wish to disturb his father's sleep. This habit of the son is a good lesson for our youngsters.

Love humanity is yet another matter the author has described. He narrates a poem of Jalaluddeen Rumy, one of the most influential mystics in the world in relation to love of humanity. He said 'to love human beings is to love God.' The poem goes like this:-

"Come, come, let us appreciate each other, beware of the value of Each other,

Because you never knew. We might suddenly be separated.

Now that our Prophet has said: The believer is the mirror of the believer".

Why are we turning our face from the mirror?

Grudges and hate darken friendship and injure the heart. Why don't we tear out and throw away grudges from the heart. (ibid Vol. iii 1535)

The writer abundantly speaks about the status of women in Islam and in the pre-Islamic days. How the female children were treated by their parents in the pre-Islamic period, and how they were liberated by the Holy Prophet (Sal) and were given equal rights are beautifully by described in the book. In this regard it must be mentioned that the last chapter of this group of personal life is "Peaceful Marriage".

It is generally said that marriages are made in heaven. But Islam says, Almighty Allah makes the correct partners among men and women. Hence, it is a divine blessing that a man gets his suitable partner and woman gets her suitable husband for the rest of their life. Although a Muslim is allowed to marry four women, there are restrictions to this allowance. The author says that "Marriage in Islam is something unique with very special features of both sacramental and contractual nature. It is equally true that the alternative to this casual or temporary extremity is not the other extreme or absolute indissolubility of the marital contract."

Marriage is a sunnah of Prophet (Sal) Holy Qur'an says, 'Marry two or three or four provided you can treat them equally in all respects. Thus, it may be said 'Islam promotes monogamy while it allows polygamy, "Marry two, four" is misunderstood. The proviso to this Sura, "Provided you can treat them justly" is conveniently forgotten. The author cites a saying of the Prophet (Sal) (at page 16) that "condemned are the men and women who relish the frequent change of marital partners, that is, the "tasters" who enjoy one partner for a while, then shift to another, then to a third and so on".

Readers must know what the impediments are of marriage according to the Sharia Law. Ameen describes in a nutshell, with relevant authorities, the various legal impediments a Muslim man or woman faces when he or she wants to marry.

Under the topic of Peaceful Marriage, the author gives the reader the duty of a husband and the duty of a wife, towards each other and for the family in general. With regard to married life, the author in chapter 8 touches on the question of the husband and wife understanding each other, about education of the children in chapter 9 and about children and grandchildren in chapter 10.

Incidentally, his book is dedicated to his newly wedded son Ahmed Al Ameen and his wife Juffriya Naushad. the author has selected the correct time for the publication of this book which, I think, would be more useful to the newly wedded couple as well as the newly wedded couples who have just started their married life in the recent past. Chapters 6, 7 and 11 deal with Divine Law, Muslim law in general and the Muslim law of Inheritance.

As we are aware, the Muslim law is based on:- the Holy Qur'an, The Hadiths - preaching and practices of the Holy Prophet, Ijma - Opinions of jurists, and Qiyas - the consensus of his companions and jurists, the analogical deductions of the opinions.

The author has given details of the above and the schools of jurisprudence of the Imams who founded them.

The Muslim law of Marriage and Divorce is a matter which is now under review by a Cabinet Committee. As the said committee's recommendations are still awaited, I do not want to make a review on the matters mentioned about it in the book.

In chapter 11, the author has gone into the question of inheritance in the Muslim Law. Every one knows that the Muslim law of intestate succession is a complicated matter as far as the shares are concerned. The Muslim law in this regard is completely different from the Common Law - the Roman Dutch law. If one knows the Muslim Law of succession clearly and thoroughly, he is deemed to know the entire law of succession.

The reader can strengthen his knowledge in this field by reading the materials given in the book. Ameen has reproduced some of the matters in his earlier book on Muslim law of succession.

Whilst chapter 12 deals with human rights, which is a matter commonly talked about the world over in the present days, chapter 13 deals with SALAT (Prayers).

As everything ends with "bites and drinks", the book too ends with the last chapter on "Good food and health". Like a physician, the author has prescribed good food, especially for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He has also given ideas to have snacks and late dinner.

The author has not only given ideas about good food, but also has prescribed medicine to cure various maladies. Readers who indulge in good food and healthy life may have these ideas as guidelines for their good health. In this regard I wish to conclude with the saying: "Eat your breakfast, share your lunch with another and give your dinner to your enemy.

As a whole the book is a treat for readers who indulge in good reading. The book contains interesting materials for all types of people.

(The writer is a retired High Court Judge.)

Tigress takes centre stage in anthology of short stories

"A Tigress of Kilinochchi"

Author: Lucky de Chickera.

Reviewed by Katherine Abeykone

"A Tigress of Kilinochchi" is de Chickera's a compilation of eleven stories, all of them fiction, and written many years ago. The Tigress takes centre stage as it is the longest story in the compilation, taking up more than half the book. It's a story based on the ethnic war that our country experienced and tells of a Tamil family and the problems they faced during and after the eruptions of July '83. One sees the division that arises in a family caused by the fighting between Racists on both sides of the divide. An innocent young girl hardens her stance after going through the murder of her mother, and becomes a Black Tiger hell bent on taking revenge on the people who degraded and killed her kith and kin. Her sister is more conciliatory and although having experienced the same tragedies looks to forgive and reconcile with the same people, saying there are good and bad in all races, and all individuals. The author gives a fairly vivid description of the airport attack bringing in the Black Tigress as a participant and leader, which is all part and parcel of his made up-story, and then links it to an attempt to a further heinous tragedy which fails, due to the vigilance of our forces. Both sides of the problem are aptly described in this story which ends with a epilogue of the tragic times, in a bomb blast in a bus, killing and maiming many Aluth Avurudu passengers.

The author closes on a warning note by saying, "Kamal is still at large and will make his appearance once again when he gets his next assignment instructions from Kilinochchi or elsewhere". I wonder whether this is an opening for another book.

With regard to the other ten stories, they deal with very mundane day to day happenings but given very distinct twists in the author's inimitable style. I like the first story ‘NEIGHBOURS’, where the author relates something that usually happens in some form or the other between our middle class neighbours who cannot live as "neighbours" due to external or internal pressures of day to day living, and then end up in tragedy.

The two mystic stories involving Cecil and Cedric and told in a yesteryear's setting are more nostalgic of those idyllic days rather than being of the supernatural which the author may want to highlight. It brings to mind the days when young men rode on push bikes, instead of driving their father's cars, Himani gardens of Thimbirigasyaya a popular and only food outlet in the area, and the Torrington bakery, which has gone up in dust today.

The classic "Bombai Muttai" was another tale that took me back to my childhood, and vendors whom I though had gone for good suddenly sprang up from the dim recesses of my mind to tingle the taste buds of those bygone days. Thank you Lucky for this.

"Filial Folly" deals with an experience that no young girl wants to be faced with, being left in the lurch at church, by her fiancee who has a past to be dealt with. Today's young people in my opinion are far more street wise and would rarely get caught out in this fashion. The author's slip is exposed, I thought.

‘ACHCHA Ho’! To my mind appears to be a filler and not a story of substance, although one may not see it like that. The author has touched on an incident of possibly the "achcharu" or on the old woman's death, and then filled up round the incident; a story, would be told differently and not the way it has been recounted here with stops and starts of a "filling nature". May be de Chickera had other ideas of a story to include and made a last ditch decision to include the old Kadalai Achchie. We will never know.

The stories "One Way track", and "The female of the Species", are mediocre stuff and again would probably be stories written during the author's halycon days as a writer when he wrote for the files.

"The Dead End Kid" is a tear jerker, a story that one hears again and again at church meetings, and social club gatherings, when people discuss the sad plight of our beach children, who are given handouts by these snobs who think they have solved a social problem by making a big show of these handouts and getting their picture in the papers with large headlines that a box of food has been given to a family on the beach.

De Chickera has very subtly shown the difference between those who give from the heart and those who give to get their picture in the press. I wonder whether there is a parallel here between the way aid is dished out to the poor countries, with strings attached by the so called rich countries, and the way our charity organisations handout to the poor of the land, ensuring that they remain poor with their heads just above the water. How else could they justify their own existence?

Finally, the author's own experience of that Black day in July 1983 which will always remain a blotch in our history books, where he explicitly takes us through the car ride he made with his passengers to relative safety from the rampaging mobs in his "July 83". Just as Elmo did at the launch, I would like to quote from the author's book;

"It all took place 25 years ago and tarnished the beautiful serenity of our paradise island. Dissatisfied politicians, designing extremists, drunken puppets, gun totting terrorists, and meddling foreign powers, all combined to make the latter half of July a blackened part of our history, all at the expense of its citizenry. The country that ambled on lazily from one sun drenched day to the next, where smiling people were never in a hurry, suddenly became a black hole of national and international politics where men took leave of their senses and behaved worse than beasts. The mayhem that manifested itself on that dark day in July '83 still continues tearing relentlessly at our Paradise Island.

We that still live in this beautiful land, are hopeful that someday soon, peace will come, and once more we could all truly call Sri Lanka, a land like no other.

Give us the right to live!

Reviewed by Manju Gunasekera

Recently I happened to come across an effective little book in Sinhala 'Apata Jeevath Venna Id Denna' (Give us the right to live) by veteran journalist Sriya Rathnakara, published by Buddhist Cultural Center, Nedimala with the leadership of Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Thera. This book has been written with the pure motive of preventing harm to animals (Ahimsa).

'Apata Jeevath Venna Ida Denna' Author: Sriya Rathnakara

I was inspired to write this article mainly due to a few reasons, namely

(1) The pain and agony cattle experience when and before they are slaughtered mercilessly.

(2) A few media programs that display cattle slaughter with visuals and songs that arouse pathetic feelings.

(3) Our Successful efforts in saving a number of cattle, some with the assistance of the Kandy Humanitarian Association.

(4) Entrusting the care of the saved cattle to low income peasants.

(5) Promoting awareness on the above matters in a silent manner to many individuals including Peradeniya University students, staff and other institutions.

(6) The generous donations given by kind hearted individuals to save cattle from death and torture.

(7) Examples shown by voluntary organisations such as "Gal Gava Mithuro" (friends of the cart bulls).

These activities were done with my good friend T.S. Shanthini a Hindu devotee who also prays to God for the sake of animals together with family members, relatives and other friends. In fact in Hinduism the cow is considered a sacred being associated with Lord Krishna. Sri Lanka with its traditional agricultural economy should protect the cattle as part and parcel of its, agricultural activity. When questioned those who involve themselves in cattle slaughter mentioned that they have no other employment opportunity. It is no doubt a lame excuse. With dairy farming if encouraged there is ample opportunity for income generation for the poor.

The author explains the reasons of inspiration for writing this useful booklet of forty eight pages in Sinhala.

One is her dislike since 8 years of age to touch and eat non-vegetarian foods. According to her own words she considers her being born to a vegetarian family as a meritorious blessing. She was also praised by her father explaining the ill effects of taking meat. Sriya Rathnakara comments about her husband Prof. Thilak Rathnakara, former Vice Chancellor of Kelaniya University as a person who became a teetotaller after going on pilgrimage to India.

The contents in this valuable book on preventing cruelty to animals includes the following subtitles which cover a vast range of subjects such as.

"May all beings be happy, We (animals) also have a right to live. How the meat eater of today would experience ill effects of it, We are the cemetery of animals killed, Are we eating the flesh of Bodhisatvas? It is only man who acts against the Dhamma, "Parents now is the time to think about this and finally listen to my story".

Sriya Rathnakara begins the book by saying that we love our mother and in the same way we love our motherland. We are born as human beings due to the merits we have attained in our previous lives. Being born a human being is a rare privilege and being such humans should we move forward or backwards? The author comments that we should move forward and try to end this cycle of births-Sansara. Buddhism helps us to achieve this.

The journey to death of animals such as cows, goats, pigs and chicken is one of terror and most of these animals feel it. Some human beings take for granted that animals do not have emotions which infact is not the case. This fear and hatred towards human beings who destroy them also penetrates their flesh at that time. The author of this book believes and states that even the egg has life in it. Hence, when eating eggs it is like committing an act of abortion. She goes on to say how the hen has hopes to deliver a nice little chicken and that it has her own right for doing so like any human mother.

There is no maitri in the person who consumes meat. The person who is motivated to eat meat develops hatred in his/her blood. This in turn makes him a sick person. It has been found in a research that 75% of prisoners have been meat eaters and Sriya Rathnakara also questions whether we are eating the meat of bodhisatva. In sansara we meet and live with various individuals as our parents, sisters, brothers etc and one cannot say whether such a person has been born as an animal in this birth. Without knowing this consciously we consume animal flesh.

"Dear parents, now is the time to think about this." The author even goes to the extent of saying that it is not suitable to have birthday cakes made in the shape of animals like a cat, dog etc. as the child would be encouraged to cut these. The writer goes on to the extent of asking parents to refrain from giving meat to their children. She states that doctors have found that a proper diet can be given without meat and eggs and other substitutes can be consumed instead.

The well illustrated picture on the front cover of this book depicts the expression of gratitude of the cow saved from the torture of death by Ven. Ahangama Ananda. Professor Nandasena Rathnapala the well-known Sociologist in his book 'Ditta Dhamma Vedaniya Kamma', states how the karmic actions bring forth similar results in this birth itself. Through his researches on a number of cases he was able to find where people who had tortured and slaughtered cattle suffered immensely in similar manner before their death in this life itself.

Professor Gunapala Dharmasiri, in his book "Fundamentals of Buddhist Ethics" refers to the fact that animals are in no way inferior to human beings and as living beings on this earth we all have equal rights to our existence. The reference also is made to how an elephant and a monkey fed the Buddha when he was at Parileyya forest.

Domesticated animals such as the cat, dog and cow when given a lot of love and care by humans are said to evolve to the level of human beings in another birth which is a long process and a very rare occurence.

Satya Sai Baba who represents as a spiritual leader of all religions has immense love and kindness for animals as well.

It is well-known that the spread of Buddhism made the concept of Ahimsa spread in Asia. Historically King Ashoka of India later became a true Buddhist and even prohibited animal slaughter legally. King Dutugemunu prohibited killing of animals, fishing and even attacking or killing birds. It is said that King Elara even listened to the complaints of animals.

(The writer is a Fulbright Scholar and Senior Lecturer at the Dept. of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Peradeniya.)

Book Launch

"Sinhale Jathika Satan"

The latest edition of Dayawansa Jayakody's Sinhale Jathika Satan will be launched at the New York Buddhist Vihara, the United States of America on August 29 at 10 a.m.

The book chronicles all the national struggles that took place from 1739 to 1848.

The book which is an author publication will be available at Dayawansa Jayakody Bookshop, Colombo 10.