The Truth Behind the K.K.K....

Kisah Kursus Kahwin
The Story of a Marriage Course

Last weekend, Wan & I went for our compulsory kursus kahwin... It was held in this old building in Bangsar and it ran for two whole days... Noon till evening on Saturday, Morning till evening on Sunday... There goes our weekend....

But well, since it's compulsory for us to obtain the marriage course certificate before being able to proceed with our wedding, we gladly made the sacrifice....

We drove to Bangsar after work, braved the massive traffic jam and foregoed our lunch.. I was not feeling very well, was fighting a cold, so I wasn't really looking forward to sitting through tediously boring lectures by holier-than-thou religious officers... Boy, was I guilty of blatant generalization...

A crowd had formed outside the registration line. Most of them were young, blur-looking and bored. After numerous P.A. announcements about registration and what forms to fill bla bla bla, we finally went into the lecture hall.

The Director of the Program, lets call him Mr.Star (I'll tell you why in a minute), gave his opening speech. He was obviously enamoured with local celebrities. We had noticed that the entire hall was filled with photos of him and the local celebs who came to take their course there. And then, in his speech, Mr.Star dropped names like a wannabe-celebrity... Kinda like, he thought some of the glitz might rub off on him if he mentioned them enough. Glam-by-Association.

A few minutes later, he introduced our first speaker.... the Director of JAKIM... Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia. I stifled a yawn... I was always under the impression that JAKIM (like JAIS, JAWI etc) was filled with people who thought they had reserved a place for themselves in heaven and everyone else would rot in hell. People who believe looking at women in skirts is a big sin and women wearing skirts as BIGGER sinners. People who believe that movies like Harry Potter is tahyul and should be banned... You know, people like that. So I was so not looking forward to it.

In walked the JAKIM dude... He fit the bill of my imagination. He had a beard and dressed in batik, with a gray bushjacket and a songkok. Mr.Star left the room and the JAKIM dude started speaking.

From then on, the course was unbelieavably pleasant. Totally exceeded my expectations. I was so ashamed, but GLAD to be proven wrong.

The speakers were hilarious! They were obviously religious people, they spoke about prayer and being true to the religion. But they did it so wonderfully and brilliantly. THIS is the form of dakwah (preaching) that everyone should emulate. Approachable and non-judgmental.

They spoke of communications with your spouse, about the respective responsibilities and duties about "marital relations"... Yeah.. there was plenty on that. They were quite detailed on THAT. They talked about tolerance, understanding, patience etc... And although most of these things should be common sense, it was well worth listening to them talk about it.

The speakers were briliant. None of them pretended to be angels.
One ustaz admitted to avidly watching the recent Miss World competition. He had excellent knowledge of the entertainment world, he knew all about women's choice of makeup and he could talk about music without sounding like an old goat.
Another Ustaz talked about the joys of air travel. Mainly the fact that one gets to be pampered by soft-spoken, gentle stewardesses. Of course the lesson there was that wives ought to treat their hubbies the same way.... but don't worry, there were a lot of useful lessons about how the hubbies should treat the wives too :)

All these lessons were taught with a great dose of humor. All these lessons were from the Holy Book AND their own experience as married men (and woman... The one lady speaker was unbelievably funny! AND she was the Kadi Besar!) These people don't pretend to be devoid of "sin". They don't seek to label your conduct as "sin" nor do they encourage you to DO "sin". They speak to you as one Muslim human being to another. And it was truly refreshing.

Wan & I completed our course and both of us shared the same sentiment.

We're glad we went, we're glad we went together and we can't wait to put all those lessons to good use!