By  Saadon Aksah

I was told that the sight of the moon rising when pilgrims were leaving the Arafat plain for Muzdalifah – the two places visited on their route while performing the hajj – was a sight to behold.

Huge and luminous, the rising moon is a prominent object against the backdrop of the supposedly barren desert.

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“Perhaps PAS (Islamic Party of Malaysia) leaders came up with a flag of a full moon against a backdrop of a green colour after they had seen the rising moon there,” a Hajjah who had performed her fifth obligations as pilgrims to Mecca twice, but yet pined for more opportunities once told me.

“It is truly wondrous and it seems so near, yet so far,” she said.

Although I have not yet the opportunity to enquire whether her surmise is correct but nevertheless, her recounts of seeing the rising full moon was among the most memorable descriptions of the time she had there.

I’d like to experience it, if God wills it, because more often than not, we have to be at the scene to decide for ourselves whether we will incline to agree with a certain assertion.

Unless, if you are the type that would be contented to take any assertions at it’s face value, and be prepared to live from its consequences.

A jungle in Singapore

I always picture Singapore as a country where every inch of its space was occupied with buildings and not an inch of land to spare. After all they had to go to the extent of doing reclamation works.

It also doesn’t help when my friends reinforced that perception with their remarks prior to my visit to the city state.

“Singapore?,” a friend said in a louder than necessary voice to feign surprise.

“What do you want to see there? It’s concrete buildings everywhere,” he said.

But I was quite surprised to find a highway going through some of the densest jungle that I’ve seen and a jungle track in Sentosa Island that reminded me of my father orchard back home.

“Look at all those trees. They are of the well selected type,” another friend who had been working at the city state for a number of years now told me while we were walking down a street to catch an MRT service.

“Its different from the type of trees planted in Kuala Lumpur downtown area,” he said.

I just nodded along and remarked that a society that insists on good planning and practices zero tolerance for corruption could indeed achieve excellent development.

He was not a botanist nor a landscapist, but I don’t think it takes a genius to see that he made a fair assessment.

Shades of gray

Similarly, I have learnt that a mismatch between the perceptions of a place with its true condition also applies to abstract concepts.

I’m now more inclined to believe that more and more assertions that I have been told as black and white were actually the shades of gray, predetermined by those politically in power.

But then again at the end of the day, it’s really up to an individual to make that final call.

Like a friend who remarked on the latest brouhaha concerning a student who remixed the national anthem of Malaysia.

“In Malaysia no matter how true(ly misrepresented) some things are, they are better be left unsaid,” he said.

In the meantime, I have a suspicion that the sight of the rising moon as one was leaving the Arafat plain, to be just that – plain wondrous.

Otherwise how else could I explain the glint of excitement on the Hajjah’s eyes every time her youngest son on the few rare occasions managed to scrape out a few ringgits from his modest salary for the Hajjah to tuck away for her next trip to Mecca?

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