NEICC SOCIAL FAMILY NIGHT

 

 

NEICC held its monthly social family gathering on Oct 5th, at Turkish Cultural Center, Clifton, NJ. As scheduled, program started on time with delicious potluck dinner from variety of authentic cuisines.

Following dinner, Quran recitation was given by Chaplain Muharrem Atlig, PhD, (Chaplain at NY Veteran Hospital) with a beautiful soothing voice. After that, also as a guest speaker, Dr.  Atlig gave a speech on the subject of “How much pine oil do we really need”. He started his speech by pointing the same question to the audience first. To everybody’s wonder, he then repeated the same question by substituting the “pine oil” with God. He then deep dived into the subject by stating that the level of one’s belief is measured by how much one has God in his daily life. He then went on to explain the difference between muslim and mu’meen (a true believer). He stated that the difference will appear in the instant reaction of a person, when calamities or difficulties hit him for the first time. A mu’meen will know that all these difficulties are from God, while a muslim shows a reaction by questioning “Why this happening to me”. Mu’meen will every time see the hand of God behind all difficulties and embraces them as all coming from God. Thus, in the face of difficulties, a mu’meen will be closer to God by praying more. After giving more examples from his past experiences, he concluded stating, if one wants to make life easier for him, then one should have God more in his life, much more than pine oil.

While the speech was concluding, the initial wonder and confusion of audiences towards the topic transformed into a great interest. At the end, while audiences were dismissing from the program, it was apparent in everybody’s mind that being a muslim was not enough to stand against daily life difficulties, and one need to work much harder spiritually to renovate from a muslim to a mu’meen.