Hidden Writer

“Your father and I are feeling very upset with you, how dare you publish your conversion to Islam into magazine? Do you ever realize that the whole world will be laughing at us?” My mother spoke to me via mobile phone.

“Stop writing any article at internet anymore, your father open the blog link based on magazine, he feels more stressed with everything you have done. You just convert into Islam, how much do you really understand about that religion?”

Alright, I thought I am always being criticized by local Muslim that I am not qualified to understand Islam, now my mom is thinking the same thing. The theory is like I’m not born to understand what Islam about, that’s exclusively for the lucky one who born to be Muslim. My mother was telling me this depressing comment few weeks before I received my 2012 Brass Crescent Award. I was so frustrated till ever wonder that I should be closing down my blog and live peacefully, perhaps fully underground Muslim life.

Whenever I go to the mosque, those environment keeps remind me that I’m belonging to Malaysia’s Double Minorities. Yeah just take a look around yourselves, you are the one and only Chinese dude at here. Who knows other might think I’m lost in this mosque while finding my way to somewhere else. If you ever wonder what the meaning is of “Double Minorities”, that’s mean:

• A Chinese who embraced Islam
• A Chinese who married with non-Chinese Muslim (Most probably Malay Muslim)

Apparently, I didn’t listen to my parent’s advice at 2012. This blog still alive and all praises to Allah, I manage to get Honorable Mentioned – Best Regional Blog this year. The largest changes in my life since that conversation with my mom is, I stepped away from Magazine interview and TV interview. Staying out of the limelight so that my non-Muslim friends and relatives won’t aware my Muslim identity. This is kind of pathetic because I can’t tell my family that I just won some award, on the contrary the award I gain is really bad news for them, a truly “Family apostasy” that forgotten my Chinese cultural and identity.

Everything happens out of my expectation, although getting upset with my family disagreement regarding my interview in magazine, few days later I wrote a blogpost titled as The Whisper Of Kelantan Beach to praise the beauty of Allah’s creation. Perhaps I am ignorant enough with them, I just can’t let go of my passionate in sharing the beauty of Islam and breakthrough those misconception from our community. I am not a talkative person, so I take writing as an alternative to share my thoughts. Indeed it saves a lot of my time and energy to tell public the same story over and over again.

“Actually you and The Rocking Hijab books are publisher’s first attempt ever. We never publish any of the reverted Muslim books before.” After I finish my public speech regarding my book “Dengan Lafaz Dua Kalimah Syahadah (recitations of the shahadah)” at Islam Book Fair Selangor 9 few weeks ago, one of the officers told I about that.

“How could that be? I believe there must be a lot reverted Muslim submit manuscript to publisher?”
“I can’t tell you much about that, but I may say most of their manuscript isn’t published. By the way, how do you manage to contact with my publisher?”

Well… It started with an email. Seems like I’m kind of late to tell the story of my book publication, it has been released since Ramadhan month 2013. I was received an email from Must Read publisher last year December, they inform me that perhaps I can try to publish a book after they read my blog article. Again, I was stuck between the decisions of YES or NO.

YES! I should publish my first book ever to spread the message of Islam in Malay language!
NO…. My family will be getting upset again if they found out my book publication.

I took a deep thought about writing a book, in the end I decided to write a book in the will of serving Allah SWT. As we all know that very few Malay book talks about reverted Muslim with in depth information. Most of the reverted Muslim books are just mourning about how difficult to live as Muslim, so pathetic and sarcastic till almost get killed by depression. I know it because I was reading those books before I embraced Islam. Eventually I know nothing about Islam except emotional feelings from authors.

On the other hand, it’s time to deal with the real world based on al-Quran and Sunnah. Although reverted Muslim is still remain to be minorities, that doesn’t mean we must ignore the importance of inviting our non Muslim friend to take a look at Islam! Introducing what Islam briefly about and how they would manage to get rid of misconception is the most important knowledge for everyone. Most of the Islamic book we may found at bookshop is a bit advanced for non Muslim reader.

After I submit my manuscript, I specially request to publisher that don’t put my photo into author’s profile. Just in case my family found out my book, there wouldn’t be clear evidence that I’m the author. Although I become hidden writer that seldom show up myself, I’ll just let my blog and book do the talking part for me.



What do I mean "I'm living 2 kind of life"?
A humble way of life in reality that no one knows I'm blogger and writer, while another life goes into my articles.