4 days, 700 pages, Moscow, Tsarina and Islam

Bumi Cinta. was a humanistic novel, as people can see from the cover: Sebuah Novel Pembangun Jiwa, which means A Novel For The Soul. I bought this book from dear Popular Bookstore which now can easily be found at Tesco Sungai Petani, Selatan. My little heart jumped with joy knowing I can get access for books and DVD's as easy as ABC at my own hometown:)

This was the very first time in my whole life, which I dedicated all my leisure time to read and explore the beautiful and exciting contents of the novel itself, which sets in Russia. Habiburrahman El Shihrazy does somehow or rather deserved the award that he won as the best novelist in his country, Indonesia. He was the same person whom created Ayat-ayat Cinta, one of Malaysia's Mega Best Seller among the bookworms. 

When you witnessed the bookcover, you can easily tell, the story sets in Russia. That's what genuinely made me attracted to it. I really want to know more about Russia, even though it's no worth for me to keep thinking about Russia. Many people like to said bad things about the country itself since yes, it has been one of the popular communist region in history. Even the author of Bumi Cinta described how bad Russia is in terms of its humanities, social life, religion and the way of life. It tells the story of a young Indonesian scholar who are profoundly doing his researches in History at MGU, a university in Russia. How he has to accept to live in an apartment together with two non muhrim Russian women because of certain reasons like safety and mobility easiness. Most of the communities who live in Russia, typically the non muslims are described to be anthers. They don't believe in God and they live freely as what freedom sets them to be. Women and men can live together freely, many men are gays, mafia are everywhere, food are expensive, Russian are abusive and rough, don't speak Ruskee if you're not Russian, they do not like Asians and etc etc, making people who read the book, would just easily labeled Russia as a dangerous place to go. Not that I wanna make people scared over this matter, but that is how the author itself wrote in the novel. I myself, in a sudden feel so lucky to be here in Malaysia.

Besides description of dark sides of Russia, the author is smart in blending the plots with a lot of useful hadith, advice and verses from Kalamullah Quranul Karim which can easily take readers into the paradise of Islam. The author uses Muhammad Ayyas as the carrier of all the messages he wants to share with his readers and yes, I can happily say that he succeeds! 

Towards the end of the whole story, the twist urges me more when one of the Russian women, named Linor is actually a Palestinian, an Islam, who had been adopted by Jews. For 4 hours after midnight, I burn the midnight oil to complete my reading, which also I found some important and useful facts that can be related to medicine. :)

For 4 consecutive days, 700 pages and more, I learn a lot from Bumi Cinta. I learn how hard it is to have surrounding full of hatred towards our own religion. How cruel the Jews are. How jahil the Russian are. How easy one's faith can tumbled because of those gorgeous Tsarina. How empty the souls of the Russian are and How to hinder from Syaitan Laknatullah. I also learn a lot about those beautiful places in Russia, like Red Square, till there's a saying that goes "Don't say you have been to Russia, if you haven't seen the Red Square". My miss for ruskee was healed when I did jump into many russian words like Drashvihdaniya and more.

I would like to recommend this wonderful and energetic novel to those friends who are going to voyage to Russia in few days time. I guarantee they will get a good grip to their faith with this book.

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