PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

FAEDAH TANAH HARAM MAKKAH

Tanah haram jika dimutlakkan secara umum yang dimaksudkan adalah tanah Haram Makkah. Inilah tanah yang dimuliakan oleh Allah dan Rasul-Nya shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. Jika disebut Haromain, maka yang dimaksudkan adalah Makkah dan Madinah. Ibnu Qayyim Al Jauziyah menyebutkan dalam Zaadul Ma’ad, “Allah Ta’ala telah memilih beberapa tempat dan negeri, yang terbaik serta termulia adalah tanah Haram. Karena Allah Ta’ala telah memilih bagi nabinya –shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam- dan menjadikannya sebagai tempat manasik dan sebagai tempat menunaikan kewajiban. Orang dari dekat maupun jauh dari segala penjuru akan mendatangi tanah yang mulia tersebut.”

Di antara keutamaan tanah haram Makkah disebutkan dalam beberapa ayat dan hadits berikut.

Pertama: Di Makkah terdapat baitullah

Sebagaimana Allah menyebutkan mengenai do’a Nabi Allah –kholilullah (kekasih Allah)- Ibrahim ‘alaihis salam,

رَبَّنَا إِنِّي أَسْكَنْتُ مِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِي بِوَادٍ غَيْرِ ذِي زَرْعٍ عِنْدَ بَيْتِكَ الْمُحَرَّمِ رَبَّنَا لِيُقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ فَاجْعَلْ أَفْئِدَةً مِنَ النَّاسِ تَهْوِي إِلَيْهِمْ وَارْزُقْهُمْ مِنَ الثَّمَرَاتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَشْكُرُونَ

“Ya Rabb kami, sesungguhnya aku telah menempatkan sebahagian keturunanku di lembah yang tidak mempunyai tanam-tanaman di dekat rumah Engkau (Baitullah) yang dihormati, ya Rabb kami (yang demikian itu) agar mereka mendirikan shalat, maka jadikanlah hati sebagian manusia cenderung kepada mereka dan beri rezkilah mereka dari buah-buahan, mudah-mudahan mereka bersyukur.” (QS. Ibrahim: 37).

Rumah pertama yang dijadikan peribadatan kepada Allah Ta’ala adalah baitullah sebagaimana disebutkan dalam ayat,

إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَهُدًى لِلْعَالَمِينَ

“Sesungguhnya rumah yang mula-mula dibangun untuk (tempat beribadat) manusia, ialah Baitullah yang di Bakkah (Mekah) yang diberkahi dan menjadi petunjuk bagi semua manusia” (QS. Ali Imran: 96).

Dan baitullah inilah yang dijadikan tempat berhaji sebagaimana disebutkan dalam ayat,

وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّ الْبَيْتِ مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا

“Mengerjakan haji adalah kewajiban manusia terhadap Allah, yaitu (bagi) orang yang sanggup mengadakan perjalanan ke Baitullah” (QS. Ali Imran: 97).

Haji ini dijadikan sebagai amalan penghapus dosa yang telah lalu Dari Abu Hurairah, ia berkata bahwa ia mendengar Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam bersabda,

مَنْ حَجَّ لِلَّهِ فَلَمْ يَرْفُثْ وَلَمْ يَفْسُقْ رَجَعَ كَيَوْمِ وَلَدَتْهُ أُمُّهُ

“Siapa yang berhaji ke Ka’bah lalu tidak berkata-kata seronok dan tidak berbuat kefasikan maka dia pulang ke negerinya sebagaimana ketika dilahirkan oleh ibunya.” (Muttafaqun ‘alaih).

Sebagaimana shalat di baitullah juga dilipatgandakan. Dari Jabir, Nabi shallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam bersabda,

صَلاَةٌ فِى مَسْجِدِى أَفْضَلُ مِنْ أَلْفِ صَلاَةٍ فِيمَا سِوَاهُ إِلاَّ الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَ وَصَلاَةٌ فِى الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ أَفْضَلُ مِنْ مِائَةِ أَلْفِ صَلاَةٍ فِيمَا سِوَاهُ

“Shalat di masjidku (Masjid Nabawi) lebih utama daripada 1000 shalat di masjid lainnya selain Masjidil Harom. Shalat di Masjidil Harom lebih utama daripada 100.000 shalat di masjid lainnya.” (HR. Ahmad 3/343 dan Ibnu Majah no. 1406, dari Jabir bin ‘Abdillah. Syaikh Al Albani mengatakan bahwa hadits ini shahih. Lihat Shahih At Targhib wa At Tarhib no. 1173).

Kedua: Tanah haram dijadikan tempat yang penuh rasa aman

Inilah berkat do’a Nabi Ibrahim ‘alaihis salam,

وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ رَبِّ اجْعَلْ هَذَا بَلَدًا آَمِنًا وَارْزُقْ أَهْلَهُ مِنَ الثَّمَرَاتِ مَنْ آَمَنَ مِنْهُمْ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآَخِرِ قَالَ وَمَنْ كَفَرَ فَأُمَتِّعُهُ قَلِيلًا ثُمَّ أَضْطَرُّهُ إِلَى عَذَابِ النَّارِ وَبِئْسَ الْمَصِيرُ

“Dan (ingatlah), ketika Ibrahim berdoa: “Ya Rabbku, jadikanlah negeri ini, negeri yang aman sentosa, dan berikanlah rezki dari buah-buahan kepada penduduknya yang beriman di antara mereka kepada Allah dan hari kemudian. Allah berfirman: “Dan kepada orang yang kafirpun Aku beri kesenangan sementara, kemudian Aku paksa ia menjalani siksa neraka dan itulah seburuk-buruk tempat kembali“.” (QS. Al Baqarah: 126).

Begitu pula disebutkan dalam ayat lainnya,

وَمَنْ دَخَلَهُ كَانَ آَمِنًا

“Barangsiapa memasukinya (Baitullah itu) menjadi amanlah dia” (QS. Ali Imran: 97).

Kaum Quraisy di masa silam juga merasakan rasa aman ketika safar mereka,

الَّذِي أَطْعَمَهُمْ مِنْ جُوعٍ وَآَمَنَهُمْ مِنْ خَوْفٍ

“Yang telah memberi makanan kepada mereka untuk menghilangkan lapar dan mengamankan mereka dari ketakutan” (QS. Quraisy: 4).

Ketiga: Rizki begitu berlipat di tanah haram.

Inilah juga berkat do’a Nabi Ibrahim ‘alaihis salam,

رَبَّنَا إِنِّي أَسْكَنْتُ مِنْ ذُرِّيَّتِي بِوَادٍ غَيْرِ ذِي زَرْعٍ عِنْدَ بَيْتِكَ الْمُحَرَّمِ رَبَّنَا لِيُقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ فَاجْعَلْ أَفْئِدَةً مِنَ النَّاسِ تَهْوِي إِلَيْهِمْ وَارْزُقْهُمْ مِنَ الثَّمَرَاتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَشْكُرُونَ

 “Ya Tuhan kami, sesungguhnya aku telah menempatkan sebahagian keturunanku di lembah yang tidak mempunyai tanam-tanaman di dekat rumah Engkau (Baitullah) yang dihormati, ya Tuhan kami (yang demikian itu) agar mereka mendirikan shalat, maka jadikanlah hati sebagian manusia cenderung kepada mereka dan beri rezkilah mereka dari buah-buahan, mudah-mudahan mereka bersyukur.” (QS. Ibrahim: 37).

Keempat: Tanah Haram tidak akan dimasuki Dajjal

Dajjal akan muncul dari Ashbahan dan akan menelusuri muka bumi. Tidak ada satu negeri pun melainkan Dajjal akan mampir di tempat tersebut. Yang dikecualikan di sini adalah Makkah dan Madinah karena malaikat akan menjaga dua kota tersebut. Dajjal tidak akan memasuki kedunya hingga akhir zaman. Dalam hadits Fathimah bin Qois radhiyallahu ‘anha disebutkan bahwa Dajjal mengatakan,

فَأَخْرُجَ فَأَسِيرَ فِى الأَرْضِ فَلاَ أَدَعَ قَرْيَةً إِلاَّ هَبَطْتُهَا فِى أَرْبَعِينَ لَيْلَةً غَيْرَ مَكَّةَ وَطَيْبَةَ فَهُمَا مُحَرَّمَتَانِ عَلَىَّ كِلْتَاهُمَا كُلَّمَا أَرَدْتُ أَنْ أَدْخُلَ وَاحِدَةً أَوْ وَاحِدًا مِنْهُمَا اسْتَقْبَلَنِى مَلَكٌ بِيَدِهِ السَّيْفُ صَلْتًا يَصُدُّنِى عَنْهَا وَإِنَّ عَلَى كُلِّ نَقْبٍ مِنْهَا مَلاَئِكَةً يَحْرُسُونَهَا

“Aku akan keluar dan menelusuri muka bumi. Tidaklah aku membiarkan suatu daerah kecuali pasti aku singgahi dalam masa empat puluh malam selain Makkah dan Thoybah (Madinah Nabawiyyah). Kedua kota tersebut diharamkan bagiku. Tatkala aku ingin memasuki salah satu dari dua kota tersebut, malaikat menemuiku dan menghadangku dengan pedangnya yang mengkilap. Dan di setiap jalan bukit ada malaikat yang menjaganya.” (HR. Muslim no. 2942)

Dan Dajjal tidak akan memasuki empat masjid. Dalam hadits disebutkan tentang Dajjal,

لاَ يَأْتِى أَرْبَعَةَ مَسَاجِدَ الْكَعْبَةَ وَمَسْجِدَ الرَّسُولِ والْمَسْجِدَ الأَقْصَى وَالطُّورَ

“Dajjal tidak akan memasuki empat masjid: masjid Ka’bah (masjidil Haram), masjid Rasul (masjid Nabawi), masjid Al Aqsho’, dan masjid Ath Thur.” (HR. Ahmad 5: 364. Kata Syaikh Syu’aib Al Arnauth, sanad hadits ini shahih)

Wallahu waliyyut taufiq.

@ Madinah An Nabawiyah, 14 Sya’ban 1433 H

Penulis: Muhammad Abduh Tuasikal

Sumber : http://muslim.or.id

Baca Artikel Lainnya : PENGETAHUAN UMUM IBADAH UMROH

ALAM INDONESIA SEDANG MENCARI KESEIMBANGAN BARU

saco-indonesia.com, Gejolak alam yang telah melanda Indonesia saat ini seringkali dianggap sebagai bencana lantaran telah menimbulkan kerusakan di mana-mana. Padahal, menurut Kepala Pusat Meteorologi Publik Badan Meteorologi Klimatologi dan Geofisika (BMKG), Prabowo, saat ini alam tengah mencari keseimbangan baru untuk bagian alam yang lainnya.
 
“Alam saat ini sedang mencari keseimbangan baru. Pada saat ini, gaya desakan dan dorongan energi dari dalam bumi telah menyebabkan retakan sehingga tanah akan bergeser kemudian menyebabkan longsor misalnya ini akan menyebabkan ketidakseimbangan alam,” kata Prabowo saat berbincang dengan Okezone, Senin (3/2/2014) malam.
 
Selain itu, kata Prabowo, meletusnya Gunung Sinabung juga merupakan dampak dari ketidakseimbangan alam karena adanya magma dingin yang masih belum keluar dari dalam perut bumi.
 
“Kondisi yang gejolak alam yang telah terjadi bersamaan menunjukkan adanya akumulasi ketidakseimbangan alam yang bersamaan. Hanya saja karena telah terjadi mendadak, menimbulkan bahaya dan bencana,” terangnya.
 
Disampaikan Prabowo, setelah alam stabil dan telah menemukan keseimbangan baru, gejolak alam akan mereda dan membawa dampak positif bagi masyarakat.
 
“Gunung meletus, magma keluar dan membawa batuan yang cukup subur untuk lahan pertanian. Tapikan memang sebelum menjadi tanah yang subur, dia akan merusak dulu. Pada long term-nya, alam akan bisa digunakan dengan lebih baik,” ucapnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

RATU ATUT PENUHI PANGGILAN KPK

saco-indonesia.com, Gubernur Banten Ratu Atut Chosiyah telah memenuhi panggilan Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK). Atut juga akan diperiksa sebagai tersangka dalam kasus suap Pilkada Lebak, Banten.

Atut tiba sekitar pukul 10.07 WIB, dengan menumpangi Pajero Sport hitam B 22 AAH. Saat turun dari mobil Atut telah dikawal oleh 10 orang ajudan, salah seorang memapahnya.

Atut hadir ke gedung kpk dengan mengenakan batik merah marun bermotif bunga-bunga, celana dan kerudung hitam. Wajah Atut juga terlihat pucat karena dikabarkan sakit setelah dijadikan tersangka. Saat dicecar sejumlah pertanyaan Atut hanya bungkam.

Polisi telah melakukan penjagaan ekstra ketat dengan menerjunkan 1.090 personel gabungan. Water cannon juga mejeng di pelataran halaman KPK.

Atut telah menjadi tersangka suap sengketa Pilkada Lebak yang juga menyerat mantan Ketua Mahkamah Konstitusi (MK) Aki Mochtar. Selain itu, Atut juga jadi tersangka proyek proyek alat kesehatan di Banten.

Editor : Dian sukmawati

Keluarga Ade Sara Meminta Maaf kepada Pelaku

Saco-Indonesia.com — Polisi mulai memeriksa saksi-saksi terkait kasus pembunuhan Ade Sara Angelina Suroto (19). Saksi-saksi itu di antaranya adalah orang-orang yang dimintai tolong oleh pelaku AIH (19) saat mobil yang dipakai untuk membawa mayat Ade Sara mogok hingga tiga kali.

Kepala Bidang Humas Polda Metro Jaya Komisaris Besar Rikwanto mengatakan, saat berputar-putar hendak membuang mayat korban, mobil yang ditumpangi pelaku AIH dan satu pelaku lagi, AR (18), mogok tiga kali. Saat mogok ini, AIH meminjam jumper aki ke sejumlah orang untuk menghidupkan kembali mobil KIA Visto.

Namun, mobil itu mogok lagi hingga tiga kali. AIH kemudian memanggil temannya untuk meminjam aki. Teman AIH datang ke lokasi. ”Saat itu, temannya sempat melihat ada orang di dalam mobil AIH. Ia bertanya, siapa itu? Dijawab AIH, itu mayat,” kata Rikwanto.

Mendapat jawaban itu, teman AI diam sebelum kemudian pergi. Setelah mesin mobil hidup kembali, pelaku pergi dengan membawa mayat korban.

Rikwanto menambahkan, polisi belum menjadwalkan pemeriksaan psikologi AIH dan AR. Keduanya masih menjawab pertanyaan penyidik dengan normal. Namun, jika dibutuhkan, polisi akan menghadirkan psikolog untuk memeriksa kondisi kejiwaan kedua pelaku.

Meminta maaf

Keluarga Ade Sara Angelina Suroto (19) tidak hanya memaafkan tindakan pelaku yang membunuh Sara. Keluarga, melalui paman Sara, Yohanes Sutarto, juga meminta maaf jika ada tindakan dan perkataan Sara yang telah melukai kedua pelaku sehingga terjadi peristiwa pembunuhan itu.

”Kami pun tak habis pikir kenapa terjadi penganiayaan itu. Apa mungkin Sara telah melukai perasaan mereka (kedua pelaku). Kalau demikian, kami pun minta maaf,” kata Yohanes.

Namun, hingga saat ini, menurut Yohanes, keluarga kedua pelaku belum ada yang meminta maaf kepada keluarga Sara. ”Ya, kami juga memahami keluarga mereka (kedua pelaku) dan keluarga kami juga tak saling kenal, melainkan anak-anaknya yang kenal,” kata Yohanes.

Tak dimungkiri Yohanes, meskipun cukup tegar, orangtua Sara sesungguhnya juga terguncang, terutama ayah Sara, Suroto, yang kerap termenung pada malam hari. ”Ibunda Sara, Elizabeth, memang kelihatan jauh lebih tegar. Mudah-mudahan selanjutnya demikian,” kata Yohanes.

Sensitivitas terkikis

Psikolog anak dan remaja dari Lembaga Psikologi Terapan Universitas Indonesia, Vera Itabiliana Hadiwidjojo, mengatakan, ada kemungkinan kedua pelaku, AIH dan AR, telah kehilangan sensitivitas dan empati.

”Mungkin, entah bagaimana, sensitivitas ataupun empati keduanya terkikis. Padahal, itu yang membatasi orang untuk tidak menyakiti orang lain,” kata Vera.

Namun, menurut Vera, seseorang tidak bisa menjadi sesadis itu dalam waktu singkat. Ia yakin ada beberapa faktor yang berkontribusi memunculkan kesadisan itu. Hal ini bukan berarti membela atau mencari pembenaran dalam tindakan kedua pelaku. Namun, faktor-faktor pemicu kesadisan sebisa mungkin harus diungkap untuk menemukan akar masalahnya.

Pakar psikologi forensik, Reza Indragiri Amriel, berpendapat, kecil kemungkinan tewasnya Sara sebagai sebuah kesengajaan dan terencana. Dua tersangka, yakni AIH dan AR, diduga kalap sehingga bereaksi secara berlebihan. Efek ini timbul karena pelaku tidak profesional.

”Reaksi berlebihan dari kedua tersangka terjadi saat korban berteriak dan bertindak di luar antisipasi sebelumnya. Cara tersangka menghentikannya kebablasan,” kata Reza. (MKN/NEL/MDN/RAY)

Sumber : Kompas.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

Pasca-peledakan Bom, Pos Polisi dan Mapolres Diminta Siaga

PALU, Saco-Indonesia.com — Pasca-ledakan bom bunuh diri di Markas Kepolisian Resor Poso, sejumlah pos polisi dan markas polres diminta untuk siaga serta meningkatkan kewaspadaan. Pernyataan ini disampaikan Kepala Bidang Hubungan Masyarakat Kepolisian Daerah Sulawesi Tengah Ajun Komisaris Besar Soemarno di Polda Sulteng, Senin (3/6/2013).

Menurut dia, sampai saat ini polisi masih melakukan olah tempat kejadian yang dipimpin langsung oleh Kapolda Sulteng Brigadir Jenderal (Pol) Aridono, sambil menunggu tim Laboratorium Forensik dan Tim Disaster Victim Identification Polri yang direncanakan akan tiba di Poso hari ini.

"Ini dilakukan untuk dapat mengidentifikasi pelaku bom bunuh diri tersebut karena di TKP (tempat kejadian) tidak ditemukan identitas seperti KTP atau SIM milik pelaku peledakan," kata Soemarno.

Seperti diberitakan sebelumnya, aksi bom bunuh diri terjadi di Kantor Polres Poso di Jalan Pulau Sumatera, Poso Kota, Kabupaten Poso, Sulawesi Tengah, Senin pagi tadi. Ledakan tersebut menewaskan pelaku yang hingga saat ini belum diketahui identitasnya dan melukai satu warga sipil yang tengah mengerjakan bangunan masjid di halaman Polres Poso.

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted

David Goldman/Associated Press

National Guard soldiers boarding a truck in Baltimore on Sunday.

Baltimore residents prepared to resume the more familiar rhythms of their lives as days passed without new bouts of widespread rioting and as the National Guard began to pull its troops from the city.

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted | PAKET UMROH BULAN JANUARI 2016

Dean Skelos, Albany Senate Leader, Aided Son at All Costs, U.S. Says

Over the last five years or so, it seemed there was little that Dean G. Skelos, the majority leader of the New York Senate, would not do for his son.

He pressed a powerful real estate executive to provide commissions to his son, a 32-year-old title insurance salesman, according to a federal criminal complaint. He helped get him a job at an environmental company and employed his influence to help the company get government work. He used his office to push natural gas drilling regulations that would have increased his son’s commissions.

He even tried to direct part of a $5.4 billion state budget windfall to fund government contracts that the company was seeking. And when the company was close to securing a storm-water contract from Nassau County, the senator, through an intermediary, pressured the company to pay his son more — or risk having the senator subvert the bid.

The criminal complaint, unsealed on Monday, lays out corruption charges against Senator Skelos and his son, Adam B. Skelos, the latest scandal to seize Albany, and potentially alter its power structure.

Photo

 

The repeated and diverse efforts by Senator Skelos, a Long Island Republican, to use what prosecutors said was his political influence to find work, or at least income, for his son could send both men to federal prison. If they are convicted of all six charges against them, they face up to 20 years in prison for each of four of the six counts and up to 10 years for the remaining two.

Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, of Long Island, who serves as chairman of the Republican conference, emerged from a closed-door meeting Monday night to say that conference members agreed that Mr. Skelos should be benefited the “presumption of innocence,” and would stay in his leadership role.

“The leader has indicated he would like to remain as leader,” said Mr. LaValle, “and he has the support of the conference.” The case against Mr. Skelos and his son grew out of a broader inquiry into political corruption by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, that has already changed the face of the state capital. It is based in part, according to the six-count complaint, on conversations secretly recorded by one of two cooperating witnesses, and wiretaps on the cellphones of the senator and his son. Those recordings revealed that both men were concerned about electronic surveillance, and illustrated the son’s unsuccessful efforts to thwart it.

Adam Skelos took to using a “burner” phone, the complaint says, and told his father he wanted them to speak through a FaceTime video call in an apparent effort to avoid detection. They also used coded language at times.

At one point, Adam Skelos was recorded telling a Senate staff member of his frustration in not being able to speak openly to his father on the phone, noting that he could not “just send smoke signals or a little pigeon” carrying a message.

The 43-page complaint, sworn out by Paul M. Takla, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, outlines a five-year scheme to “monetize” the senator’s official position; it also lays bare the extent to which a father sought to use his position to help his son.

The charges accuse the two men of extorting payments through a real estate developer, Glenwood Management, based on Long Island, and the environmental company, AbTech Industries, in Scottsdale, Ariz., with the expectation that the money paid to Adam Skelos — nearly $220,000 in total — would influence his father’s actions.

Glenwood, one of the state’s most prolific campaign donors, had ties to AbTech through investments in the environmental firm’s parent company by Glenwood’s founding family and a senior executive.

The accusations in the complaint portray Senator Skelos as a man who, when it came to his son, was not shy about twisting arms, even in situations that might give other arm-twisters pause.

Seeking to help his son, Senator Skelos turned to the executive at Glenwood, which develops rental apartments in New York City and has much at stake when it comes to real estate legislation in Albany. The senator urged him to direct business to his son, who sold title insurance.

After much prodding, the executive, Charles C. Dorego, engineered a $20,000 payment to Adam Skelos from a title insurance company even though he did no work for the money. But far more lucrative was a consultant position that Mr. Dorego arranged for Adam Skelos at AbTech, which seeks government contracts to treat storm water. (Mr. Dorego is not identified by name in the complaint, but referred to only as CW-1, for Cooperating Witness 1.)

Senator Skelos appeared to take an active interest in his son’s new line of work. Adam Skelos sent him several drafts of his consulting agreement with AbTech, the complaint says, as well as the final deal that was struck.

“Mazel tov,” his father replied.

Senator Skelos sent relevant news articles to his son, including one about a sewage leak near Albany. When AbTech wanted to seek government contracts after Hurricane Sandy, the senator got on a conference call with his son and an AbTech executive, Bjornulf White, and offered advice. (Like Mr. Dorego, Mr. White is not named in the complaint, but referred to as CW-2.)

The assistance paid off: With the senator’s help, AbTech secured a contract worth up to $12 million from Nassau County, a big break for a struggling small business.

But the money was slow to materialize. The senator expressed impatience with county officials.

Adam Skelos, in a phone call with Mr. White in late December, suggested that his father would seek to punish the county. “I tell you this, the state is not going to do a [expletive] thing for the county,” he said.

Three days later, Senator Skelos pressed his case with the Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, a fellow Republican. “Somebody feels like they’re just getting jerked around the last two years,” the senator said, referring to his son in what the complaint described as “coded language.”

The next day, the senator pursued the matter, as he and Mr. Mangano attended a wake for a slain New York City police officer. Senator Skelos then reassured his son, who called him while he was still at the wake. “All claims that are in will be taken care of,” the senator said.

AbTech’s fortunes appeared to weigh on his son. At one point in January, Adam Skelos told his father that if the company did not succeed, he would “lose the ability to pay for things.”

Making matters worse, in recent months, Senator Skelos and his son appeared to grow wary about who was watching them. In addition to making calls on the burner phone, Adam Skelos said he used the FaceTime video calling “because that doesn’t show up on the phone bill,” as he told Mr. White.

In late February, Adam Skelos arranged a pair of meetings between Mr. White and state senators; AbTech needed to win state legislation that would allow its contract to move beyond its initial stages. But Senator Skelos deemed the plan too risky and caused one of the meetings to be canceled.

In another recorded call, Adam Skelos, promising to be “very, very vague” on the phone, urged his father to allow the meeting. The senator offered a warning. “Right now we are in dangerous times, Adam,” he told him.

A month later, in another phone call that was recorded by the authorities, Adam Skelos complained that his father could not give him “real advice” about AbTech while the two men were speaking over the telephone.

“You can’t talk normally,” he told his father, “because it’s like [expletive] Preet Bharara is listening to every [expletive] phone call. It’s just [expletive] frustrating.”

“It is,” his father agreed.

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Children playing last week in Sandtown-Winchester, the Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was raised. One young resident called it “a tough community.”

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

The neighborhood where Freddie Gray came of age has survived harrowing rates of unemployment, poor health, violent crime and incarceration.

Calvin Peete, 71, a Racial Pioneer on the PGA Tour, Is Dead

With 12 tournament victories in his career, Mr. Peete was the most successful black professional golfer before Tiger Woods.

Review: ‘Frontline’ Looks at Missteps During the Ebola Outbreak

y NEIL GENZLINGER

Frontline

Frontline An installment of this PBS program looks at the effects of Ebola on Liberia and other countries, as well as the origins of the outbreak.

The program traces the outbreak to its origin, thought to be a tree full of bats in Guinea.

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

Even as a high school student, Dave Goldberg was urging female classmates to speak up. As a young dot-com executive, he had one girlfriend after another, but fell hard for a driven friend named Sheryl Sandberg, pining after her for years. After they wed, Mr. Goldberg pushed her to negotiate hard for high compensation and arranged his schedule so that he could be home with their children when she was traveling for work.

Mr. Goldberg, who died unexpectedly on Friday, was a genial, 47-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur who built his latest company, SurveyMonkey, from a modest enterprise to one recently valued by investors at $2 billion. But he was also perhaps the signature male feminist of his era: the first major chief executive in memory to spur his wife to become as successful in business as he was, and an essential figure in “Lean In,” Ms. Sandberg’s blockbuster guide to female achievement.

Over the weekend, even strangers were shocked at his death, both because of his relatively young age and because they knew of him as the living, breathing, car-pooling center of a new philosophy of two-career marriage.

“They were very much the role models for what this next generation wants to grapple with,” said Debora L. Spar, the president of Barnard College. In a 2011 commencement speech there, Ms. Sandberg told the graduates that whom they married would be their most important career decision.

In the play “The Heidi Chronicles,” revived on Broadway this spring, a male character who is the founder of a media company says that “I don’t want to come home to an A-plus,” explaining that his ambitions require him to marry an unthreatening helpmeet. Mr. Goldberg grew up to hold the opposite view, starting with his upbringing in progressive Minneapolis circles where “there was woman power in every aspect of our lives,” Jeffrey Dachis, a childhood friend, said in an interview.

The Goldberg parents read “The Feminine Mystique” together — in fact, Mr. Goldberg’s father introduced it to his wife, according to Ms. Sandberg’s book. In 1976, Paula Goldberg helped found a nonprofit to aid children with disabilities. Her husband, Mel, a law professor who taught at night, made the family breakfast at home.

Later, when Dave Goldberg was in high school and his prom date, Jill Chessen, stayed silent in a politics class, he chastised her afterward. He said, “You need to speak up,” Ms. Chessen recalled in an interview. “They need to hear your voice.”

Years later, when Karin Gilford, an early employee at Launch Media, Mr. Goldberg’s digital music company, became a mother, he knew exactly what to do. He kept giving her challenging assignments, she recalled, but also let her work from home one day a week. After Yahoo acquired Launch, Mr. Goldberg became known for distributing roses to all the women in the office on Valentine’s Day.

Ms. Sandberg, who often describes herself as bossy-in-a-good-way, enchanted him when they became friendly in the mid-1990s. He “was smitten with her,” Ms. Chessen remembered. Ms. Sandberg was dating someone else, but Mr. Goldberg still hung around, even helping her and her then-boyfriend move, recalled Bob Roback, a friend and co-founder of Launch. When they finally married in 2004, friends remember thinking how similar the two were, and that the qualities that might have made Ms. Sandberg intimidating to some men drew Mr. Goldberg to her even more.

Over the next decade, Mr. Goldberg and Ms. Sandberg pioneered new ways of capturing information online, had a son and then a daughter, became immensely wealthy, and hashed out their who-does-what-in-this-marriage issues. Mr. Goldberg’s commute from the Bay Area to Los Angeles became a strain, so he relocated, later joking that he “lost the coin flip” of where they would live. He paid the bills, she planned the birthday parties, and both often left their offices at 5:30 so they could eat dinner with their children before resuming work afterward.

Friends in Silicon Valley say they were careful to conduct their careers separately, politely refusing when outsiders would ask one about the other’s work: Ms. Sandberg’s role building Facebook into an information and advertising powerhouse, and Mr. Goldberg at SurveyMonkey, which made polling faster and cheaper. But privately, their work was intertwined. He often began statements to his team with the phrase “Well, Sheryl said” sharing her business advice. He counseled her, too, starting with her salary negotiations with Mark Zuckerberg.

“I wanted Mark to really feel he stretched to get Sheryl, because she was worth it,” Mr. Goldberg explained in a 2013 “60 Minutes” interview, his Minnesota accent and his smile intact as he offered a rare peek of the intersection of marriage and money at the top of corporate life.

While his wife grew increasingly outspoken about women’s advancement, Mr. Goldberg quietly advised the men in the office on family and partnership matters, an associate said. Six out of 16 members of SurveyMonkey’s management team are female, an almost unheard-of ratio among Silicon Valley “unicorns,” or companies valued at over $1 billion.

When Mellody Hobson, a friend and finance executive, wrote a chapter of “Lean In” about women of color for the college edition of the book, Mr. Goldberg gave her feedback on the draft, a clue to his deep involvement. He joked with Ms. Hobson that she was too long-winded, like Ms. Sandberg, but aside from that, he said he loved the chapter, she said in an interview.

By then, Mr. Goldberg was a figure of fascination who inspired a “where can I get one of those?” reaction among many of the women who had read the best seller “Lean In.” Some lamented that Ms. Sandberg’s advice hinged too much on marrying a Dave Goldberg, who was humble enough to plan around his wife, attentive enough to worry about which shoes his young daughter would wear, and rich enough to help pay for the help that made the family’s balancing act manageable.

Now that he is gone, and Ms. Sandberg goes from being half of a celebrated partnership to perhaps the business world’s most prominent single mother, the pages of “Lean In” carry a new sting of loss.

“We are never at 50-50 at any given moment — perfect equality is hard to define or sustain — but we allow the pendulum to swing back and forth between us,” she wrote in 2013, adding that they were looking forward to raising teenagers together.

“Fortunately, I have Dave to figure it out with me,” she wrote.

Ex-C.I.A. Official Rebuts Republican Claims on Benghazi Attack in ‘The Great War of Our Time’

WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.

The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he also concludes that the White House itself embellished some of the talking points provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had blocked him from sending an internal study of agency conclusions to Congress.

Photo

 

“I finally did so without asking,” just before leaving government, he writes, and after the White House released internal emails to a committee investigating the State Department’s handling of the issue.

A lengthy congressional investigation remains underway, one that many Republicans hope to use against Mrs. Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

In parts of the book, “The Great War of Our Time” (Twelve), Mr. Morell praises his C.I.A. colleagues for many successes in stopping terrorist attacks, but he is surprisingly critical of other C.I.A. failings — and those of the National Security Agency.

Soon after Mr. Morell retired in 2013 after 33 years in the agency, President Obama appointed him to a commission reviewing the actions of the National Security Agency after the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who released classified documents about the government’s eavesdropping abilities. Mr. Morell writes that he was surprised by what he found.

“You would have thought that of all the government entities on the planet, the one least vulnerable to such grand theft would have been the N.S.A.,” he writes. “But it turned out that the N.S.A. had left itself vulnerable.”

He concludes that most Wall Street firms had better cybersecurity than the N.S.A. had when Mr. Snowden swept information from its systems in 2013. While he said he found himself “chagrined by how well the N.S.A. was doing” compared with the C.I.A. in stepping up its collection of data on intelligence targets, he also sensed that the N.S.A., which specializes in electronic spying, was operating without considering the implications of its methods.

“The N.S.A. had largely been collecting information because it could, not necessarily in all cases because it should,” he says.

The book is to be released next week.

Mr. Morell was a career analyst who rose through the ranks of the agency, and he ended up in the No. 2 post. He served as President George W. Bush’s personal intelligence briefer in the first months of his presidency — in those days, he could often be spotted at the Starbucks in Waco, Tex., catching up on his reading — and was with him in the schoolhouse in Florida on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush presidency changed in an instant.

Mr. Morell twice took over as acting C.I.A. director, first when Leon E. Panetta was appointed secretary of defense and then when retired Gen. David H. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair with his biographer, a relationship that included his handing her classified notes of his time as America’s best-known military commander.

Mr. Morell says he first learned of the affair from Mr. Petraeus only the night before he resigned, and just as the Benghazi events were turning into a political firestorm. While praising Mr. Petraeus, who had told his deputy “I am very lucky” to run the C.I.A., Mr. Morell writes that “the organization did not feel the same way about him.” The former general “created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interaction with him),” he says.

But it is his account of the Benghazi attacks — and how the C.I.A. was drawn into the debate over whether the Obama White House deliberately distorted its account of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that is bound to attract attention, at least partly because of its relevance to the coming presidential election. The initial assessments that the C.I.A. gave to the White House said demonstrations had preceded the attack. By the time analysts reversed their opinion, Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser, had made a series of statements on Sunday talk shows describing the initial assessment. The controversy and other comments Ms. Rice made derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to appoint her as secretary of state.

The experience prompted Mr. Morell to write that the C.I.A. should stay out of the business of preparing talking points — especially on issues that are being seized upon for “political purposes.” He is critical of the State Department for not beefing up security in Libya for its diplomats, as the C.I.A., he said, did for its employees.

But he concludes that the assault in which the ambassador was killed took place “with little or no advance planning” and “was not well organized.” He says the attackers “did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting some vandalism,” setting fires that killed Mr. Stevens and a security official, Sean Smith.

Mr. Morell paints a picture of an agency that was struggling, largely unsuccessfully, to understand dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa when the Arab Spring broke out in late 2011 in Tunisia. The agency’s analysts failed to see the forces of revolution coming — and then failed again, he writes, when they told Mr. Obama that the uprisings would undercut Al Qaeda by showing there was a democratic pathway to change.

“There is no good explanation for our not being able to see the pressures growing to dangerous levels across the region,” he writes. The agency had again relied too heavily “on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what was going on in the Arab street,” he says, and those leaders themselves were clueless.

Moreover, an agency that has always overvalued secretly gathered intelligence and undervalued “open source” material “was not doing enough to mine the wealth of information available through social media,” he writes. “We thought and told policy makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” he writes.

Instead, weak governments in Egypt, and the absence of governance from Libya to Yemen, were “a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa.”

Mr. Morell is gentle about most of the politicians he dealt with — he expresses admiration for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, though he accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of deliberately implying a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq that the C.I.A. had concluded probably did not exist. But when it comes to the events leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he is critical of his own agency.

Mr. Morell concludes that the Bush White House did not have to twist intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged effort to rekindle the country’s work on weapons of mass destruction.

“The view that hard-liners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on W.M.D. is just flat wrong,” he writes. “No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

Maya Plisetskaya, Ballerina Who Embodied Bolshoi, Dies at 89

Ms. Plisetskaya, renowned for her fluidity of movement, expressive acting and willful personality, danced on the Bolshoi stage well into her 60s, but her life was shadowed by Stalinism.

Jim Fanning, 87, Dies; Lifted Baseball in Canada With Expos

Hired in 1968, a year before their first season, Mr. Fanning spent 25 years with the team, managing them to their only playoff appearance in Canada.

Baltimore Residents Away From Turmoil Consider Their Role

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

Photo

 

And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

Photo

 

The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”

Marty Napoleon, 93, Dies; Jazz Pianist Played With Louis Armstrong

Mr. Napoleon was a self-taught musician whose career began in earnest with the orchestra led by Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers.

Jayne Meadows, Actress and Steve Allen’s Wife and Co-Star, Dies at 95

Ms. Meadows was the older sister of Audrey Meadows, who played Alice Kramden on “The Honeymooners.”

Ben E. King, Soulful Singer of ‘Stand by Me,’ Dies at 76

Mr. King sang for the Drifters and found success as a solo performer with hits like “Spanish Harlem.”

William Price Fox, Admired Southern Novelist and Humorist, Dies at 89

Mr. Fox, known for his well-honed countrified voice, wrote about things dear to South Carolina and won over Yankee critics.