Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Democracy, Islam and the present day Muslims..........

Malaysia is 54 years old today !
Despite all the debates we would like to view ourselves as a democratic, constitutional monarchy, for whatever it mean.

As a Malay Muslim I would love to think beyond our 15 millions or so. We live in a Nusantara that transcend 250 millions. Beyond this 250 millions, some other 1.4 billions share the same faith and aspirations as myself and yourself. 1.6 billion humanity [ and growing ]within 6 billions people on this planet earth, that is a very significant figure.It is high time we think aloud our agenda and aspirations and not let the 'meeks' of the world determine our future and our direction.
Allah exhorts us to think big, not 15 millions or 250 millions or 1.6 billions but in term of 6 billions.....the whole of humanity.
If one limits one thought and energy to the constraint of 'Darul Harb' and 'Darul Islam', that space become small. If you are Indonesian or Malaysians, you are limited to your neighbours and friends.
But if the whole world is all about 'Darul Daawah', then whole wide world is your playing field. That obnoxious Lee Ah Lek, Dave Freeman or Dewi Ramasamy become your bridge to heaven. You can afford to be big hearted: With one stroke of rethinking, they become your friends. You also improve. You have to be on your best behaviour.

Hublum minallah [ Love for Allah ] is not very difficult.
Hublum minan Nas[ Love for humanity ] is !
6 billion humanity to work on.....Islam is a universal message for Mankind but currently the big game out there is through 'labels ' and 'mislabels'.
'Democracy' is one of them.

Democracy means many things to many people.
To present day Muslims, Democracy can be very confounding and controversial. Depending on what shade of glasses one wears, which continent and country one is situated, Democracy has it's spectrum of meaning and connotation.

Let us 1st view it from a 'literalist' perspective [ I am using the term literalist loosely here to mean people steeped in Medinan and Meccan school of thinking within the Muslim domain ],
click here for Abdul Rahim Green's opinion on democracy

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, an American revert to Islam, long time student of Islam from Morocco and Mauritania, steeped in the tradition of sufism, co-founder and Dean of Zaytuna Institute USA, has his views here on Democracy in an exceprt of his debate with Dr Friedman,
click here


And finally we come to Prof Tariq Ramadan, Egyptian by birth, Swiss by nationality,European by content and Muslim by faith....and as some rightists in Europe and America might want to have it included, Muslim Brotherhood by genus....to remind us again the power of 'labels'.

I like this man. He is a thinker par excellence!
Let us listen to his thots, click here
click here for part 3
click here for part 4
and lastly, a BBC special, click here

We can turn the table around and make 'Democracy',work for us. 'Democracy' is good for Muslims. In this borderless world nothing is impossible.
We will play their game with their rules.
Truth will prevail, God willing.

What are your views ?


Hasbunallah wani' mal Wakeel
[ Allah is sufficient for me, HE is Al Wakeel, disposer of all affairs ]



Let us listen to Prof Noam Chomsky, controversial and celebrated Western thinker, has to say about the historical perspective of contemporary 'Democracy' in the West ie America,
click here

On the extreme end, make no mistake about it, Bernard Lewis, current doyen of orientalism, who knows Islam like the back of his palm,[despite all his knowledge and wisdom or lack of it depending on which side of the world view you are on], has this pessimistic view about the world:
click here


............................................

Nadzru Azahari IR
Substantive CEO,
Ranhill Worley [Sdn]? Bhd.
Son of failed UMNO politician in the 1960's. Spent substantive years in Cairo when father was information attache to Malaysian Embassy there. Arabist par excellence. Able to speak Arabic in different Arabic lingo and nuances local to Egypt, Morocco, Algeria,Libya and Saudi. One of his many skills involve even selling 'sand and olive oil' to the Arabs ! Having a 'big headache' now in Libya now due to substantive overexposure during the Ghadaffy era. But this 'Anak Kelatae', like most who grew up with me in the 'Dato Asri' era is a survivor. We do not have the pleasure of NEP or UMNOPUTRaISM to give us the extra stool to keep on par. We just struggle on, on all our 'fours' if need be and do not depend on state handouts.

To Nadzru,this world is his village ! Currently in Thailand for over a month. I hope he is not planning to take over Thai Petroluem ! He will be OK insyaallah.

My classmate at Sultan Ismail College, Kota Bharu, in the early 60's between form 1 to 3 before both of us left the state for greener pastures..me to Malay College, he to Sultan Abdul Hamid College, Alor Setar, and 'informally' from his Arabist father in Cairo.
His views on 'Democracy and Islam', click here

.................


Oftentimes with my friend Nadzru, even in school I recall his weakness being long winded. He failed his precis in form two.
We somehow got lost somewhere in the trees but we do get his point.
Let us move on to Dato Nadzri, formerly numero uno of the 'good old Berita Harian' days, who has this to add :


................................


Salam Dr Nik,
Soal demokrasi dan Islam yang you bangkitkan itu sudah berabad didebab tetapi belum ada jawapannya. Belum ada satu model negara umat Islam yang dapat dicontohi. Bagi saya tidak ada negara Islam, republik Islam, bandaraya Islam (kb) di dunia ini. These names make a mockery of Islam. Negara Islam hanya wujud di akhirat.

Di dunia ini kita boleh ada umat Islam, keluarga Islam, mungkin perkampungan Islam. Tapi negeri atau negara Islam mustahil. Yg penting bukan sistem tetapi insan yg melaksanakan sistem itu. Allah membentuk peribadi muhammad sehingga usia 40 tahun baru lantik beliau jadi rasul dan menurunkan wahyu kepadanya. Jadi yg penting ialah pemimpin bukan sistemnya. Sistem yang cacat tapi pemimpinnya kamil boleh melahirkan pentadbiran yang baik. Sistem yg baik kalau ditadbir oleh pemimpin yang tidak baik akan merosakkan sistem dan negara. Barat mungkin melihat pentadbiran nabi di madinah sebagai autokratik kerana sumber kuasa dan keputusan dari nabi sahaja, tetapi kerana nabi role model insan yang terbaik, adil dan ehsan maka umat yahudi dan nasrani tunduk dibawah pemerintahan beliau. Apakah sistem pentadbiran zaman khalifah arRashidin? Ulama menyebut 4 khalifah itu sebagai rightly guided kerana peribadi, insan kamil, taqwa mereka. Mereka mencontohi Nabi. Umayyah, abbasiah, othmaniah, fatimiah, ayubiah dan seterusnya berupa dynasti, monarchy dan adakalanya anarchy. Sama ada sesuatu sistem itu dari barat atau timur, utara atau selatan, semuanya berasaskan akal -mantiq yang dianugerah Allah. Kalau ikut maqasid syariah, tidak ada satu sistem yang perfect untuk semua ummah, prinsipnya sama tetapi perlaksanaannya mestilah mengambilkira persekitarannya, adat dan budaya masyarakat. Bagi kita umat islam prinsipnya mestilah mengikut al-quran dan sunnah, dan perlaksanaan mestilah berlandaskan maqasid syariah.- isteri ajak pi pasar nanti kita sambung.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device via Vodafone-Celcom Mobile.

..................................


pokok nya dato', tak jauh berbeda dari tanggapan tok guru nik aziz, tuan guru hj hadi et al, dan kalau kita 'mengextrapolate' diri kita ke ummah islam dibarat, termasuk juga pemikiran prof tariq ramadan.
saya pernah halakan persoalan ini ke prof wan muhammad dari istac beberapa tahun terdahulu. jawapan beliau pun seakan sama tetapi lebih berupa allegorical

" with resepct to the garden [ in malaysia ] the bushes are everywhere, trees are a wee bit unkempt, oftentimes we need not change the whole system or the garden itself, just cheaper and more practical to change the gardener "

if i recall correctly his answer !

nik howk

...........................

from Dato Nadzri:

Yes change is the word used by Obama during his presidential campaign. . Hijrah from Mecca to Madinah constitute structural change for Prophet, Islam and Ummah. Tapi orang Melayu tak suka change!

Tiap-tiap tahun tazkirah pasal hijrah tetapi orang Melayu reluctant to change. Mentally, spiritually, physically they prefer to stay at their comfort zone. I met nik aziz yesterday and brought up the issue of Baginda Rasulullah. He admitted he never thought the consequences and promised not to use that title for Rasulullah anymore. Well Hj Hadi, Nik aziz, you, Nazrul, myself and the others are only human being. If prophet himself being corrected and reminded by Allah few times, who are we? He repeatedly stressed in al-Quran to think, learn, seek knowledge and don't forget the meeting day. 10 brains better than one, so musyawarah to find the best solution for present time and present generation is the best approach. To do this we must change. May I end this note by asking my learned cardiologist to do surgical analysis on the term deliberative democracy and musyawarah. Salam

......................

I totally agree with you Dato on us 'orang Melayu' having great inertia for change.
Currently I am reading Muhammad Asad 's [aka Leopold Weiss ]'The Message of The Quran'...must be the best ever English translation and commentary on The Quran.
This is a digression but a necessary one...Interestingly he added " FOR THOSE WHO THINK "

Just yesterday, I met my favourite patient, a 69 year old sailor from Norway who has made Kuantan his home and married to a nice Malay lady his age from Pahang. Perfect physique this Norweagian. Runs 10 kilometres a day and has a resting heart rate of 45 bpm !

"Why do you choose Islam of all religions, Mr Koplande", I asked.
" Because I think. Islam is for those WHO THINK . I read Asad, and he encouraged me to think. Those who are not yet Muslims, I think personally, they do not want to read because they do not want to think".

Mashaallah. I got my 'high' yesterday.
Likewise, back to our problem of democracy and present day Muslims,we need to think.
Our local garden is full of 'semak and danau'. The fruit trees are not fruiting. The flowers and bees are all gone. Even the fences are not well manage. Whatever fruits and flowers and honey there are, the gardener and his family think they are theirs !

We need not burn the garden or allow our neighbours to manage it or help burn it for us.

WE just need to change the gardener.
Other gardens esleswhere, their weeds and parasite problems may be different from us. The solutions to their problems may be different. We are all unique.

SINCE THE CURRENT POPULAR BALLGAME WORLDWIDE IS DEMOCRACY, LET US PLAY BY THAT RULES.
CHANGE THE GARDENERS IF WE CAN, INFLUENCE THEM IF WE MUST, OR AT LEAST LET THEM KNOW THEIR WORK ETHICS ARE NOT ON,IF WE CAN'T.

Nik Howk

Monday, August 8, 2011

Zakat harta / ? Pendapatan......a short advertorial

My friend Dato Abdul Razak Kechik, former Director of Health, Kelantan has been doing daawah work amongst the orang aslis in Malaysia for the last 35 to 40 years or so, initially under the auspices of ABIM, now probably on his own under the acronym, IOAK, whatever it stand for. Duly recognised for this lifetime of selfless and oftentimes dangerous work in the jungle around Malaysia by HM The Sultan of Perak and recently conferred a dato'ship. In the jungle one faces with malaria, dengue, dysentery and Japanese B encephalitis, leptospirosis etc etc apart from the time spent away from your loved ones.

I wrote some time ago about him, but could not retrieve the article in the blog because I could not recall the sub heading. His main area of operation currently is mainly in Perak and the Kelantan- Pahang border. Survive mainly on his own collection from friends and contribution from Majlis Ugama Islam Perlis.
[ sorry, I got it at last ,click here ]

His modus operandi is that he collects zakat harta from friends paid to MAIP [ Majlis Agama Islam Perlis ], from which a fraction will be given to his group to finance his daawah activities. A dhaif type of financing no doubt, but the best that could be done given the circumstances. According to him , nothing like the finance of The Churches of Malaysia in this area of daawah. Invariably Doc Dato Razak will post to you the receipt from MAIP and this I can assure you is 100 % tax deductible. I have gone thru this for several years now.

Send your cheques to :
Dato' Abdul Razak Kechik
Pengerusi IOAK,
74C, Kampong Melayu,
Sungei Buloh
47000, Selangor

you can call or sms him at hp for confirmation : 0135040070
your cheques in favour of : Majlis Agama Islam Perlis,
with your name and address at the back.

MAKE YOUR ZAKAT HARTA / ? Pendapatan go that that extra mile rather than building some god-forsaken building somewhere or as happened a few years ago buying some pajeros for JAIS or MAIS.

Why I put a ? Pendapatan there is because there is no precise way to quantify what is basically enough for us. One can earn 50k a year and live modestly and still pay zakat . On the other hand one can earn million RM a month, has a penthouse apartment in Belgravia,London and a holiday getaway in Tioman and Brisbane, and a posh villa in Kenny Hill,with 3 Benzes, 2 BM and a Jaguar sports in the garage and a negative net liability of -5o million Rm due to bank loans for business, and thus technically, could even qualify to get zakat fitrah !

We have to be honest with ourselves. If you are earning that much, allow yourself in such circumstance a 'hypothetical' four bedroom 'bungalow', and a decent ' hypothetical' spending money monthly, the rest should qualify to be computed for zakat ie at 2.5 % per annum.

Otherwise only the poor Pak Mat Nyadaps of Kuala Ketil and Padang Pa' Amat end up having to pay zakat harta because their lembu, kambing income from their padi fields are easily calculated and downright stated in the hadiths and the Quran. The RMs, Nazirs and the Toyos of this world escape scott's free because there seem to be no end to their satiety and need and they are permanently in debt one way or the other.
How can they ever be free, when they had just moved on to a bigger mansion and a 100-foot yatcht , they look yonder and lo and behold, a neighbour has a much bigger mansion and a 200 -foot yatcht!

Allahualam.... I am no fekah expert but that is how I see and compute life.


*********
Actual, nitty gritty details on zakat payment :Calculation of present day income,properties, bonds and shares, and liabilities......
click here

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Perennial Philosophy : A Rebuttal Against.....

It seem like America was not there until Columbus discovered it. This Nusantara was non existent until the Europeans discovered their fervour for gold, spice and religion. It work the same for 'democracy'.No democracy means you are a 'pariah' state. This frenzy for the right anointment and that final right to exist by the West has spread to issues of religion.


It seem like even Islam need the stamp of the orientalists and their misguided views before it can be 'certfied' as correct for 'human' consumption. To these people even religion has to go through an 'evolution'.

Liebnizt, Huxley, Rene Guenon, Fritjof Schuon, Krisnamurty Coomaraswamy and lately even Hoessien Nasr , despite their different philosophical upbringing and belief, they all shared something in common : That the world great religions shared a common denominator. Out of this philosophy came the misguided notion amongst the 'very bright' and later even the 'not so bright' that at the topmost 'distilled' end. all religions are the same.
This , to me, is political correctness at its most maddening height.

Mohd Aizam Mas'od wrote a very convincing rebuttal against this ongoing religious confusion, which even consume many Muslim thinkers nowadays. Liberal Islam, progressive Islam, are ones of the by -products of this new derivative.
I can understand Rene Guenon [ Shaykh Ab'dal Wahid Yahya ], Martin Lings [ Shaykh Abu Bakar Siraj ] and Fritjof Schuon[aka Shaykh Nurudin ] from where they came from. All brought up initially as either agnostic or on a staple diet of trinity, later in their lives, realise and could not accept these various abberation from the original' Din and were given Islam as the ultimate gifts from Allah. They came in with a cultural and an alien philosophical baggage.Not their fault and in fact these guys contributions have enriched Islam. But what I still cannot comprehend is why people like Prof Hoessien Nasr and Dr Nurcholish Majid et al, all born Muslims and brought up in an Islamic milliue, could still need 'perinneal philosophy' to explain Islam. Islam does not need apologists.

It was there at the beginning of the primordial man, Prophet Adam alaihissalam.
In fact it was there even before Adam.

Read what Mohd Aizam Mas'od has to say:
http://www.islam.gov.my/sites/default/files/a_perennial_philosophy.pdf




Related Article in the blog :
Faces in Islam : Still on Happiness, click here
.........

Lauren Booth...my way to Islam

click here




Related articles in the blog :
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, click here
Shaykh Hussien Yee, click here
'Cat Steven's " Light ", click here

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

On Death and Dying : Your Time Is Up......

Shaykh Ismail Musa Menk on Death.
click here


Some magical and most powerful "mantra" to repeat, remember and commit to memory, and as an 'antidote' to soften the blow :

Hasbunallah wa ni'mal wakeel
(Al Imran , 3 : 173)
Dua Prophet Ibrahim alaihisalam
Those to whom the people said: Surely men have gathered
against you, therefore fear them, but this increased their faith,
and they said:
[Allah is sufficient for us, and He is Al Wakeel { best disposer of affairs }]

Hasbiyallahu, la ilaha illa, huwa alaihi tawakkaltu, wa huwa Rabb al- arshal -azhiim
{ Al Taubah , 9 : 129 }
[ Allah is sufficient for me, I have placed my trust in Him, He is the Lord of the Magestic Throne. ]


وَقَالَ ٱرۡڪَبُواْ فِيہَا بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ مَجۡر۪ٮٰهَا وَمُرۡسَٮٰهَآ‌ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّى لَغَفُورٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬ (٤١)
Bismillah himajreha wa mursaha inna Rabbi la Ghafur ru Rahim.
{Hud , 11 : 41 }
[ In the name of Allah be its course and its mooring. Lo! my Lord is Forgiving,
Merciful.]..Prophet Nuh alaihisalam on the eve of 'The Big Flood'.







Related articles on 'death' in the blog:
Death and Eternal Life After Death, click here
Some Random Thots on Death, click here
Some More Random Thots on Death, click here

Jewels from The Quran : Episode 2...Shaykh Ismail Musa Menk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgj-RNyLEKg&feature=relmfu

Monday, August 1, 2011

Jewel from the Quran...is in reciting it with comprehension

In 2011, it is no longer possible to hide behind ignorance and indifference our inability to comprehend and understand the Quran.
IT connectivity and it's ubiquity make such excuses redundant. Whether you are an Eskimo in Greenland or a fan of Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawkin in England , Europe or Kuala Lumpur, you now have no valid excuse to remain ignorant. Whether you are white, black , brown or yellow; Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or agnostic, The Quran is addressed to you, as it was addressed to Prophet Muhammad some 1432 years ago:
click here

Likewise if you think you are too clever and a firm 'fan' and enthusiast in some abberant philosophy be it perinneal philosophy, liberal Islam or some 'woolly woolly' ideology, be warned : you are on very flimsy ground !

This Ramadan you can make a start towards your very own 'education' : Recite or listen to The Quran with some modicum of understanding. Follow up later with your own adventure in reading tafseer work of whichever shade you like. If your inclination is simple minded, straight forward [' betul macam bendul '] and literal, 'salafi', go the Ibnu Katsir way. If you want a European and progressive outlook of Islam, read perhaps Muhammad Assad [ for Dr Farouk Musa's take on Muhammad Assad's 'Message of The Quran', click here ].If your inclination is to feel energised and 'angry',read the more radical stuff from Maududi or 'angry' with a tinge poetic beauty, read Sayyid Qutb.If you have a lot of time and want a Nusantara perspective, Hamka's Tafsir Al Azhar would be perfect.

One has to start somewhere, sometime, somehow. Disregard your current background . You may be a nuclear scientist, may have a Masters degree from Harvard or a Phd from Cambridge but if you remain impervious to The Message of The Quran, you are what Allah termed as deaf , dumb and blind ! HE is very definitive about it: You are just DEAF, DUMB, and BLIND, my friend !.

Alhamdullillah, Islam is not constrictive. There is a spectrum of views even during Rasullallah's time and the sahabat. It is the myopic views of present day Muslims that are putting us all in the 'last lane' of everything. As if Islam put a heavy constraint on thinking. The early Muslims were mostly thinkers. The European Renaisance was just a carbon copy of what went on earlier in Cordoba, Baghdad and Servile.

Stop warming your ar.. on your chair my friend. Recite, Recite and Recite. Life is very short. By the time you realise it, you are almost there !

al Fatihah to al Baqarah 141, click here
al Baqarah 142 to al Baqarah 252, click here
al Baqarah 253 to Ali Imran 92, click here
Ali Imran 93 to An Nisa 23, click here
An Nisa 24 to An Nisa 147, click here
An Nisa 148 to al Maidah 81, click here
al Maidah 82 to al An'am 110, click here
al An'am 111 to al A'raf 87, click here
al A'raf 88 to al Anfal 40, click here
al Anfal 41 to al Taubah 92, click here
al Taubah 93 to Hud 5, click here
Hud 6 to Yusuf 52, click here
Yusuf 53 to Ibrahim 52, click here
al Hijr 1 to al Nahl 128, click here
al Isra' 1 to al Kalf 74, click here
al Kalf 75 to Ta Ha 135, click here
al Anbiya 1 to al Haj 78, click here
al Mukminun 1 to al Furqan 20, click here
al Furqan 21 to al Naml 55, click here
al Naml 56 to al Ankabut 45, click here
al Ankabut 46 to al Ahzab 30, click here
al Ahzab 31 to Yaseen 27, click here
Yaseen 28 to Az Zumar 31, click here
az Zumar 32 to Fusilat 46, click here
Fusilat 47 to al Jathiya 47, click here
al Ahqaf 1 to Adh Dhariya 30, click here


............then with HIDAYAH and FAITH, two God-given gifts, without which we would just be big-time time experts like John Esposito or Bernard Lewis: dumb, deaf and blind .....despite all their knowledge !



In the realm of Quran on the net, I like best still Quranexplorer, founded by a group of committed Muslims, of all places, Florida, USA.
With the Quranexplorer, it is possible to 'khatam' the Quran 3 times in a year without much sweat !
May Allah bless this fine work of daawah by these group of young bright people from Florida.
click here