dr kassim ahmad in memorium......

the late dr kassim ahmad is a  black blot in my world view of things. his politics does not interest me , much less his position on hadith and islam. i always thought a chap who claimed, and been acclaimed to be a scholar, could have done much  much better than  being  'anti hadith' man. with all the scholarship and the hardship he had gone through his entire political life, i would expect him, of all people, to get not lost of the light at the end of the tunnel.

islam is, in the final analysis, about closeness and mahabatullah.
and one cannot get close to allah without knowing and loving his messenger, muhammad [pbuh].
just because there is a wide spectrum in the practice of islam due to the varying ways people perceive and accept the sunnan of muhammad [pbuh], does not mean one , in order to simplify and unify things, one can do away with sunnah rasullallah.

one do not burn one's grandfather's "reban ayam that is old but still working, just because one cannot get along well with one's dad! "

just look at what the young turks had done to PAS just because tghh had gone bonkers and PAS now seemed to be running around like a headless chicken!!

differences are mercy and rahmah from allah , not a scourge.
just look at the rainbow! how pristinely beautiful it is........

'anti hadith' and a specie belonging to the same genus, liberal islam , to me is just the preserve for prematurely retired arrogant young cardiothoracic surgeon, still wet in between the ears young journalists, retired ambassadors who should know better, daughters of ex ministers, generally angry middle aged ladies etc etc and what not, who wished to bath in  glamour and at the same time revel in their  utter ignorance of their ugama for public viewing . 

i always put dr kassim ahmad  much higher on the pedestal  than these such lowly vocation.

but alas! life is always like that . when you least expect, the best that you thought of a person somehow turns out the other way round. 
it is a disappointment really.

'anda bukan saja sesat ......bahkan anda menyesatkan!', this harsh sentence still ring loudly in my ears, coming from one ex brigedier general  cum dg of ugama, brig general [rtd] datuk zainal abidin, many years back during the very public inquisation of the shaykhul al arqam.

so one fine day some two years back i was surprised when this fine elderly gentleman, very frail looking, was pushed into my consultation room.

i was elated actually. for years i was trying to get to see him personally to give him some advice on the 'hadth' thing. many young professionals with mainly secular education and little else , have been misled  on a wrong path.

and there he was, being wheeled into my consultation suite.
it is as if the 'mountain has come to muhammad!'.

'anda bukan saja sesat..bahkan anda menyesatkan!', i pushed that aside.

after a brief examination and an echocardiogram and xrays, i came to term with his condition:
'this 82 year old veteran politician is a candidate for sudden cardiac death, any time. he has a large failing heart, hardly moving, with severe aortic stenosis probably of rheumatic origin  in childhood [ probably his difficult  'marhein' childhood had contributed to that since repeated streptococcal throat was endemic during his time with his poor childhood back ground ], and most probably compounded by additional ischaemic cardiomyopathy as well..
surgical risk is plus plus...medical treatment is just symptomatic at best. a candidate for sudden cardiac death!' 

that was my 'internal conversation' and 'executive summary' on him.
at my hospital, and in my practice, it did not take long to arrive to such summary.
one visit, at the most two.

'doctor kassim. the outlook is grim. you have a big failing heart with you main valve needing to be replaced as well. additionally before a surgeon can do anything operative  on you, they would need a road map.....an LV angiogram and coronary angiogram.....and even that itself , in your present state, constitute high risk'

'doc i just need  two years to complete my work,  after two years i can close my eyes'

in my mind i wished i could tell him that even that two years is a tall order, but i kept my mouth shut.
too much bad news and awe for the old man already. 40 years in the practice tells me that shock in small doses over time can be taken more easily.

in his very frail condition i will be lucky if i can find a very senior brave surgeon to replace his valve and do bypass grafts as well. the possibility of 'dying on the table' is just too high!
no surgeon worth his salt would want that to happen!

we spend the next ten minutes discussing his new book plan he was writing.

'frankly dr kassim, if you were to ask me, and i am a fan of hamka and tafsir like you as well.....your position on hadith is islamically not defensible. i do not think at this juncture in your life you should concentrate on that......there is not much time left, frankly.'

' but doc, you are wrong! those people  from jakim dont have ilm. they are cocooned in their own ignorance..'

' well, dr kassim you are more well read than me,but the little i know about islam tells me that you are on the wrong path...you should come back to the right path. you are not only lost. many young people got lost as well following you. some of them i know personally'

that was my parting remark.

the week after, dr kassin ahmad did not turn up for his scheduled follow up visit.
i assumed he went for a better second opinion.
see some young cardiologists elsewhere who know how to keep their mouths shut!

may his taubat, insyaallah, be accepted by allah rabbul jalil. 
may his soul be placed amongst the blessed!

inna lillah hiwainna ilai hirojiun.