On the call for shariah

A great article by Abu Eesa Niamatullah. Excerpts:

From the onset, one must understand that the Sharī‘ah is part of Islam but Islam is not just Sharī‘ah. There is no doubting its importance with respect to the absolute application of the divine Will of God on Earth, but this is only one aspect of Islam and certainly not the “be-all and end-all” – many people spend their entire efforts on implementing the Law on everyone else whereas the Qur’ānic narrative clearly prioritises the self first and then the rest of the community based on one’s ability.

And it is ability which is the key concept missing from the methodology of our brothers and sisters when we witness their attempts to establish Sharī‘ah at all costs. Many people talk about its establishment (theoretically here in the West) and more practically in the Muslim lands yet it is beyond their capacity to do it in their respective societies. The question must be asked why become busy with that which cannot be done whilst neglecting that which can be done, such as studying the religion deeply, giving da‘wah, working on ones conduct and manners etc as opposed to getting involved in that which is not their priority?

hmmm, this looks familiar...

Seating plan for the sounds of light concert to be held at the Vodafone Arena Melbourne on the 27th of July. Tickets on sale now.

Bacaan asing

petikan dari laman Ustaz Hazrizal:

THE AGE OF MUSLIM IGNORANCE

Pada saya, apa yang telah membelenggu Eropah di era itu, hal yang sama jugalah sedang membelenggu pemikiran umat Islam hari ini. Saya bimbang dengan pemikiran simplistik umat Islam di Malaysia hari ini. Jika Tok Wan di kampung, tentulah saya tidak bimbang. Tetapi yang menjadi kerisauan saya adalah tokoh-tokoh masyarakat, ahli politik dan Ulama sendiri.

Di era penghormatan orang ramai terhadap Ulama semakin terhakis, ramai Ulama yang dengan sendiri menambah sebab untuk mereka tidak dihormati.

Suatu ketika, kita beranggapan bahawa semua yang menentang Islam adalah Orientalis. Semua Orientalis adalah musuh Islam. Walaupun mungkin kita bahagikan Orientalis kepada Orientalis klasik, moden, dan pasca moden, namun kita beranggapan bahawa semua kelompok ini bekerja untuk menjayakan agenda penjajahan dan merancang untuk membinasakan Islam. Lantas kita gagal bersikap adil, dan seterusnya terhijab dari mengambil manfaat menerusi kajian Orientalis yang bermaksud baik seperti Arnold Toynbee.

Kita juga marah dengan Orientalis kerana menyalah tafsirkan Islam, bagaimana pula dengan jenayah kita menyalah tafsirkan Eropah? Apakah kita sudah menghasilkan terjemahan Islam terhadap Western Civilization? Orientalis gigih bekerja, dan kita hanya gigih menangkis, semata-mata.

Saya terkejut apabila mendapati ada di kalangan rakan saya yang belajar di Eropah tetapi menumpukan pembacaan tentang Orientalis kepada hasil karya orang Islam terhadap subjek tersebut. Tentunya pembacaan sedemikian rupa akan diwarnai oleh bahasa sacarstic, prejudis dan sinis yang merugikan. Sedangkan saya dan rakan-rakan di Malaysia, kami bertungkus lumus membaca tentang Orientalis berasaskan karya Orientalis sendiri, agar kami tidak bias, dan boleh membuat kesimpulan yang adil tentang mereka.

Kami menempuh kesukaran untuk mendapatkan bahan bacaan tentang Orientalis, dan jika ada terjual di Kinokuniya atau Borders, harganya menyeksa diri. Sedangkan mereka yang berada di Eropah tidak mengambil peluang daripada keberadaan mereka di sana, untuk mendalami isu ini dari sumbernya yang asli.

kalau berani, ia dibaca dengan ini: Ancaman Pembiusan Agama, tulisan Fathi Aris Omar.

[TAMBAHAN (10/5/2007): Kedua-dua artikel ini mengupas isu yang sama, iaitu perlunya berlaku adil terhadap kawan dan lawan, di dalam konteks penerimaan ilmu. Ia, pada hemat saya, sesuatu yang perlu diamalkan oleh setiap muslim.]

Ada baiknya jika diskusi di hujung artikel ini dibaca juga.

Mohon dijaga adab di dalam berpendapat.

This is a New York Times article on medieval female scholars muhaddithat, and faqihat.

more reasons not to rush into marriage (yes I'm talking to you)

Found this on Malaysia Today just now. A forum on women's issues organised by Sisters In Islam, whose panelists comprised of representatives of women's groups and religious scholars, put forth several ideas to 'compel fathers to pay alimony (nafkah)'. These include:

# SETTING UP a child support agency that empowers the authorities to go after fathers who fail to pay up;

# GETTING enforcement agencies, like the Road Transport and Immigration departments, to withhold documents like driving licences or passports of errant fathers; and

# OBTAINING the current address of the men or their workplace so that they can be easily traced.

and IMHO, the one that hits it hardest

# DISALLOWING men from marrying again as long as they have not settled the alimony;

In this regard, I support SIS's initiative.

3 Days of Biryani

This is not a ‘blog dakwah’. My blog is about subjects that interest me, which may include but is certainly not limited to muslim issues and Islam. Even then, I prefer my discourses on Islam to be intellectual and of a sober nature. As such, you’ll find, in this blog, few references to anyone’s personal experiences, their level of iman nor even, Muslims’ the world over all time favourite, “How I Came To Islam” tales.

However, I cannot but state that the past few days as anything else than an iman ‘high’.

There goes my first paragraph.

Describing the first Annual Australian Islamic Conference is difficult. It dealt with real-world issues and concerns, yet at the same time many hearts were touched. Controversies accompanied the conference but its findings stressed gentleness. Even the audience themselves; for a local conference, was overwhelmingly international. Only the biryanis perhaps have an accurate description.

However, this could be its Achilles heel. In its bid to cover as many areas conceivable, the conference could lose its focus. This may not be the case at present, when the Australian Muslim population is only few in number, but when it grows (and since these are muslims we’re speaking of, I would add; exponentially) can the impact the conference had on the delegates be replicated once the technical nature of the varied discussions increase? Or would it become of interest only to academics and dyed-in-the-wool Islamists?

Of course, I may be missing the woods for the trees here. The organizers, Mercy Mission, have after all stated that they do not intend to be a jack of all trades, but instead, a platform to facilitate projects and share resources. A DHL for Muslim organizations ,if you will, which IMHO is a wonderful and novel idea. Administrative efficiency is seldom the forte of Muslim organizations (probably due to their largely voluntary nature), but if through Mercy Mission these organizations can make their ideas work and be implemented widely by providing supply-chain services that are beyond the capacity of the organizations i.e. national advertising, technological know-how, then perhaps that exponential growth may not pose such a problem after all.

My petty concerns aside, I do feel it was a wonderful experience. It was odd initially to see the Melbourne University's Economics and Commerce Building turn into a mini Taman Melewar, but then you realize what you were observing were really the reality of Muslims. Not radical militants, certainly not assimilating apologists, but rather a colourful bunch of families who want, as Shabir Ally puts it, “maximum happiness one earth, and maximum happiness in the hereafter.”

To the speakers, Dr Jamal Badawi, Shabir Ally, Waleed Basyouni, Tawfique Chowdury, and Yvonne Ridley, I thank you for sharing your invaluable knowledge and experience with us. May it be of great benefit to all, and may you be rewarded for your service. To the organizers, I congratulate and thank you for organising a conference of such scale smoothly (albeit delayed) and successfully beating expectations. I pray that next year’s conference be far better, In Sha Allah.

Everyone has an opinion but the question is everyone qualified to an opinion? Is voicing an opinion in the community of Muslims based on merit or the right-to free speech? We must come to terms that Shar’iah is for all times and places and is capable of being lived in the West, and addressing matter of pertinence that unfold in the reality of that environment. The first and primary mistake that took place in da’wah in the West was that Muslims were at a loss regarding what ought to be the proper rules of engaging the West as Muslims. More often than not people turned to total immersion and consequentially loosing their Islamic identity or they turned to an orientation of militancy.

Islam and the West are not at odds there is no basis for the thesis of clash of civilization neither in our sacred texts nor in our tradition of scholarship. We must come to grips with the reality that the politics of the Muslim world and Western foreign policy has overshadowed an honest inquiry into the reality of how to live Shar’iah in the West. Islamic education is at such an all time low that when the term Shar’iah is mentioned in the minds of many two concepts emerge in thought and image: Islamic criminal law and the notion of khilafa.

To limit Shar’iah to these two points’ criminal law and khilafah is very simplistic and an understanding based on ignorance of what Islam, what Shar’iah is. First and foremost we must come to terms with the fact that Islam is a message to be communicated a model of life for all people, times and places and not just criminal law and political leadership these matters are outcomes not ends in themselves. It is true that Islam does not separate between political life and spiritual life they are not in conflict within the Islamic way of life but politics in Islam is a means not an end. The ends of Islam are preservation of life and intellect, family and wealth, dignity and upholding Islamic practice not political power and punishing crime. The goal of Islam is to elevate the quality of life not to punish and wield power. Confusion has emerged in the Muslim intellect because Muslims have misunderstood the reasons why da’wah movements historically emerged and have forgotten to regard time and place and context.

Da’wah movements do not represent the reality of Islam rather they stimulate awareness of Islam. The reality of Islam is represented in the sources of Islam. Understanding Islam as a living, viable, relevant mode of life necessitates primarily an education in the sources of Islam and not imbibing concepts alone we must imbibe concepts and the ethos of Islam and learn through study and practice. What is needed is to connect with revelation. The confusion that we face today is due to Muslims themselves and also to colonialism. The emergence of the West saw the destruction of places of Islamic learning with the demise of these centers and the colonial onslaught Muslims focused on political liberation. But the situation did not stop there in the midst of the Cold War the Muslim world was a playground for ideological warfare and in some cases a ground for military action and this is what we saw in the war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. The preoccupation with colonialism and ideological warfare and the fact that Islamic centers of learning were weakened in fact undermined the project for dialogue and exchange. What is demanded at the moment is a sober look at the affair, divorced from political and ideological pressures. Islam is now embedded into the fabric of Western society the question now is how will Muslims contribute as Muslims to society?

From the Translators.Click to read.

Extremism is Extremism

This is probably the most difficult post for me so far.

For a long time, I preferred remaining on the sidelines of this issue. Mainly because it is something that runs deep to many muslims. The Jihad. Or rather The Jihad?

I feel that a spade should be called just that, a spade. That suicide bombings, indiscriminate killings and murders, and blatant aggression should be acknowledged for what it is: extremism.

How strange I felt on the steps of the State Library last week, as the demonstrators applauded
'the resistance' of Iraq.
Are they celebrating the same 'resistance' that detonated a 'car-bomb' using children to pass through security checkpoints.
Is it the same 'resistance' that blows bombs during religious festivals?

So comes the question, is this Islam?
Yes, muslims are oppressed the world over;
yes, muslims are in a position of weakness;
but is this how the Prophet S.A.W taught us to act?
Is this how he reacted?

I cannot convince myself anymore that Islam condones indiscriminate murder. Or that it condones the murder of child who has never raised a weapon against a muslim. Nor of anyone who does not aggress us.

Saddam was a tyrant, but no one deserves the current anarchy. It is said that a ruler, even a tyrant, is a blessing from God. One only has to ask those living outside the Green Zone to know what that means.

Here's the link:

Former Jihadist Renounces Violence

People with no inner spiritual life sometimes ask: If God created everything, who created God? The Prophet said that some people would ask this very question: "A day will certainly come when some people will sit with their legs crossed and ask: 'If God created everything, who created God?'"

Who created God - Fethullah Gulen

Sebarang komen berkenaan ulama' umpama meniti jambatan yang rapuh. Terlampau mudah untuk pandangan ikhlas seseorang disalahertikan menjadi kritikan terhadap institusi mulia ini. Jadi, boleh bayangkan bagaimana gembiranya saya tatkala menatap artikel terbaru dari Harakahdaily ini, "Keengganan Ulamak Turun Padang Rosakkan Umat Islam", di mana seorang Ulama' sendiri menyuarakan secara terang-terangan sebuah pandangan yang terbungkam sulit di dalam dada ramai.

Petikan:

"Ulamak masa kini ada yang selesa dengan harta dan rumah besar. Mereka seolah-olah bukan cendiakiawan Islam yang bertanggungjawab memelihara Islam agar cemerlang bahkan kadang-kadang boleh merosakan masa depan Islam," ujarnya.

"Berceramah memang penting tapi buat kerja dekat masyarakat sama walaupun terpaksa masuk disko, pub atau pusat membeli belah. Baru ada cabaran," tegasnya

Diri yang jahil ini ingin mencadangkan, bukan setakat disko pub saja ustaz, tapi bus stop, bank, universiti,mahkamah, kilang, studio, panggung wayang semua masuk. Situasi kini begitu memerlukan kepada ilmu Islam tulen. Kini, segala-galanya perlu peringatan.

Islam Di Sumatera Barat

Nukilan ini dikarang tidak lama selepas penulis pulang ke tanahair dari tanah seberang. Perjalanan selama 4 hari ke Bukittingi, Sumatra Barat, Indonesia, meskipun tidak mengisi jiwa tetapi terhasil jua darinya pemerhatian-pemerhatian dan pergolakan-pergolakan baru dalam minda penulis akan realiti Islam di dalam dunia nusantara moden.

Sekian maklum Islam sudah tersebar luas sejak berkurun lagi di Nusantra. Pelbagai artifak yang ditemui dijadikan asas bagi pelbagai teori-teori perkembangannya. Ada yang berpendapat hadirnya Islam di bumi ini hasil usaha para pedagang Arab. Ada pula yang berpendapat dari pedagang Cina yang bertandang. Yang jelas, Islam telah diterima dari strata tertinggi masyarakat Melayu purba sehingga ke rakyat jelata, mengakibatkan berlakunya perubahan identiti masyarakat dari sebuah komuniti berpaksikan adat dan budaya Hindu-Buddha kepada ummat Islam di dalam masa yang singkat.

Pepatah Melayu mengatakan,

Adat bersendi Hukum
Hukum bersendi Kitabullah

Namun, dari pengamatan ringkas penulis, perkara ini tidak semestinya berlaku. Kesan kebudayaan Hindu-Buddha masih terdapat di dalam masyarakat Nusantara hari ini. Malah sesetengah merupakan elemen-elemen yang jelas bertentangan dengan sifat Monotheistik Radikal Islam namun terus diamalkan dari zaman ke zaman.

Penulis pernah ke Jakarta tidak lama dahulu, dan disajikan dengan pelbagai mitos masyarakat yang menebal dengan pengaruh pre-islamik. Malah stuktur masyarakat Jawa (minta dibetulkan sekiranya kurang tepat) terdapat kilasan-kilasan sistem kasta yang membahagi-bahagikan antara insan berbeza status sosio-ekonominya. Keadaannya berbeza sekali di Sumatera Barat. Keunikan dan kelainan struktur Minangkabau mungkin mendorong kita untuk menyangka yang 'fahaman mereka juga menyeleweng' namun realitinya jauh sekali dari hal tersebut. Jika kita di Malaysia, Kota Bharu kita canangkan sebagai Bandaraya Islam, saya bayangkan Kota Padang sebagai Saudara Tua kepadanya yang Islam sudah sebati di dalam fabrik masyarakatnya. Pengzahirannya mungkin berbeza; tiada binaan ala Maghribi atau Mughal, pakaian yang dikenakan kurang ke'arab'an, tetapi ia ibarat inti yang memberi maksud kepada Masyarakat Minang.

Mari kita singkapi kisah Dato' Perpatih. Beliau dikhabarkan merantau ke merata tempat demi mencari ilmu Islam, dan ajarannya hari ini kita kenali sebagai Adat Perpatih. Berlawanan dengan Dato' Temenggung, pengasas adat Temenggung (juga eksport Minangkabau), yang berdiam sahaja di tempatnya. Kesempurnaan ilmu Islam Dato' Perpatih berjaya mewujudkan suatu mekanisme efektif yang melindungi kaum wanita masyarakat Minang dan memastikan lubang kemaksiatan tertutup rapat dengan membela nasib golongan tersebut (sekali lagi, mohon dibetulkan sekira tidak tepat).

Saya sering tertanya-tanya dahulu apabila membaca buku-buku Pak Hamka, bagaimana dia mampu mencipta sebuah masyarakat islam ideal tetapi pada masa yang sama visi yang dihadapkan itu tidak idealistik. Nah, Sumatera Baratlah jawapannya.

I need a hero

I like che. I really do. I've read his books, watched Fidel!, Motorcycle Diaries (in German) and am waiting for the one featuring Benicio Del Toro to premiere. But el che pales in comparison to Mus'ab Bin 'Umair (may Allah be pleased with him). You need a young idealistic role model who left everything behind for the cause, even dying for it (and what an end it was)? Then look no further than this great companion of the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).

on podcasts

Got a new obsession : podcasts! Yes, i know, though it seems tempting to say its oh-so-passe now, I did try it out previously, only to have my interest peter off due to the lack of podcasts that interest me.

Now, however, its a totally different story. Through podcasts, there is a cost-efficient way to partake in various intellectual pursuit. Here are a list of some of the podcasts I currently subscribe to (with a short description of its contents):

• Gamelan Podcast - self-explanatory
• Zaytuna Institute Podcast - one of the more frequently updated and truly multimedia podcasts, contain both audio and video lectures on Islam by Shaykh Hamzah Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, and also documents on Islam
• Q-News Podcast - of Q-News magazine fame, covers current issues, e.g. Palestine, organic food, mental health from a decidedly Islamic perspective.
• iKhutbah - various lectures from American Muslim scholars, i.e Imam Suhaib Webb, Imam Siraj Wahaj etc.
• Radical Middle Way Project - UK podcast with lectures on Islam delivered by noted scholars (in English).
  
• mykuliah.net podcast (Malay) - a compendium of ceramahs delivered by famous Malaysian speakers like Dr Harun Din, Aqil Hayy, Ustaz Shamsuri Ahmad.
• Zirah KLFM 97.2 (Malay) - a favourite show of mine. This is the podcast for Zikrah, the daily morning radio program on KLFM featuring Ustaz Wan Sohor Bani Leman.

The quality of the recordings are generally bearable bearing in mind that most of the episodes are actually lectures recorded live (with the exception of the Gamelan podcast as it is essentially a music program). The Zaytuna podcast deserves extra mention as it truly is a full-featured multimedia podcast and is updated at regular intervals. Its a good thing then, I suppose, that one finds it hard to tire of Hamzah Yusuf and his educational mirth.

There are also podcasts that aim to teach or at least complement the learning of a language. The learn Japaneses podcast is very popular (it was even featured in Time recently), so is the learn Mandarin podcast. However, the arabic language podcasts that I have tried are unsatisfactory,to say the least.

After listening to people like Abdul Hakim Murad, Hamzah Yusuf, Zaid Shakir and others, one finds it tempting to make comparisons with the lectures we regular hear delivered by our homegrown scholars of islam. The content of the Malaysian lectures are rather superficial, as opposed to the deep probing discourses, especially those delivered by people like Abdul Hakim Murad, a professor of Divinity from Cambridge University. There also seems to be greater emphasis on the application of Islam principles to daily life and issues as opposed to merely restricting it to supplications, prayers and the odd political issue. As there is a very obvious spiritual vacuum, perhaps it is timely for our Ustazs and scholars to start speaking in depth and offer their opinions on concerns such as the environment, health, culture, relationships lest people seeking for answers pick up instead the solutions offered that may be incompatible with Quranic principles.

God knows best.

20 Ramadhan

It was a simple majlis. Nothing ostentatious, food served on nondescript plastic plates, guests seated on linoleum. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen, students, slackers gathered in one humble hall to break fast together.

I sat at the back, as I always do. Its nearer to the exit, but that's not the point of the story. The purpose of typing this post juiced-up on caffeine so late at night is about the tazkirah that was given after the buka.

Now, it's important for me to tell you that officially the Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor frowns on this practice. To be fair to them, what they actually discourage is the giving of tazkirah after every 4 raka'ats of Tarawih, as they say it disturbs the concentration of the jemaah. Nevermind the fact most people bail out after 8 anyway, tazkirah or no tazkirah, and you pretty much lose concentration after the first mercun bang ten minutes into the first raka'at, but that's not the point of this post.

So this Ustaz reminded the faithful present in that humble hall, that tonight (local Malaysian time) marked the beginning of the final 10 days of Ramadhan. Of course, some people would say it was yesterday based on their own local sighting (of the anak bulan), and both are valid opinions, as Syeikh Hamza(h) Yusuf would say, although it is rather confusing, but that's not the point of this tale.

He reminded them, that in these final 10 days exists a night where deeds are rewarded the equivalent of 1000 months, roughly 83 years. That's ten years more than the Malaysian life expectancy rate for females, 14 years more than for its males. It was also mentioned how the Messenger of Allah (s) was the best of men during Ramadhan.

You see, these final 10 nights should be a sort of a wake up call. If you are like me, and the past 20 days of fasting have been more murtabak than mubarak, these final 10 days is the time to change.
If your tilawah has not progressed beyond page 5, then its time to pick it up again.
If your previous terawihs were impaired by the contents of your stomach, maybe its time to spend less at the bazaar ( despite what Tun Dr M says about the economy).
If your last tahajjud was... a long time ago, perhaps tonight would be a good time to resume it.

I advice myself and all readers of this blog this, and I ask Allah that I don't blow this last few days of Ramadhan. Amin.


Links:
Dato' Ishak Baharum's view of the current ban on tazkirahs. (In Malay)

Gadis Ayu Bertudung

Many people say that when they wear the tudung, they are freed from the shackles of fashion. They no longer have to follow the trends of the day. They are now on a different path, where their clothes are an expression of their faith, not their desires.

Today, somehow, this statement is starting to sound more and more shallow.
Case in point, the superfluity (thank Dictionary.com for that) of tudung styles. If you were to visit The Hijab Shop website, you will find so many different styles of tudung (some never before seen in Malaysia) in so many different colours, and patterns, and lengths. And of course our homegrown varieties shouldn't be forgotten, i.e Wardina, Waheeda, Mawi, Ina etc. etc. Hijab is now a fashion industry in itself, and it won't be long before the luxury fashion houses decide to tag along.

This is not to say, of course, that all muslim women should be dour tudung labuh wearing matrons in shapeless jubahs. I of all people, am certainly in no position to tell people what they should, what they should not do. And if someone wants to wear a black chador , feeling that it is what Islam demands of them, I have no quarrel with that. But here ,rather, I wish to ask why people should wear the hijab in the first place.
I'm no scholar so I don't have the answer. But I can question, and my question is: don't the bright, striking, and highly visible tudungs detract from the purpose of the legislation of the hijab, which to my understanding is to enforce modesty?
What about individuality? Does the hijab rob you of your identity or is it possible to strike a balance between the two?
And finally, what about faith? Does a black abaya denote a higher level of faith than that of a baju kurung?

I'm not trying to be smart, only curious. Everyday I see so many women practicing this aspect of their faith, yet at the same time , neglecting it. I think that we are so concerned about wrapping our heads that we forget to fill them up, which in my view is the more important of the two.
What good is it to be free from one fashion trend only to be enslaved by another?