ISLAM – WHICH ISLAM?

By: Kassim Ahmad  

            While the world is reeling under the impending collapse of the so-called  “free market”  system, so beloved of  the Anglo-American oligarchy,  ten years after the collapse of  the Soviet communist system,  the Muslim zealots in Malaysia, encouraged by PAS’ s victories in the last general election  are dreaming of installing a PAS-dominated “Islamic state”, complete with Hudud laws and other forbidding regulations.  Even  the DAP’s Kit Siang is already preparing his party how to live and benefit from such a state. As to our  ever vocal  human rights activists,  so quick to criticize the slightest human rights violation on the part of the Government,  they are strangely silent on this PAS threat to human rights.  

            Under such circumstances, it is extremely important to pose and answer the question: Which Islam?   To many people, including Muslims, it might seem a strange question.   It is not.

            Prophet Muhammad, whom PAS is supposed to emulate, when he set up he Medina city-state with its famous Medina Charter ( a truly incomparible political-constitutional document) in 622 A.D., did not set up an “Islamic state”. The term is nowhere to be found in the charter. It is easy to see why. A civil society is concerned with administering the worldly affairs of men; it cannot legislate on the affairs of afterlife (such as spiritual matters), which are the sole domain of the Divine.  Secondly, the city also had Jewish citizens, who had their own religion; they would not have agreed to live in an  “Islamic state”.

            Of course, Muhammad ruled according to the principles of fairness, justice and mercy that God commanded him to do in the Quran.  But he avoided policing over people’s spiritual affairs and their morals. This was done through education and persuasion, the only way such things are done. That was why he succeeded. Very soon, many Arabs flocked to his banner. In  seven  years, he re-entered the city of Mecca, where he was born but from where he had to escape, a victor and liberator. The whole Arab peninsula lay at his feet.  Very soon Arab armies defeated and conquered the once mighty Persian empire and much of the Roman. This was the astounding success story of early Islam.

            What is the difference between the Prophet’s Islam and Pas’s “Islam”, not forgetting that PAS has an ideological root going far back in time and beyond the confines of Malaysia.

            To give a short answer to the above question, the Islam of Prophet Muhammad is the same basic Islam as taught by all the major prophets and messengers of God from time immemorial, from prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus, and completed by the time of Muhammad. One can say quite correctly, it is the Islam of the prophets: a belief in One God and a commitment to live in peace, and to live righteously.  “Those who say, ‘Our Lord is God’, then lead a righteous life, the angels descend upon them: ‘Have no fear, nor grieve, and rejoice in the good news that Paradise has been reserved for you. We are your allies in this life and in the hereafter. You will have in it anything you wish for  and you will have anything you want, as hospitality from One Forgiving, Merciful.'” (Quran, 41: 30-31).  Notice that there are only two basic requirements for the good life: belief in One God, and doing good. Such verses occur many, many times in the Quran.

It is not difficult to see why Paradise depends on these two basic conditions. It is only human beings who believe in One God can see things in their totality, universality and oneness: no sectarianism, no parochialism, no partiality. It is only human beings who do good can bring about a secure, peaceful and bountiful world where people can live happily.

            Christian Europe, with its wonder-producing science and technology, had five centuries to bring about such a world. It fails. It fails, because it thinks in terms of its lower self. It is Eurocentric. It is imperialistic.The last ten years, the years of the so-called ‘New World Order’ was indeed a World Disorder! People suffer everywhere: wars, diseases, conflicts, instability. They are now rising up in revolt. Very soon it will collapse. Just as Soviet communism collapsed before, so will the much-vaunted free market capitalism collapse.

            With the ‘New World Order’ against every nationalist, patriot and humanist, no wonder, leaders like Saddam Hussein, our own brave Dr. Mahathir and the American thinker-political activist Lyndon LaRouche, have been having a hard time, and stooges, like   PAS’s theologians, have gained acceptance and are being praised in their media.  

PAS’s “Islam” is the Islam of the theologians, in fact, of men who use religion for material gains.  They make the religion so difficult so that the incredulous populace will for ever depend on them to gain entry to heaven! But, be sure,  their dreams will soon be shattered. As the ‘New World Order’ supporting PAS is a falsehood, so is the theologians’s religion a falsehood. It will crumble before our very eyes before  we reach  the year 2005 – a fitting finis to a religious ideological opportunism!

            The Malays must return to the true Islam – the Islam of Prophet Muhammad, the Islam of all the prophets of God. It is to be found in the last Book of God, the Quran, and nowhere else. The Quran must be read, studied and understood, not sung in a melodious voice without understanding, as the theologians have taught us to do all these long wasted years.  It is not yet too late for us to do this. Nothing is too late. But is must be done now -- in a rational, planned and massive way. Then, PAS's theologians's "Islam" and its ambitions will crumble,  just as the idol-worshipping Arab Quraisy aristocracy fell before the unbeatable Quran-bearing Muhammad and his followers in seventh century Arabia.

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