Moving towards Muslim intra-faith tolerance

There has been much discussion and many conscious efforts to bring about inter-faith understanding and tolerance so that people from different religious backgrounds may learn to live together in peace and harmony in this country. 

The Federal Constitution itself was so drafted to enshrine this principle of religious tolerance while acknowledging Islam as the religion of the Federation.

Since Merdeka, we see there are mosques, gurdwaras, temples, churches and many other holy places belonging to diverse religions co-existing peacefully.

Malaysians celebrate each other’s religious festivities as an occasion to foster togetherness without the respective religious beliefs being threatened.

There is not only tolerance but acceptance of the fact that being from different religious backgrounds is not a deterrent to working and living together.

By and large, most Malaysians accept this diversity of religious beliefs as a rich feature of Malaysia.

Malaysian Muslims, too, accept this reality as a sign from Allah of His creativity, mercy and wisdom.

Hence, God willing, religious differences do not cause disunity or strife among Malaysians.

The situation, however, I am afraid is different when it comes to tolerance within the Muslim community itself. 

In the Middle East, Pakistan and many other countries, sectarian differences in the Muslim community is characterised by enmity, disunity and sometimes violent conflicts among themselves.

The Shia-Sunni conflict is historical and continues to undermine global Muslim unity.

Even within the Sunni community itself, various sub-sects and extremist groups seem to have sprouted creating conflict within its community. The Islamic State  is positioned as an offshoot of the Sunni community.

In Malaysia, I sadly note sectarian differences seem to be taking a stronger negative presence in our society, threatening to undermine Malaysian Muslim unity. I may be wrong and I hope to be wrong but I observe that intra faith conflicts in the Muslim community seem to be increasing as the number of graduates from religious studies increase. 

Compared to say, about 40 years ago,  there seems to be less tolerance in our society pertaining to differences in opinions, views and interpretation of aspects of Islam among Muslims themselves.

A clear disunity among the Malay Muslims occurred when the political contest between Umno and PAS escalated in the 80s right through the 90s.

PAS was projected as representing Allah’s will in the political arena while Umno was seen as a nationalistic party despite the fact Umno’s constitution also placed the protection of the Islamic faith as one of its main objectives. 

“Islamic politics” became a significant political behaviour in the quest to woo the Malay Muslim’s votes.

The political contest between Umno and PAS led to the unfortunate disunity among the Malay Muslims as a result of the kafir mengkafir phenomenon where PAS politicians labelled Umno as infidels.

Hence, from politics, it mutated to a choice between belief and disbelief. Thereafter, each party tried to be more Islamic than the other but perception-wise, Umno was lagging behind in the “Islamic” image department.

I recall even many Umno members secretly believed PAS was indeed more “correct” on the Islamic path. The upshot of it is that the use of “Islam” for political purposes had the unfortunate result of breaking up Malay Muslim unity. 

In this regard, Najib and Hadi’s efforts to bring together Umno and PAS is seen as a move to lessen this political disunity among the Malay Muslims.

Over the years, there is greater emphasis on matters Islamic or perceived to be Islamic due to the political realities of the country. Concurrent with this, there is also increasing conflict between the Muslim thinkers not formally trained in religious studies and the Muslim scholars formally trained in religious studies. I note there is also increasing conflict among the Muslim scholars themselves. 

If the “conflict” is merely a civilised academic contest of ideas and interpretations with the view to espouse and put forth the best interpretations for consideration and humble debate, it is laudable. Civilisations are built upon citizens who are willing to think and behave compassionately.

However, it appears the contest increasingly dominant in the public sphere is not one with a view to share ideas but seems to be a contest to monopolise religious discourses and interpretation of what “Islam” is.

I believe this trend is increasing in our country and is actuated by the quest for power, control, wealth and also religious arrogance. 

Such a contest for monopoly of religion, if not curtailed, may lead to serious fractures in the Muslim community.  It is therefore extremely important for Muslims who wish to stand united by the “rope of Allah’ to be wary of such mischief makers clothed in the robe of religion.

Furthermore, I believe also some (not all) religious “experts” have developed a sense of religious egoism where, unwittingly or otherwise, they have equated their understanding and their interpretation to that of Allah’s.

In other words, the interpreter of scripture has elevated himself to the status of the Giver of scripture. Such a mindset is almost narcissist in nature and is dangerous to society. Such religious leaders may also become the leaders of disunity among the Muslim community.

To foster unity among the Muslims, no amount of outward and superficial show of “Islamness” will help if the spirit of Islam is dead within them. The Quran is replete with advice, exhortations and guidance on how to deal with differences of views even among the Muslims. They have to learn to be more tolerant of each other’s differing views on Islam.

Allah has many times in the Quran said He will settle all differences in the hereafter and that our duty includes doing righteous deeds, be humble, be useful to mankind and His creations, be compassionate and be mindful of our own duties and responsibilities.

So long as we have a few but “powerful” men who want to behave like god on earth, our efforts towards a united Muslim community will still remain a challenge. It is this challenge that the majority spiritual Muslims and the many guided and learned scholars have to bravely and consistently address before matters get worse. Let us never turn Malaysia into another Middle East.

* Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos is a senior lawyer and founder of Rapera, a movement which encourages thinking and compassionate citizens. He can be reached at rapera.jay@gmail.com

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.

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What does “protecting Islam” mean?

(This article was inspired by Kadir Jasin’s latest posting where he mentioned what is important is to “protect the future of UMNO. Malays and Islam..”  No fault of his.)

We often hear this phrase “protecting Islam”, “protecting the sanctity of Islam”, “memartabatkan kedudukan Islam”, “mempertahankan Islam” and so on. What do they exactly mean when they say that?

Firstly, I must confess that I as a Muslim do not know exactly which interpretation of “Islam” they are referring to though I know that there is no single interpretation. All the evidence is out there and in particular, globally, the Muslim world is theologically and politically divided in two major denominations - the “Sunni” and “Shia” Islam world.  The Shias and the Sunnis do not accept each other’s collection of hadiths (“saying of the Prophet”), notwithstanding the fact that each claims “authenticity” and academic verification of the same .

Even within the said denominations, there are diverse sects with their own interpretation of what constitutes “Islam”. In the Sunni world itself there are four main schools of thought namely, Maliki, Shafie, Hanbali and Hanafi equally diverse in views on many topics including those related to pure faith issues.

Fundamentally the divisions in the “Islamic” world arises due to the differences in the sources relied upon to build the structure of Islam.  While all of them claim to accept the Quran, much of the structure of Islam today is build not necessarily from the explicit injunctions of the Quran per se but mostly from the jurists or fuqahas efforts of exegesis. In simple words, derived from the reasoning and interpretation of the jurists.

In the Sunni world, it is “accepted” by their collective mainstream clergy that the sources of Islam in Islamic jurisprudence or usul al-fiqh is primarily the Quran, the Sunnah and hadith, Ijma’ (consensus of the scholars) and Qias (anology).  There are many other sources of islam that have been created to assist in addressing a particular issue such as istihsan, urf and so on.

Even the idea of maqasid al-syariah (objectives of the shariah) is a concept created by the jurists or religious scholars/clergy by way of deducing and inferring from the “accepted” sources aforementioned.

It is understandable that human beings will have to interpret, deduce, and infer from facts and evidence to arrive at a conclusion or to create a concept from which everything else is build. There is nothing unique about this process of thinking and is common to all aspects of our life. This is how values and systems of beliefs and behaviour evolve in societies.

The problem only arises when we deny our interpretative role and equate our ideas, concepts and conclusions to that of the Divine or God. Hence, criticisms and alternative interpretations become impossible and would immediately be cast as blasphemous or unthinkable.

This is what I call the confusion between the views of the Interpreter (“the clergy or anyone) and the actual intent of  the Giver of the Text (“Divine/God”).  Would not equating the views of the interpreter (clergy) absolutely with the intent of the Giver of the Text (“God”) equate the position of the clergy with the position of God?

So back to the question of “protecting Islam”, those who say this cannot and should not assume the serious reader or serious audience knows what they are talking about. They must specify which “Islam” they are talking about.  A generalisation in matters pertaining to Islam is completely unhelpful if they understand the realities of the situation and the diverse academic discussions on Islam and most importantly, the contents of the Quran itself.

Say for example, they were to say “protect the Shia Islam”, then it will be easy to make a choice whereby those who prefer the Sunni version can reject that call. And similarly if one was to say “protect the Sunni version”, then those in favour can support that call.  Even this however may pose a problem in a seemingly Sunni society because of the differences in the opinions of the four schools of thought.  

So, maybe it becomes clearer if the caller was to say “protect the Shafie views of Islam” and so on.

However, do we see this manner of calls as promoting unity among the Muslims? What then will those adhere to the Maliki or Hanafi view do? If you say accept all, then what do you do when there is a conflict of views?

Would it not be easier and more efficient for Muslims to make the call from one book which all of them do not dispute – the Quran?  And mean it too when the call is made and Muslims heed the call by adhering to the Quran. Otherwise, you will be guilty of causing further disunity among the Muslims.

Hence, be careful when you say you want to “protect Islam” for you may be doing the exact reverse by your futile call due to your ignorance of the complexities and the Quran.

Peace !

NOTE: THE AUTHOR DOES NOT REQUIRE NOR EXPECT ANYONE TO ACCEPT OR AGREE WITH HIS VIEWS STATED HEREIN. IN MATTERS OF ISLAM, THE AUTHOR WARNS THAT THE READER SHOULD CHECK WITH HIS OWN COPY OF THE QURAN AND MAKE UP HIS OWN MIND.