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During the time the Muslims ruled over Spain the Europeans learned Arabic and migrated to Spain in search of ‘Islamic’ knowledge. They absorbed everything they could get their hands on and armed with this new knowledge they went home and translated all the Arabic books into their mother-tongue. And they taught their people what they had learned from the Muslims. 
NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
Use Islam’s past glory to reach greater heights, urges PM KUALA TERENGGANU: The past glory of Islamic civilisation in various fields should be used as a yardstick for Muslims today in order to achieve greater heights, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said last night. Addressing some 10,000 people who witnessed the opening of Islamic Civilisation Park in Pulau Wan Man here, Abdullah said Islam had brought great development in the past and innovation was not alien to Muslims. “Therefore this legacy should be continued to achieve even more for Muslims aimed at building an Ulul-Albab society, a society that is with high values and superlative minds,” he said. Abdullah opened the 23 ha. Islamic Civilisation Park, costing RM250 million, which is a project under the East Coast Economic Region (ECER). The park features replicas of 12 mosques, the Al-Hambra of Spain, Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and the Taj Mahal of India. Abdullah said the park was not only a tourist attraction but also a source of inspiration for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. “Although the monuments are replicas, they reflect the architectural wonders of the Islamic world,” he said. Abdullah also stressed that Islam Hadhari was based on principles of the Quran and was a universal approach that would not pose problems for non-Muslims in the country. The Prime Minister added that the park, the only one in the world, is another icon not only for Terengganu but also for the country. He said visitors from all over the world would be able to see the magnificence of Islamic architecture. (The Star, 4 February 2008) ------------------------------- Najib waves stick and offers carrot While promising several goodies for the Indian community, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak at the same time today warned the community not to go against the ruling BN. He reminded the community that their future was only bright with the ruling coalition. He added that only BN could guarantee a better socio-economic well-being for them. Work within the system, he told them, not against it, he stressed. “Continue to place your trust with the Barisan. The Barisan is the future of Malaysian Indians and all Malaysians.” “The future will be better if you work within the system and not against it,” he said this morning when opening a one-day MIC special convention for branch chairperson at the Putra World Trade Centre. The convention - attended by about 3,700 branch chairmen and MIC elected representatives - is to prepare the party’s grassroots machinery for the upcoming general election. In obvious reference to Hindu Rights Action Force and the opposition parties, Najib also urged the community members not to be taken in by promises made by those who “stage street demonstrations”. “Do you think your future can be guaranteed by those staging street demonstrations? It is important to send signals to the Indian community that their future lies with the BN,” he said. He added that the MIC and the community has always been loyal to the BN since independence and urged them to continue that loyalty. He asked the community to work hard to ensure the BN gets the Indian votes in the coming general election. (K Kabilan, Malaysiakini, 3 February 200) --------------------------------- I know many of you don’t go to the mosque for Friday prayers, Muslims included, so I thought, today, I would deliver my ‘Friday sermon’ straight to your PC or notebook. Of course, my sermon is nowhere near the sermons you hear in the mosques, which normally put half the congregation to sleep. And I mean they literally fall asleep, not figure of speech here -- and if you don’t believe me then attend the congregational prayers on Friday and see for yourself. My ‘Friday sermon’ will be based on the statements by both our Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister as reported above by The Star and Malaysiakini. And what I have to say in reply you will definitely not hear in any Malaysian mosque. This, I assure you. If Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad had been told the same thing -- ‘work within the system and not against the system’; like what Najib said -- then, today, none of the ‘religions of the book’ would exist. If the rulers of their time had told Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad to ‘work within the system and not against the system’ and if these four Prophets had listened and complied, today we would all be followers of only one religion. Considering that Hinduism predates all the ‘religions of the book’ would probably mean that all of us, today, would be Hindus instead of Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. But God did not say ‘work within the system and not against the system’; at least the followers of the ‘religions of the book’ believe so. God, in fact, asked us to fight the system, especially if it is a corrupt and oppressive system, argue the followers of the ‘religions of the book’. Abraham was reported to have gone against his own family. Moses was said to have gone against his own family. Mohammad was said to have gone against his own family. I am not too sure if Jesus too went against his own family but he certainly went against the system and Christians believe he was killed because of this. So, are we supposed to follow what Najib said; work within the system and not against the system? Or are we supposed to follow what the four main Prophets of the ‘religions of the book’ did -- fight the corrupt and oppressive system? I am sure when Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad fought the corrupt and oppressive system rather than work within the system it was by order of God -- at least the followers of the ‘religions of the book’ believe so. Therefore, be a good follower of God and fight the corrupt and oppressive system. Don’t try to work within the system. You cannot change the system by working within the system. The system, in fact, will change you instead. Only by fighting against this system can the system be changed. This is what God commanded. And this is what Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad did. Abdullah is proud of the replicas and icons of Islam that were set up in Terengganu at a cost of RM250 million. Abdullah talks about the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ of days gone by. Sure, the Islamic society was once a great society. But then so were the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and other great societies of their time. Every society has seen its greatness, once upon a time, even the Malays which had its great Malay empire. But all these great societies eventually collapsed. What we need to delve into is not how great these societies were, once upon a time. Instead, we need to know how these societies became great in the first place and what caused their eventual collapse. Building RM250 million worth of replicas and icons of the once upon a time greatness of Islam is not going to restore Islam to its past glory. Even if you spend RM250 billion to build replicas and icons of the once upon a time greatness of Islam it is not going to restore Islam to its past glory. Money, replicas and icons are not what are required. What is required is proper education for Muslims on what Islam really stands for, which Muslims themselves do not seem to understand basically because they have been misinformed by so-called religious scholars whose very narrow minds have interpreted Islam in a very narrow-minded manner. Abdullah said Islam had brought great development in the past and innovation was not alien to Muslims. Abdullah further said the park was not only a tourist attraction but also a source of inspiration for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Abdullah also stressed that Islam Hadhari was based on principles of the Quran and was a universal approach that would not pose problems for non-Muslims in the country. Does Abdullah really believe what he just said? Yes, the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ was the age of invention, science, engineering, architecture, arithmetic, medicine, and much more. Poetry, music, literature, etc., peaked during the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ and hundreds of thousands of books were written at a time when the European Kings and Emperors could not even write their own name, let alone read. During the time the Muslims ruled over Spain the Europeans learned Arabic and migrated to Spain in search of ‘Islamic’ knowledge. They absorbed everything they could get their hands on and armed with this new knowledge they went home and translated all the Arabic books into their mother-tongue. And they taught their people what they had learned from the Muslims. Then they innovated even further and expanded this knowledge and did ‘reverse engineering’ and came out with improvements to the ‘technology’ they had learned. Meanwhile, while the Europeans came out with ‘version 2’, ‘version 3’, ‘version 4’, etc., the Muslims, who were still stuck in ‘version 1’, went backwards. Instead of improving their ‘technology’ or keeping up with the new advancements and improvements in ‘technology’ created by the Europeans -- who in the first place took everything ‘second-hand’ from the Muslims -- the Muslims banned innovation and declared it bidaah. That was the beginning of the end of the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. The Muslims slid backwards while the Europeans propelled forwards. Just a couple of generations before that the Muslims were performing brain surgery to remove blood clots in the head while the Europeans summoned priests with ‘holy water’ to chase the devils out of the heads of those who were suffering severe migraines. Granted, not all the inventors and scientists were Muslims. Some were Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands. But the Muslims then saw no harm in trusting the Jews and Christians and learning everything they could from these people who had fertile minds and were able to bring new ideas and improvements to society. But when bidaah was declared haram and innovation was outlawed, the Muslims today inherit only memories of what once used to be the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. And Muslims relive these memories by building replicas and icons to remind them that the nation of Islam was once a great nation and that it is now no longer so. There is no future in the past. What is past is past. Yes, the Islamic empire was once a great empire. What the Europeans know today they leaned from the Muslims. The Europeans did not even know what ‘zero’ was. With ‘zero’ we have minus-zero, and we also have decimals. The old European Roman numeral was impractical. You could never indulge in science using Roman numerals. You could not even calculate the Ninth Malaysia Plan (RMK9) using Roman numerals. Only with Arabic numerals and by using zeros could this be done. During the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ the religious scholars and the rulers went through a power struggle. Islam, which was the foundation for the creation of a great empire, suddenly became the stumbling block to growth, so to speak. There are of course always two sides to the story in any conflict. Some say the rulers had by then adopted a very un-Islamic lifestyle. They said the religious scholars were uneasy with the wine drinking and womenising of the rulers. The rulers were cruel and corrupt, some argue. Many religious scholars were jailed or put to death, argue others. But the other side of the argument by those who disagree with this interpretation of history is that the religious scholars wanted a monopoly over Islam so that they and only they could interpret the ‘correct’ version of Islam. I was not born yet then so I would never know what really happened save for what the two different sides have to argue. But then, as they always say, history is normally written by the victor, never by the vanquished. So it all depends on whose version of history you would like to believe. The British, who wrote Indian history, call it ‘The Indian Mutiny’. The Indians would argue that it was the Indian fight against British injustice. Others call it the Indian struggle for independence from Britain. But then, when in school, we were made to read Indian history books written by British historians. I wonder what history books we would have read if Nagasaki and Hiroshima had not been bombed and, today, we still have the Japanese as our lords and masters. RM250 million is not really a lot of money. But it is a lot of money if wasted on replicas and icons so that we can nostalgically reminisce about the good old days of the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. That RM250 million would have been better-spent to conduct research as to what made Islam once a great empire and what caused its decline. Muslims lack proper education. Muslim education is based on folklore, superstition and wishful thinking. Until today Muslims still talk about restoring the rule of the Caliph without even understanding the meaning of the word. They think a Caliph is a God-appointed ruler. Caliph merely means ‘successor’, nothing more, nothing less. In that sense Tun Razak, Hussein Onn, Tun Dr Mahathir and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, all being successors to their predecessors, are all caliphs. So there is no magic in having Caliphs rule over us. There is nothing mystical or holy about Caliphs. But Muslims do not understand this because Muslims are not properly educated and base their assumptions on folklore, superstition and wishful thinking. Forget about the past. Forget about reminiscing about the good old days of the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. There is no future in the past. We can never go back. Even if we can, that era no longer works for us today. Look to the past merely to understand how we became great and how all this got demolished later. That would serve us better to face the future. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and so on, do not reminisce about how they were once a great empire and look for ways in how to restore that empire. They accept that the past is past and will have to remain in the past. And they realise one thing that the Muslims do not seem to appreciate. Corruption and oppression brought all these empires down. But while they transformed and became amongst the great democracies of the world, the old Muslim ‘empires’ went further backwards and became failed states, the whole lot of them. And you do not need RM250 million worth of replicas and icons to understand this.
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You should be the next caliph. i'll vote for you.