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It was very pleasing for me to read yesterday about the conference titled ‘Who Needs an Islamic State: An Intellectual Discourse’. With people like Malik Imtiaz Sarwar on the panel, you can tell that the discourse will cut the issue right down to the bone.
The Islamic State is a very emotive issue for Muslims, especially fundamentalists. For them, the Islamic State represents an ultimate level of the expression of Islam and will be the precipitator of an Islamic Golden age. I humbly disagree with them because of the following reasons. 1. The Islamic Golden Age , as can be understood by this wikipedia entry was a time where not only were science and technology probed deeply by the Muslims, but also philosophy and literature. Muslims then had no problem with reading thoughts of others and producing highly imaginative fictional works. These days, such works will be considered at best, deviating and at worst, blasphemous. 2. Muslims never had a single unifying state for any long period of time after end of the Umayyads. By the end of the Abbasids, there were several Muslim kingdoms already. Not only that, the Abbasids after Al-Mamun were most only nominal caliphs, the real power was in the hands of the Turkish bodyguard class. 3. The classical theorist of the Caliphate, Al-Mawardi believed that the leader of the Islamic State should be from the Quraisy clan, the clan of Muhammad. This racist concept of the caliph betrays the true face of the Islamic State, that it is an expression of Pan-Arabic Cultural Exclusivism (paceism) For the Muslims from the newly-emerging Pakatan Rakyat (PR) who wish for an Islamic State, I would urge you to consider the following from the Quran: 1. The Quran nowhere mandates the establishment of an Islamic State. The word ‘dawlah’ which means ‘state’ in Arabic isn’t used in the Quran at all. Rather, the Quran talks about the ummah of mankind as one ummah. (2/213) 2. The Quran is unsparing in its criticisms of empires that were destroyed. In 46/35, it contrasts the system of the messengers with that of the disobedient stating that only the systems of the disobedient would be destroyed. Doesn’t this show that the numerous Islamic states before were disobedient? How can they be Islamic states if they did not follow the way of the messengers? 3. The Quran talks about the purification of one’s service for God (deeni-khaalis) and mentions establishing justice intimately with this concept (7/29). It never states that an ‘Islamic State’ is necessary before establishing justice in society. The Islamic State is really an icon for intellectually bankrupt individuals to galvanise the Muslims to move under their own flags. In reality, Muslims do not need to focus on establishing states but rather establishing justice. This is what the Quran calls as the purest of service for God and indeed, this is what the Quran asserts will bring about the garden on this earth and the next as opposed to a totalitarian state which is contradictory to the Quranic principle of ‘no compulsion’. To the supporters of the Islamic State in the PR, I urge you, work with our fellow Malaysians and establish justice and you will see this garden emerge for yourselves in our country. By Farouk A. Peru www.peru.name
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