Response to ALI

Waalaikumussalam, Tip.

I am posting this response to your last comment as anther blog because of its length:

The difference between PAS  and UMNO can also be attributed to approach. I am sure, if you ask UMNO people, they would say they are for welfare/charity, justice and elimination of corruption too. It's a question of approach that they choose not to fly the Islamic flag.

 Just as there are bad people in UMNO, there are bad people in PAS too. It's just that it seems "more ugly" when PAS people do bad things. Imagine someone having a beer in public while wearing a kopiah and jubah! OTOH it's perfectly possible for a pious Muslim to be an UMNO supporter because he prefers not to wear his Muslim'ness on his sleeves, preferring to let his actions and behaviour reflect his piety.

The issues I listed, other then poco-poco are not trivial. They are to do with what should be the Islamic response to issues brought about by our multi-racial and multi-religous context, not to mention our unique history. If we cannot arrive at a consensus, we cannot have 1Islam. It's highly unlikely that there is a clearly transmitted example from the Prophet prescribing solutions to these issues. That's why, the Ulamas too have to do some "independent thinking". The question is, should we leave the thinking just to the Ulamas? Even to choose which Ulama to follow, we have to do some thinking.

The 4 Mazhabs, I believe, differ or focus mainly on matters of ritual which has got nothing to do with what we are discussing here. We are discussing societal matters here. Ritual matters necessarily have be transmitted from those who know to those who don't because otherwise, how would we know how to pray. 

Transmitted knowledge has to be differentiated from Intellectual or perceived knowledge. For example, you cannot say 2 + 2 = 4 because your teacher says so. In the same way, it's not good enough to say God is One because your parents or ustaz tell you so. You have to contemplate this on your own, even though one's vision and understanding of God might differ from another. 

In the Quran, God commanded us to think in numerous verses. But think about what? How does one think Islamically? Employing my brain, I think we should think with the end in mind. So years ago, I asked SIR what is the purpose of life as a Muslim. His answer was " The purpose of life is to return". However, all of us are going to return to His presence anyway. So, the issue is not about to return per se but about how we get there. And I think we want to get there in a manner that meets His approval rather than His wrath, guided by the Quran and Sunnah, employing our brains to its individual capacity.

When I set up my FB account, I described my political views as "What would the Prophet do?". Recently, I came across a book that coincided with my thinking, a page of which my daughter dilligently retyped which I reproduce below.

Incidentally, my father was an Ustaz. He and Dato' Asri, the late PAS stalwart were classmates in religous school. Unlike Asri, my father joined UMNO and was a much sought after speaker during elections because of his religous credentials. Presumably, they debated the issue of PAS vs UMNO literally to their deaths and neither could "turn" the other. They remained good friends though.

Salams
Pudin



Book Extract
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"Here is one of the keys for understanding the Muslims' connection to the Prophet. Muhammad does not merely drop the Quran on the front door of humanity. He lives the Quran, he embodies the Quran, as his wife said, his nature is the Quran. Muslims do not connect to Muhammad simply to learn disembodied hadith statements; they look to him to embody the very meaning of the connection to God. This is why for Muslims the key spiritual and intellectual guide to answering every legal and ethical dilemma has always been to ask: what would Muhammad do?

Yet, Muhammad himself prophesied that his community would not find the answer to every new challenge spelled out in the pages of the Qur'an or his sayings. Part of Muhammad's mission was to provide his community with the tools they would need to encounter every fresh challenge in situations for China to Africa, Malaysia to America. The well-commemorated episode that identifies this account is Muhammad's interaction with his companion Mu'adh ibn Jabal, who was being sent to lead another province as its new governor. In their last conversation, Muhammad asked Mu'adh how he would deal with the new challenges that would surely come his way. Mu'adh answered that he would first look into the Qur'an for guidance. Muhammad asked his companion what would he do if he did not find the answer there.  Mu'adh pondered further, then stated that he would look at the example of the Prophet himself - he would wonder what Muhammad would do. The Prophet pressed on a bit further, asking one last time what Mu'adh would do if asking this question revealed no specific instruction. Reflecting one last time, Mu'adh offered that then he would exert his own independent reasoning to come up with a fresh solution to the new dilemma. Finally satisfied, Muhammad sent his companion forth to lead his community."

Page 299-300, Memories of Muhammad
Omid Safi, Ph. D.