That reminds me

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The controversy involving Dr MAZA (Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin), the ex-Mufti of Perlis, brings back memories of my own brush with the ‘religious police’ more than a year ago. I was then under ISA detention and this is part of what transpired during my interrogation by five Special Branch officers.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

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Pak Raja, the way you write appears like you have a different view of Islam.

Which Islam are you talking about?

What do you mean ‘which Islam’? There is only one Islam.

There is not only one Islam. There are different interpretations of Islam. So which Islam are you talking about?

I don’t understand what you mean by different interpretations of Islam? Do you mean different schools of Islam? There may be different schools of Islam but there is still only one Islam.

Okay, so which school are you talking about then?

Sunni Islam. The Shafie school.

So you want to talk about the Shafie school of Sunni Islam then?

Yes.

What exactly do you want to know?

How you interpret Islam.

Simple, I follow the Quran.

So you are anti-Hadith then?

I knew you were coming to that. Why do you people always use the word anti-Hadith? Why not pro-Quran?

So is Pak Raja saying you only accept the Quran and not the Hadith?

Which Hadith?

I am not a religious expert so I can’t go into details.

Okay. Then how many Hadiths are there?

I am not sure.

There are 700,000 Hadith.

Okay, 700,000 then if Pak Raja says so. I am not sure.

Ah, hold on. But only 7,000 Hadith are accepted as authentic. That means only 1% of the Hadith are undisputed. The balance 99% are disputed. Did you know that?

No.

You want to debate about Hadith with me but you don’t even know there are 700,000 Hadith and that only 1% are sahih or undisputed?

I already said we are not religious experts.

If you are not religious experts then why do you debate Islam with me? You are not qualified to debate religion with me.

Okay, so do you accept the 7,000 Hadith?

Which one in particular?

All.

You give me an example of one Hadith from the 7,000 and I will tell whether I can accept it or not. Let’s be specific. Quote me one Hadith and I will tell you if I accept it or reject it.

I can’t quote you any Hadith. As I said….

Yes, I know….you are not an expert on Islam. But yet you want to debate Islam with me.

(The Special Branch officers remain silent).

Dr Mahathir said we must re-evaluate the Hadith. Kassim Ahmad said the same thing. Each Hadith must be looked at one by one to see which can be accepted and which should be rejected. We are not saying that we reject outright all 7,000 Hadith. We are asking to re-evaluate the 7,000 to see which makes sense and which do not. What is wrong with that?

But how can you do that? The ulamak already agreed what is acceptable and what is not. As Pak Raja said, there are 700,000 Hadith and they have already been short-listed to 7,000 by the ulamak. So why do you want to re-evaluate them again?

The Maliki have re-evaluated them. They have only 1,720 Hadith in the Muwatta, not 7,000. Even then only 600 of the 1,720 are attributed directly to the Prophet. And quite a number of the Shafie and Maliki Hadith do not overlap. This means some of the Shafie Hadith are not accepted by Maliki while some of the Maliki Hadith are not accepted by Shafie. So which one do we accept? The Maliki or Shafie Hadith, where many are different and do not overlap?

We are Shafie so we talk about Shafie.

Why do we just talk about Shafie? Why can’t I talk about Maliki? Or talk about Salafi? In Perlis they are supposed to be Wahhabi, a branch of the Salafi. And the Wahhabi do not accept some of the things we are doing. Dr Asri, the Mufti of Perlis, is also said to be Wahhabi. I have spent time in Perlis and I find that things are a bit different there. The Muslims in Perlis say they follow the Wahhabi. If we are only allowed what JAIS, JAWI, JAKIM and JAKUN say then the Perlis Mufti should be arrested for following the wrong teachings.

Eh, mana ada JAKUN (where got JAKUN)?

(The five Special Branch officers laugh).

Why must I only follow what the government says? Why can’t I research and decide which interpretation of Islam I want to follow?

We can’t allow that. The ulamak have already decided what is correct and you have to follow that.

How do you know the ulamak are correct? What if they are wrong? And which ulamak do I follow? There are so many. Which ulamak is right?

That is not for you to decide. The ulamak knows best.

Islam says in the akhirat (the hereafter) you will follow your imam. If your imam goes to heaven then you go to heaven and if your imam goes to hell then you go to hell. The ulamak can’t save me from hell. I will have to save myself. So how would I save myself unless I research and decide which ulamak is correct and which are wrong.

But you are not qualified to research. You will have to let the ulamak do that.

But the first word in the first verse of the Quran revealed to Prophet Muhammad is iqraq (read). Did not Allah command us to read? The first word in the first verse revealed to Muhammad is not ‘follow your ulamak who knows best’. It is ‘read’. Furthermore, the Quran asks: do you still want to follow the majority when the majority may be wrong? The Quran also asks: when you are made to account for your actions are you going to offer the excuse that you just followed the religion of your ancestors when your ancestors are wrong and misguided? So the Quran has made it very clear that we must read and not follow the majority or simply accept the ways of our ancestors who may be wrong.

(The session goes on and on for days but allow me to stop here for now).