Beware of those who profit from religion

In the past, ulama refused to join the government. Some renowned imam were actually jailed and tortured and some put to death because they refused to join the government. Today, you do not need to threaten the ulama with jail, torture or death to get them to join the government. You just offer them money.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Shafie: Young ulama approve Umno’s Islamic credentials

The interest among young ulama in joining Umno shows that they are comfortable with the party’s brand of Islamic struggle, Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal said.

He said that Islamic intellectual’s membership in the party would strengthen Umno and help realise its agenda for the people and country.

“Umno constitution states that we uphold Islamic struggle. We are confident that ulama membership in the party would further consolidate our party.”

“They can help explain issues related to religion,” he told reporters when asked on the decision by 40 young ulama to join Umno two days ago.

Shafie, who is Rural and Regional Development Minister, was speaking to reporters after opening the Semporna Umno division meeting here today.

He hoped that more young ulama would join the party.

He also called on leaders at all levels to intensify effort to register new members and voters. – Bernama

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No, I am not flustered. I am very relaxed. After all, it’s Sunday, and Sundays are normally very laid back days. Furthermore, I am listening to my favourite radio station as I write this piece (http://player.magic.co.uk/). And this radio station plays very relaxing music.

Malays are mostly Sunni Muslims of the Shāfi‘ī School, the second largest school of the Sunni branch of Islam in terms of followers and representing approximately 29% of Muslims worldwide. The full name for Imam Shāfi‘ī, the founder of the Shafi’i School, is Abū ‘Abdu l-Lāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs ibn al-Abbās ibn ‘Uthmān ibn Shāfi‘ī ibn as-Sa’ib ibn ‘Ubayd ibn ‘Abd al-Yazīd ibn al-Muttalib ibn ‘Abd Manaf, and he was from the most powerful tribe in Mekah, the Quraish.

Shāfi‘ī combined the pragmatism of the Medina school with the contemporary pressures of the Traditionalists. The Traditionalists maintained that jurists could not independently adduce a practice as the Sunnah of Muhammad based on ijtihad or ‘independent reasoning’ but should only produce verdicts substantiated by authentic Hadith.

Shāfi‘ī devised a method for systematic reasoning without relying on personal deduction. He argued that the only authoritative Sunnah were those that were both of Muhammad and passed down from Muhammad himself. He also argued that Sunnah contradicting the Quran were unacceptable, claiming that Sunnah should only be used to explain the Quran (which many Muslims do not follow). Furthermore, Shāfi‘ī claimed that if a certain practice was widely accepted throughout the Muslim community, it could not then be in contradiction to the Sunnah.

And what has the above got to do with the Bernama report? Nothing, really. I just wanted to demonstrate that more than 1,200 years ago the ulama were already arguing about how Islam should be interpreted. And through the ages this argument became more severe and Muslims became even more divided with so many ulama imposing their version of Islam on Muslims.

Basically, their ‘doctrine’ boils down to “I am right and you are wrong so you will follow what I believe”.

This is not only a problem with Islam. The Jews too had this problem and even the 12 disciples could not unanimously agree whether Jesus was the Son of God or a mere man but Prophet of God.

More than 400 years ago, when Elizabeth I was Queen of England, Christians who insisted on following Rome rather than Henry VIII’s ‘new’ version of Christianity suffered persecution. Jesuits were banned from English soil and those caught were put to death after many days of slow torture. It was an extremely slow and painful death for those who would not follow the ‘new’ Christianity of the Church of England.

And it was not just the rakyat who suffered. Mary Stuart or Mary, Queen of Scots, the ‘leader’ of the Catholics, was incarcerated for 19 years before she was executed for ‘treason’. And, mind you, she was the Queen’s second cousin (or ‘cousin once removed’, as the English would say) plus was the only surviving legitimate child of King James V (while Elizabeth I was the illegitimate child of Henry VIII).

There was, of course, talk that she plotted to grab the throne from Elizabeth because England had abandoned Rome, and Mary, a Catholic, wanted England to discard the ‘false’ religion and return to the ‘true’ religion of Roman Catholicism.

Actually, to digress a bit, Mat Sabu of PAS (picture above) and I discussed this subject last week when we met up. And it was a most interesting discussion on Judaism, Christianity and Islam and the chasms in the three main ‘religions of the book’. I would say we agreed on almost everything so Mat Sabu is not quite the ‘close-minded Taliban-PAS’ that some might accuse him of being.

Anyway, back to the subject, by the year 300 or so, Christianity was in a total mess, for want of a better word, and in 325 the First Council of Nicaea was held to try and streamline and unify Christianity plus ‘restore sanity’ to the religion, again for want of a better word.

The Nicene Creed of 325 explicitly affirms the divinity of Jesus, applying to him the term ‘God’ (the original Nicene Creed of 325). In 381, the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed, however, speaks of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son.

The Nicene Creed was adopted in the face of much controversy, as some Christian ‘ulama’ believed that although Jesus Christ was divine, God had actually created him — which means he is mere mortal and not ‘God’ or ‘Son of God’. Anyway, might is right, as they say, and the majority, with the power of the Roman Emperor and the Roman army behind him, declared what ‘true’ Christianity should be. And those who disagreed with the Emperor’s ‘fatwah’ were jailed and/or put to death.

Convert or die, became the order of the day. And, 700 years later, during the Crusades, those who still persisted in following the ‘old ways’ were exterminated in many acts of ethnic cleansing over 300 years or so.

And Islam is not spared this same history either. As recent as the Saud-Wahhab revolt against the Ottomans of Turkey (engineered by the famous Lawrence of Arabia) ‘deviant’ Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula were put to death where entire communities were exterminated in a ‘convert or die’ expedition.

And the object of this long history on Christianity and Islam?

Simple, just because they are ulama (Christian or Muslim) does not make them right. After all, many ulama (Christians and Muslims) of the past were exterminated in the interest of standardising or streamlining religion (both Christianity and Islam). How do we know the right ulama were not murdered while the wrong ones were allowed to live? And this would mean the ulama of today are those who now follow the ulama who were allowed to live and not those who were put to death. So this would make them false ulama.

And any wonder why many ulama want to join Umno? In the past, ulama refused to join the government. Some renowned imam were actually jailed and tortured and some put to death because they refused to join the government. Today, you do not need to threaten the ulama with jail, torture or death to get them to join the government. You just offer them money.

And Islam is very clear on this. Islam forbids us from following imams or ulama that profit from religion. You must not pray behind them, not even for Friday prayers. Better you pray alone at home. That is how serious Islam is about so-called religious people who use religion for worldly gains.

That is all I want to say about ulama that participate in and support a zalim, unjust, and corrupt government.