When Muslims become raving mad

By MT Webmaster Last updated Nov 21, 2015

The Muslim world is in turmoil. And then we blame the west for that. The Muslim world was once a great empire and a place of wealth and learning. Now they can offer the world nothing except cheap oil. Are the west or the Jews and Christians to blame for that?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Rafidah Aziz said something very sensible today. She said that fundamentalism does not translate to terrorism. That is actually very true. Fundamentalism or a fundamentalist Muslim does not mean an extremist Muslim or a terrorist. It means that that particular Muslim follows the fundamentals of Islam.

It is like when someone talks about the fundamentals of accounting, which basically means the debit and credit rule. You need to know which entry goes into the debit column and which goes into the credit column. It you make a wrong entry your accounts will not balance. It is the same in Islam. You need to balance your accounts.

In Islam we have haram, halal, sunat, harus, makruh, and so on. Some you must do, some you are forbidden, some are up to you but it is better if you do not do it, some it is better if you do it, and some are unavoidable because in life there are certain things you must do out of necessity. This is how you do your ‘accounting’ in Islam and you just pray that at the end of your life your credits are more than your debits and the bottom line is black and not red.

And that is partly what the Islamic Sharia law of Hudud is all about.

Hudud, as in any law, is not just about protecting society and maintaining law and order. Hudud is not just a preventive law to discourage people from committing a crime because the retribution would be very severe (as most people have argued). Hudud is not really about punishment although you will get punished. Hudud is also about you accepting your punishment in this world so that you can wipe out those sins and balance your accounts to ensure that the bottom line is black and not red.

In short, there is no double jeopardy in Islam. Once you are punished (in this life) then you will not be punished a second time (in the Afterlife). You have paid for your crime (and quite severely at that) so you do not pay again. You leave this world with a black bottom line and no deficit in your ‘accounts’.

You cannot go to a priest and confess to your sins and be forgiven. You go to the kadhi (pronounced qaadee) and confess to your sins and then accept punishment. That would be the only way to absolve your sins. You can, of course, explain why you committed those sins and plead for leniency.

You may have killed someone but it was not premeditated murder. The chap provoked you and you lost your cool and punched him and the chap fell down and hit his head and died. You never really wanted to kill him.

Now, the chap may have been the breadwinner of the family and your act has robbed that family of its source of income. The family will be asked whether they want an eye for an eye (which means you, too, must suffer death) or whether they would rather have financial compensation. If the family decides its future is more important than your life then it can agree to financial compensation. After all, food on the table and a roof over the head is more important than revenge.

The same would apply if you were caught stealing. If you stole because you are destitute and your family is starving then instead of cutting off your hands the state will have to put you on welfare. And if you had applied for welfare earlier but a certain civil servant did not approve your welfare application, although you are eligible for welfare, then the state can punish that civil servant.

These are just two examples of how Islam and the Sharia (Hudud included) work. It is the fundamentals of Islam. Islam also allows wars but considers it abominable and there are certain rules of engagement to observe. For example, wars can be fought for defence purposes and not for purposes of aggression. You cannot attack those who did not declare war on you or who did not attack you. Hence bombing and shooting people who did you no harm is forbidden.

If the other side that is attacking you puts down their arms and ceases the attack then you must call a truce and honour it. You cannot continue attacking if the other side no longer attacks you. And for sure you cannot massacre unarmed and non-combatant civilians who never fired a shot at you.

Muslims have this impression that since you attack and kill civilians in my country then it is halal that I, also, attack and kill civilians in your country — or since you insulted Islam then I have a right to kill you. That is not how it works. Maybe they insulted Islam because we gave them a reason to. Then we must ask ourselves what is it that we Muslims did to give that bad impression regarding Islam, which attracted those insults?

Islam is seen as a hostile and unreasonable religion. And then we blame the Jews and Christians for that bad publicity and western propaganda and take revenge on them. That is an easy way out because then we need not take the blame. We can blame others.

It was not the west, Jews or Christians that brought the Muslim world down to the level it is now. It was corruption and mismanagement. The Muslims were on self-destruct mode and they did to themselves whatever happened to them.

Greece, Rome, Persia, Britain, etc., were once great empires. They, too, saw a collapse of their empires. Even the modern Holy Roman, Hapsburg and Romanov Empires eventually collapsed. And it was for the same reason as the collapse of all those other empires before them. And the Muslim Empire faced the same fate as those other great empires and for the same reason.

So Muslims want to restore the glory of the Islamic State by conquering the world, again. That is like saying Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, Holland, France, etc., want to re-colonise their now independent colonies to return to the days of the great colonial empires. Those are ramblings of mad people, just like the mad people of the Islamic State (or ISIS, ISIL, or whatever). And killing people in Paris is not going to get God on your side or help restore the once great but corrupt Ottoman Empire.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK