“Is Zakir Naik a preacher or a politician?” asks Ramasamy

So, what Zakir Naik said is true if you go by the playbook of Islam. And Zakir Naik does not need to be Malaysian to say that. All he needs to be is a member of the Muslim Ummah. And Zakir Naik, just like all Muslims (and Jews), is automatically a politician.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

“Is Zakir Naik a preacher or a politician?” said the headlines of Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy’s article published today in Free Malaysia Today. I am not going to repost what Ramasamy said but if you want to read what he said you can do so HERE.

Ramasamy probably does not really understand Islam, which is not surprising considering there are many Muslims themselves who have a poor grasp of their own religion. Islam is not, as Ramasamy most likely believes, a ‘personal’ religion. Islam is not about you and God. It is about you and the ummah, meaning community.

That is why Muslims are referred to as Ummah Islam or the Muslim Community. And Islam teaches Muslims that everything is about the community first. You must do things as a community. You pray as a community. You eat as a community. You travel in a community. You must do nothing alone.

When Prophet Muhammad migrated (hijrah) from Mekah to Medina with his community to avoid persecution from the pagans in Mekah, they had to leave everything behind other than the clothes on their back.

Each Medina family had to ‘adopt’ a Mekah family and give them a home. It became the community’s responsibility to look after the homeless, poor and destitute.

Your personal obligation to God is called fardhu ain. But then you have the community obligation called fardhu kifayah. And if no one in the community performs fardhu kifayah then it transforms into fardhu ain and the entire community would have sinned just because not a single person has performed fardhu kifayah.

For example, say there is no butcher in the community and Muslims have no choice but to buy and eat non-halal meat. Then the entire community suffers a sin for not having a butcher in the community (even if they never bought and ate non-halal meat but just ate fish). However, if just one person performs the function of the butcher, then the entire community is absolved of sin.

So, one person saves an entire community from sin by filling in that vacancy of butcher for the community.

Islam does not recognise countries, boundaries and territories. There is just one large, global Muslim community that cuts across all countries, boundaries and territories. The Muslim community is borderless, just like the Internet community.

That is the very purpose and essence of Islam, to unite all tribes, races and nationalities and in its place replace it with just one Muslim Ummah united under God.

The fact that Ramasamy asked ‘Is Zakir Naik a preacher or a politician?’ shows that he does not understand that Islam is politics and every Muslim is a politician (just like Israel says every Jew is a soldier). In fact, Pakatan Harapan’s de facto leader, Anwar Ibrahim (Ramasamy’s ‘boss’), has said time and again that Islam is a way of life or adeen and not merely a religion. Ramasamy should seek clarification from Anwar regarding this matter.

So, what Zakir Naik said is true if you go by the playbook of Islam. And Zakir Naik does not need to be Malaysian to say that. All he needs to be is a member of the Muslim Ummah. And Zakir Naik, just like all Muslims (and Jews), is automatically a politician.

When Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mekah to Medina it was not only to escape persecution but more to set up a system. And it was a political, economic, military, administrative, legal, etc., system. It was to introduce a complete way of life or adeen that touches every aspect of the community.

Let me say this again. There is no such thing as political Islam. Islam is politics. Therefore, saying ‘political Islam’ is a redundancy. And that is what Prophet Muhammad brought to Medina that eventually spread to the entire world — a complete system called Islam.

And that was also what Christianity (and Judaism) used to be until about 200 years ago when they introduced secularism (and separation of church and state) and reduced Christianity to a personal religion between you and God.