Saturday, September 7, 2013

ANWAR IBRAHIM: ISLAMIC RESURGENCE, CHALLENGES, PROSPECTS AND THE WAY FORWARD



I met and discussed with Sheikh Rashid al Ghanoushi in Istanbul recently and it is unfortunate that he could not make it to deliver the conference keynote address. They chose to name their movement or party as al Nahdah which a more accurate term to describe and visualize resurgence as its basis are Islamic ethics and reform.

As for the present discourse, Islamic resurgence is seen as synonym with political Islam, with militancy. We, of course, call it Islamic Renaissance – Nahdah Islamiyyah.

When I wrote the book The Asian Renaissance and I inferred to an Islamic Renaissance, critics point out to the Florentine Italian experience (Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance) – which meant abandonment of moral values, and secularization. But I qualified it as the resurgence of faith, ethical principles and moral values – which is an integral part of our da’wah - And who is fairer in speech than he who calls to Allah and acts righteously and says: “I am a Muslim” (al Qur’an 41:33)

For Islamic Renaissance needs tajdid (renewal) and islah (reform). Before we talk about change, this is the essence, the awareness, the effort to provide understanding. If we do have this essence, we cannot bring about change – nor can we change dictators. There has to be the enjoining of good and forbidding evil.

Adherence to arkan al Islam (pillars of Islam) and arkan al iman (pillars of faith) must  be steadfast. This is the intellectual tradition.

The great Sultan Salahuddin al Ayyubi is a magnificent example of leadership of the ummah. The focus has always been on Salahuddin’s statecraft. However, Dr AbdulHamid AbuSulayman points out that change would not have taken place had there not been preparatory work through mass education, public awareness and discipline. The experience of Salahuddin sets a historical antecedent – the propensity to change – for islah and tajdid.

This is the prerequisite before total reform. Reform or Reformasi will not be meaningful if there is not effective da’wah, faith, values and of a public calling for meaningful change.

In contemporary light, we see this in al Afghani, Abduh and Ridha as well lesser known personalities like Abd Rahman al Kawakibi. He is a Syrian reformer and IIIT is publishing works on him.

We have to go to the basics of understanding da’wah and acquiring knowledge, in changes, in building character or syakhsiah. We have to advance the importance of governance, to lead countries away from corruption and despotism. Change is not simply by removing the ruler or the head of state, PM or dictator but change is by total reform – justice and order according to maqasid  syariah – priorities of the system of justice.

We have been rather fortunate in this region. Indonesia is unique and spectacular according to Arnold. Islamization of the Malay Archipelago has been peaceful ( as illustrated by the 9 saints of Java). There has been a certain sufi influence. It is known that there had been a series of dialogues and negotiations between Muslims and adherents of other religions of that period. Pak Natsir and the Masyumi movement holds to this tradition of inclusiveness. (Pak Natsir after being appointed Indonesian prime minister was subsequently imprisoned by Soekarno, a peculiar trait in this parts).

Islamic Renaissance consists of intense and vigorous intellectualism, promoting commitment to return to the fundamental principles of the Qur’an and Sunnah. We experience and refer to this in our usrahs and tamrins – an important nexus –not dogmatic and not Taliban like.

The Taliban were students raised in the madrasahs – the particular madrasah experience meant strict adherence and  rigid views. They were in a state of being too exclusive and always looking at enemies – and not looking at governance and justice.

That is why the akliah tradition is essential (promoted by Naqib al Attas and others) – which without it, is not a  discernible element in Islamic Renaissance.

However down here, the discourse is quite unique and peculiar – for instance the recent polemics on dogs. It reflects our inability to refine our discourse or is it the purposeful intention to confine Muslims here to irrelevant issues (suffering a siege mentality). In 1936, 2000 people attended a conference, a debate on dogs hosted by a Sultan. There is a photograph which showed the Mufti and the Sultan with the Sultan’s dog in between them. This picture shows back then that this dog issue should not be complex nor controversial.

100,000 people are killed in Syria but it is not reported. Instead the recent dog issue is spun by TV3 for a whole week! Clearly such are attempts to belittle the capability of Muslims to engage in vibrant and vigorous intellectual discourse. There should be 5000 people attending discourses on morality, corruption  and poor education.

Islah needs Islamic traditional knowledge be reexamined. Dr Taha Jabir once wrote to al marhum Sheikh Muhammad al Ghazali on the need to modernize ilm al turath (legacy or tradition) – the fiqh and sufi texts. To research and reexamine texts on governance. To repopularise al Shatibi’s treatise on maqasid syariah. Read up Ibn Ashur, Rasyuni, Jasser Auda.

Islamic resurgence needs the cultivation of strong Islamic education. As we mentioned of Salahuddin in his confrontation with Europe under Richard the Lionheart's army. Salahuddin’s strength came from a tradition of knowledge which flourished in that region. He would not have emerged so if there had not been that tradition of knowledge, da’wah and tarbiyyah in the whole of Iraq of that era. Such awareness and resurgence came from strong education.

The International Institute of Islamic Thought delved on how to approach and reexamine the ilm al turath. For in the Western tradition, there exists the concept of great books which scholars have to read, where Shakespeare’s work is imperative. In our contemporary experience, there seems to be a compartmentalization of being sufi only, fiqh only or harakiy only. Corruption is not discussed, instead the dog issue is debated.

Concerning the politicization of our anger – how are we unaffected when women and children are being beaten and killed in mosques? Turkey’s PM Erdogan calls al Asisi the pharaoh and refers to Assad as a damned dictator.  When questioned, he said “Anwar, I have been prime minister for 10 years and I lead a great country,  prosperous with impressive economic growth. But when I see mothers and daughters being killed, do I keep silent? I have my integrity and I am dictated by my conscience.” Erdogan’s priority now in Turkey is education and da’wah.

Whilst we should not be distracted from the main thrust of programs of Islamic movements such as ABIM and PKPIM, we need to cultivate this awareness, raise the level of understanding, build the capacity to articulate issues more profoundly, always being inclusive and be prepared to engage adherents of other religions or other groups, Hindus, Buddhists, liberals, secularists. We must continue this tradition of engagement and inclusiveness.

We have to focus our efforts to promote understanding, public awareness through education, economic empowerment and social justice. We seemed confused between a racist Malay agenda and a Muslim just program. In the late 70’s PKPIM and ABIM were attacked by BTN in particular that our universal Islamic message was not a ‘Malay’ message. They failed to comprehend that the Malay character itself is an Islamic character. Erasing Islam from the Malay character reduces it to a shallow level devoid of culture, language and faith. They also failed to understand social justice.

It maybe our failure to give depth to our intellectual discourse, to take a more tolerant and open view. Back then, we read al Banna, Qutb, Masyhur, Jamaat and Masyumi. But we also read Nasr and Faruqi. It shows our inclusiveness and intellectual strength. We promoted Muslim scholarship. Our reading involved a broad spectrum including Izutzu and others who were intellectuals who massively influenced that generation of the day. We cannot curb our studies because we live in a multicultural world.

My detractors accuse me of being too liberal and plural. But the essence and reference is still the Qur’an and the Sunnah. If it clearly goes against this absolute reference frame, we shall accept it.

On Orientalism, Edward Said was the first to make a reference to Islamophobia and linking it to anti Semitism. Hostility to Islam has historically gone hand in hand with anti Semitism – nourished in the same stream, as he says it in 1985. Islamophobia is more insidious. It is racism in the most virulent kind – racism with steroids. It is an attempt to exclude Muslims from public life, from having space, in economics, in politics. Islamic worldviews, participation and concepts are rejected outright.

This is the present calamity and catastrophe in the Muslim world.  Afghanistan is virtually destroyed since long ago - by the Russians, by the Americans and by the Muslims themselves. Now we are seeing Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and by extension Lebanon being destroyed. Next in  line they say is Tunisia. Even Turkey is threatened because Erdogan is seen as capable, competent and articulate.

We have to remind ourselves to get back to the basics – the fundamental basics of the struggle – massive exposure to training and encourage the opportunity to discourse and  debate – engaging in contemporary debate. Allow as much space as possible for the brainstorming or fruition of ideas, thoughts and information.  As TS Elliot’s poem says, Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information.

As we stress once more, Islamic resurgence is meaningless without the essence of education, without tarbiyyah.

There are many things that enrage us – election fraud, rampant corruption, price hikes. Seringgit dua kupang, badan sakit, ingat hutang - One ringgit twenty sen, the body aches, thinking of debts. But this should not distract us from the work of da’wah and the issues of the ummah.

Political activism is important. Tajdid and Islah begin with serious effort to promote understanding, justice, freedom,  gender equality, the principles of maqasid syariah, economic justice or equity. Justice comes with reform and democracy.




(jotted scribbles of Anwar Ibrahim’s keynote address for the World Conference on Islamic Resurgence held at Shah Alam)

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