Saturday 23 November 2013

Takfir: Experience and Reviews

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah


If we analyze this phenomena which exists in Muslim societies since the early period until today, we could see that the main factor for this is due to confusion in the interpretation of Quranic verses and few hadiths. The result brings up the view that those who commits certain vices are considered as infidel. 

Personal Experience

I had encountered this situation at a mosque in our area where suddenly a Saudi man talking to me in Arabic though I replied to him in English. He suddenly complaining to me about there were few people in the mosque as compared to his country. He said that he thought the people here are Muslims but it turns out that they are infidels. Coincidentally, there was a carnival organized like a kilometer from the mosque and there were many people there too. 

I was lazy to argue with that kind of blocked mentality person because he said that he cannot easily find mosque at Sunway City where he stayed with his family. The first thing which comes out from my mind is that although he heard that this country is filled with majority Muslim population but what is wrong with researches before he reaches this country or any other place? There are many prayer rooms in this country and it depends also to the area where he stayed. Or he simply come to other country because he wanted to enjoy the leisure with his family instead making his travel a kind of lesson for him and his family? What gives him right to judge the people here? I was in the mosque and I pray simply like others but why was he complaining to me as if he is a holy creature? I never consider this country where I live as an "Islamic" state. Even the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not and never an "Islamic" state but why flatter our selves as if we are so perfect? Nobody is perfect except the God the Highest. I just walked pass him with my elder sister because we do not want to slap his face with our slippers in a mosque, a holy sanctuary where we should not bring thing which is not peaceful. What an insolent Saudi! Just because our holy lands in Hejaz are contained by the border of the Najd Sultanate does not gives them right to judge us! Only the God is the One who has the right! I do not even care if the Gulf states are rich. I only care to those who speak with manner and humble before the God. Even an ignorant among the ignorant could tell whether a person is a nice person or an ego!    

Other than that, the carnivals organized by our government also consist prayer rooms. We have prayer rooms and musalla besides mosques in almost everywhere, in shopping complexes, in offices, in library, in the varsity, in restaurants or people will outrage to the government and complain for neglecting the majority's right in religious practices. Before you travel to other countries, make sure you do researches and never think that people are the same with you! This world is not only revolves around you. If you feel that you cannot take the challenge of traveling and trying to impose your view on others then you can find the door and get out! Live and travel only in your own country. I am an Arab myself but I never behave like that to people. Because of their barbaric attitude, even we in the overseas who never live in Arabian Peninsula after being driven out by previous "Islamic" empires have to hear stereotypes about Arab nations like other races are free from flaws such as:
  • Arabs are fanatics of their nation.
  • Cheaters and opportunistic over people's charity.
  • Arabs are respected only because of the noble Quran and because of prophet Muhammad s.a.w was born among the Arabs.
I cannot help but to answer this... What is wrong if we celebrate our root and nationality just like other nations? Everybody is entitled to their ethnicity and identity so people could get to know each other, learn new things from each other and make friends (Surah al-Hujurat 49:13). 

The second one is an over-generalization. You can find people like this in almost everywhere as long as you are known as human. There are many forms of "satan" and one of them is "human". Arabs were never angels and never are angels! The Arabs are human-being with the inclination either to goodness or evil just the same like you, the Malays! Just like everyone else. There is no verses in the Quran which say that Arabs or Jews are angels of the God the Highest. Both nations are of "human" race! The sons of Adam.

The third one is the most irritating statement everrr! If you wanted to question this, why not consider to ask the God the Highest why He gives the Quran to Arabs and why He makes Muhammad s.a.w an Arab? It is a speculative statement. You are having a perception out of this and it is because you have heard this from this guy and that lady and they were taught so and so. It is the same like you are questioning the Wisdom of the God the Highest while we cannot even comprehend His Will and actions. Nobody can decide on what race is he going to be born in. Either to be an Arab, a Malay, an English, a Jew, a Brahmin or a Chinese. It is the decision of the God the Highest, His Will. Prophet Muhammad s.a.w has no power to decide over his birth so why people are talking like godless people?

Muhammad s.a.w was not the only Arab prophet but there were also prophet āleh a.s. and prophet Hūd a.s. Both of them were ancient Arabs. Prophet Muhammad s.a.w himself is of mixed ancestry from Ismael a.s as prophet Abraham a.s his father, was from the city of Ur of Sumeria while his mother, Hagar was a captive woman who was brought to Egypt after a battle between a Western country with Egyptian empire. She was a servant in the Hyksos king palace before being given as a maid to Abraham a.s. There are many prophets of the God the Highest who are not mentioned in the scripture because they only teach their tribes and nations in their region. Why not looking at everyone as human first? Rather than talking about this race and that race when it is about negative things? Why not checking what prophet Muhammad s.a.w said during the final sermon in 'Arafah? Does that mean all Arabs are "satans" if an Arab is behaving like a "satan"? The same thing should also go to other nations. I regret that I still have to hear this racist remark. The basis of whatever struggle of a person, should be based on his "morality", the content of his character and not his racial background. The Justice of the God prevails over nationality!

Clearing the Issue

In clearing the issue, we found sources from the "Explanation of the Creed of al-Tahawi" which is popular among the four recognized schools of jurisprudence practiced by the majority of Muslim nations and the quote by al-Subki:
"Al-Tahawi while explaining the traditional creed about the takfir issue says that, 'We (the people of tradition) should never accuse others from the member of the quibla (Muslims) because of the vices committed without any confidence that they are legal (according to Quran and prophetic traditions); however we never deny that sins and vices could bring disadvantages to the "faithfuls".
While explaining the quotes from al-Tahawi, al-Subki says, "But there is a question with regard to the speech of al-Tahawi, where the law has also nominated certain sins as not faithful". For example, the saying of the God the Highest recorded in the Glorious Quran in Surah al-Maidah 5:44 which means...
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted (to the God) judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of the God, and they were witnesses thereto. So, do not fear the human-being but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price. And whoever does not judge by what the God has revealed, then it is those who are the disbelievers.
And the saying of the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w regarding a Muslim with a Muslim, "To curse a believer is evil, and to wage war with him is infidelity" (Bukhari Compilation).

"Do not be disbelievers after I am gone in which some of you are decapitate the head of the other" (killing and waging war among Muslims); When a believer saying to one another, "O infidel! Thus the word cast to the other shall return to him who cast it out".

Four matters which will turn a person into a full hypocrite if he possess them all and he will possess a hypocrite trait if he possess one of these until he entirely leaves them which are...

1. When talking he tells lies.
2. When he made a promise and he breaks it.
3. When he is in a contract, pact and treaty and he breaks these.
4. When he argue, he goes over the board.

These which our Muslim brethren always accuse on our Jewish brethren in general are not really the accusation of the Quran on the whole Jewish nation! But these are the human trait which arise in human "self". It does not matter whether you are a German, an Arab or a Jewish. If you possess all of these traits, then you are a full hypocrite! If you possess one of these traits, then you still are hypocrites. And I am against people who treat my Jewish brethren or anyone with discrimination or racism because I know how does it feels when we live in foreign land while we are aware about our root and ancestry! I view everyone around me as human-being if he is a human-being when he exhibits negative acts according to the sermon of noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w in the Arafat Hill. I never view others with the notion such as Chinese, Indian, or anything related to their "nationality" because it will lead us to racial supremacy which is divisive and abusive. It is egoism. You cannot be a noble person if you never contemplate from within yourself. Never follow the example of the Western imperial period's orientalists if we do not like to be treated so. The ancient Indian philosophies had taught me a lot and that is why many of our people were sent there to see and to learn from around though most Indians today also leaving behind the wisdom of their honorable ancient sages.

"A person who commits adultery only when he is not faithful to the teachings; A thief only steals when he is not faithful to the teachings; A person only drinks alcohol when he is not faithful to the teachings; and leaving the prayer services makes a person an infidel".

This statement refers to certain times when a person is forgetting the teachings of the noble prophets and messengers of the God the Highest. However, in the end it separates the boundary between a believer and a disbeliever with the prayer services. And how we understood the prayer services is through the Sharia (the Divine Path). In this matter, I do not want and never force non-Muslim to come to Islam. It is never my intention but this is an explanation to myself and Muslim brethren only! I do not really care about whatever faith people wanted to have. That is their choice as long as it does not go against the law , trampling humanity and mercy-compassionate principle because this is the doctrine that I believe mentioned in the the Name of the God the Highest.

"Whoever comes to the soothsayer and believing in him or having genital relation through the back of his wife thus he goes against the teachings of the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w.; Whoever swears with the names (earthly creatures considered as divine) other than the God the Highest, thus he is an infidel; Two things which make my nations becoming an infidel are, 'cursing the lineage of a person and wailing the death of a person".

A bit on our culture, Arabs love to wail over the death. And just relate it to the statement up there. Because we live in the non-Arab environment so we do not wail so much on the death but only in sadness. Many Malay friends always saying that Indian (Tamils in our country) wailing at the death of their beloved ones. But actually Arabs are also the same. So, these are actually the statements for non-faithful, infidels, and others pertaining the takfir issues. We would see the majority Sunnah Muslim clerics opinion over the accusation of infidelity issue. 

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love, amin!

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