Educated devout Muslims be considered political opponents

frakfrakfrak SG

In a Straits Times article yesterday, it was mentioned that although many devout and educated Muslims seek to reform Muslim society through positive social action as a result of the desire to translate common religious values into positive nation building (which many muslim societies in the world are in need of) there are a small minority who fall prey to terrorist ideology.

The article discusses why this is so and concludes that devout educated Muslims should be considered political opponents and not potential terrorists.

Should educated and devout Muslims be considered political opponents simply on the basis that they are devout and educated?

rendezv0uss SG

islam is the 2nd largest religion in the world with an adherrant of 1.4 billion people. arabs only constitute 10% of the entire muslim population. sad to say, mot all musli,s here understand their religion basically

seriously speaking, muslims here are either ignorant or they arent in the spirit of learning islam as much as muslims who live in europe and america. alot of the muslims here have mix cultre and religion. born muslims tend to see religion only as a cultural thing passed on from their parents. how many muslims here actually go to religious schools btw? muslims here only know that islam is all about praying, dont eat pork, halal, haram, recite quran etc..theyre not aware that islam is not just a religion but a way of life, culture & civilization that governs every aspect of life be it politics, finance, knowledge, islamic arts.

Atobe SG

Well said - and hopefully by one who is from the Faith ?

Many Muslims in Singapore are from our Malay ethnic community, and many were ''born'' into the Faith without much choice - even when the person reaches the statutory age of 21 years old, the person is not offered the opportunity to commit himself freely to the Faith.

This widespread practice (or malpractice) raise the question of legitimacy of the Freedom of Religion that the Faith allowed.

It was tremendous courage and wisdom for an Egyptian Islamic Scholar to proclaim that Muslims have the freedom to leave the Faith, and it is left to him to explain to his Maker on his judgment day.

Islam began from the Middle-east, a faith amongst the Arab nations and spread throughout the trade routes that the Arabs travelled.

For several centuries, Islam did not see any interest amongst the Western Countries until only about the last 10 to 20 years - when we have seen also a revival and new found pride amongts communities in South-east Asia - who are not known for intellectual matters.

This Islamic revival can be seen as largely a consequence from the Israeli - Arab conflicts, and in particular from the aftermath of the 1971 Yom Kippur War, and the ''Palestinian Intifadah'' that revealed the impotency of the Israeli Military in dealing with civilian issues.

The end game of the 1971 Yom Kippur War - saw the Arab nations wield their economic Oil power to pressure the Western Democracies - who were largely seen as the backers of Israel - to stop the Israeli military from routing the Egyptian Armies and march into Cairo.

This Arab economic strength resulted in the Arab nations gaining greater stature amongst the many oppressed communities across the globe.

It even resulted in the oppressed African-American Communities seizing the opportunity to associate themselves with this power in forming their Black Muslim movements in the mid-1970s.

The continuous influence that the Arab nations garnered in cleverly manipulating Oil as a leverage to gain bargaining chips in their face off with the USA and the rest of the European World, soon gained recognition amongst the more backward communities across Africa and South-east Asia.

The existing Muslim communities in South and South-east Asia gained new found pride in being part of the larger Muslim Community, with close association to the main oil power - Saudi Arabia, where annual pilgrimages are made to the birth place of Islam.

We see today many controversies between Islamic practices that are contrary to the practise of the religion, and debated not only in countries that have muslims living with or within non-Muslims, but even in countries where Muslims are the majority and the politics are accepted as secular - (as in Indonesia and Turkey).

''Islam as a Way of Life'' is an excuse often used by politicians to politicise Islam and is the cause of radicalism - when Islam had its root as purely religious.

This claim that ''Islam is a Way of Life'' has been made into a rallying point for the call to be more virulently strident and tenaciously brazen in demanding political space for its various ''man-intepreted'' religious practices.

Such ''man-interpreted'' religious practices have been abused as political tools to make a Community stand out differently from the others.

Can a Nation of different ethnicity be forged when one community insist on going its own path in defining what is its own ''Way of Life'' ?

rendezv0uss SG

^agreed. before muslim can even wana talk about all this teror and politicalised radicalised islam, lets fix the problem with the muslim community first. in a way, i was like wondering wether islam in SEA has evolved into a racial religion identified with the malays, where if ure a malay, u must be a muslim and not being a muslim will loose ur priviledge as a malay race. one of my frens from brunei told me non muslims there arent allowed to touch the quran because non muslims are impure..i mean WTH..then how did the arabs came to do da'wah to the malays during the pre islamic times in SEA?

How will you teach a Arab non-muslims?? You see here, they think all ARABS are MUSLIMS!! there RE such things as arab jews, arab agnostics and arab christians!!

i think thats why the non practising muslims here tend to be bigoted because sm non-muslims will say "oh theyre peaceful muslims because they dont practise their religion and are ignorant of their rleigion..if they are religous i bet they will be extremists..its better to keep them in the dark form learning their religion"

You see throughout the history, including in these times, Malaysia has always emphasized on 'ibadah instead of 'aqeedah.

And so what you learn in primary, secondary, etc. is mostly about 'ibadah. If 'aqeedah was learnt, one can never feel the fuzzyness of iman entering into the heart. I dont get my iman boosted when I read my Islamic textbook.

And so your average Malay mostly knows how to pray, go to the mosque, and read the Qur'an. The average Malay would not know nor thought about looking up on the meaning of the Qur'an.

Malays aren't in the spirit of the knowledge in Islam like Muslims in the West do. I would totally consider Muslims in the West (including America and Europe) to be better than Malays over here.