WHEN did Islam come to Brunei? Most western historians argued that Brunei Darussalam only began to accept Islam in the 16th century, that is, after the fall of the Malacca sultanate in 1511.
A number of historians such as K G Tregonning in his book “From Earliest Time to 1511” (1957), D G E Hall in his book “Sejarah Asia Tenggara” (1979), J F Cady in his book ‘”South East Asia: Its Historical Development” (1963) and Nicholas Tarling in his book “South East Asia: Past and Present”’ (1966) all wrote that Brunei replaced Malacca as the new centre to spread the teachings of Islam.
Robert Nicholl in his book published by the Brunei Museums entitled “European Sources for the History of the Sultanate of Brunei in the 16th century” (1975) compiled a number of European sources, which also suggested that the Brunei sultanate was still not a Muslim nation during the early 16th century.
Pg Dato Seri Setia Hj Mohammad Pg Hj Abd Rahman, the former Minister of Religious Affairs, in his book entitled “Islam di Brunei Darussalam” (1992) noted that western historians did not seem to take into account that Islam had spread widely in Southeast Asia even before the 16th century. Gravestones found in Brunei indicated that Muslims had been buried in the cemeteries with the stones dating a few centuries earlier than the 16th century.
One of the earliest known was a Chinese Muslim by the name of Pu Kung Chihmu, who died in 1276 A D. Therefore, there must be a Muslim community in Brunei which enabled him to be buried as a Muslim when he died. This, according to Pg Dato Hj Mohammad, was not impossible.
He noted that evidences in a number of places in Southeast Asia showed that Islam was already being accepted much earlier. In Leran, East Java a gravestone bearing the name of Fatimah Maimon Hibatullah was found dated 1082 AD; in Champa, Vietnam, a gravestone belonging to Abu Kamil Ahmad was dated 1039 AD; and in Pasai, it was a gravestone belonging to Sultan al-Malik al-Saleh dated 1297 AD.
An article, which recently came to light in support of this, was found in a book published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2000 entitled “The Silk Roads Highways of Culture and Commerce”, which contained a small selection of papers from the international seminars organised during UNESCO Silk Road expeditions.
One of the articles was written by a Chinese scholar by the name of Chen Da-sheng entitled ‘”A Brunei Sultan of the Early Fourteenth Century: A Study of an Arabic Gravestone”, which comprised Chapter Eight of the book.
We are very fortunate that the paper was included, as Brunei at that point in time was not a member of UNESCO. Chen Da-sheng sailed on the expedition ship, the Fulk-al-Salamah, visiting several countries including Brunei. He was from Quanzhou and was interested in the gravestone of Pu Kung Chihmu, who was also from Quanzhou. During his visit, he visited various cemeteries in Brunei.
In his research, Chen Da-sheng was attracted to an article in the Brunei Museums Journal (1987), where two former senior Museum officials, Metassim Hi Jibah and Suhaili Hj Hassan wrote about “Tomb of Maharaja Brunei”, which was found at the Dagang Cemetery at Jalan Residency. He was very surprised that the undated gravestone was very similar to the gravestones that had been found in Quanzhou.
Quanzhou was an important trading harbour during the Song Dynasty. The Ashab Mosque or the Qingjing Mosque is a mosque found in Quanzhou constructed in 1009 AD, and this remained as the oldest Arab-style mosque in China.
In the city, there is also the Yisalangjiao Sheng Mu or Islamic Holy Graves built on the Ling Shan, the mountain of spirits on the East of Quanzhou city. The Yisalangjiao Sheng Mu graves are the resting places of early Islamic missionaries of the 7th century.
Chen Da-sheng immediately recognised that the gravestone belonging to the Emperor of Brunei was similar to the Muslim gravestones that were once used in Quanzhou, and he deduced that the gravestone in Brunei was made in Quanzhou as the material for the gravestone which was ‘diabase’ was not found in Brunei. Diabase or also known as dolerite is a subvolcanic rock similar to volcanic basalt.
The front of the gravestone had Arabic inscriptions and these were translated to read:
This tomb belongs to the late martyr
Sultan, a learned and just man
a protector and conqueror. He was called
Maharaja Bruni. Forgive him
Allah with His grace and Pleasure
May Allah bless Muhammad
and all his descendants
The back of the stone had this engraving:
Every soul must taste of death,
and ye shall only be paid your hire
upon the resurrection day
But he who is forced away from the fire
This stone was not dated, and neither was the king who died identified other than as the Maharaja Brunei. As such, this king could not be cross referenced to the royal genealogy of the Sultans of Brunei; and the genealogy began with Sultan Muhammad said to reign from 1363 AD.
Chen Da-sheng noted that in Quanzhou, when excavations were made of these ancient Muslim graves, the majority of gravestones were made from diabase. In the 1920s and 1930s, a great number of these gravestones were excavated when the ancient wall of Quanzhou was demolished. The current collection of Arabic and Persian stones inscriptions of the Quanzhou Foreign Maritime Museum is the richest of all museums in China.
After studying and cross referencing with the gravestones that had been recovered in Quanzhou, Chen Da-sheng discovered that the inscriptions on the Brunei gravestone were very similar to another gravestone belonging to Fatimat Naina Ahmad, who died in Quanzhou in 1301 AD.
Chen Da-sheng believed that the two stones were inscribed by the same people as the writings were identical. No other similar stone has been found in Brunei. Upon discussion with the Brunei Museum officials, it was also confirmed that all the inscriptions for subsequent sultans were written in Jawi with the exception of this gravestone, which was written in Arabic.
With regard to the age, Chen Da-sheng explained that the Muslims in Quanzhou were massacred after they lost a war known as the Ispah Rebellion in 1366 AD, and the winning army killed all the Muslim population they could find. After 1366, it was very hard to find any Arabic inscriptions on any gravestones in Quanzhou. The few that could be found in the outlying villages are different in style, shape and paleography.
Chen Da-sheng argued that based on the facts above, this provided evidence that the Muslim kingdom established in Brunei was certainly during the late 13th and early 14th century. In Chen Da-sheng words, “the Arabic gravestone of Sultan Maharaja Brunei presented evidence that a Muslim kingdom already existed in Brunei about AH 700 (1301 AD). It sheds new light on the study of the early history of the Muslim kingdoms established in Brunei and even in Sumatra.”
If this is true, and supported with the written records of the Boxer Codex, this means that the official date of the first Brunei Muslim sultanate of 1376 AD needs to be adjusted, and that Brunei could be one of the early Malay Muslim kingdoms, or there is even the possibility that Brunei could even be the earliest in the Southeast Asian region.
Currently, Pasai in Sumatra is considered to be the earliest Muslim kingdom because a gravestone belonging to Sultan al-Malik al-Salleh dated 1297 AD was found there. Who knows when exactly did the Brunei Muslim sultanate began? It could be earlier than that of Sultan al-Malik al-Salleh.
Nur Firdaus Abdul Rahim
KUALA TERENGGANU, MALAYSIA
CARTOONIST Mohd Nor Khalid, or popularly known as Lat, regards Ramadhan not only as the most blessed month, but also the time of the year when he is able to get ideas and inspiration for his work.
Born on March 5, 1951, in Kota Bharu, Perak, Lat, who is known for his cartoon series the ‘Kampung Boy’, said the best time for him to focus on his cartoon work is after the subuh (morning) prayer.
“I can be said to have retired, as my work no longer appeared in the newspapers, but I do still draw just to pass the time and is working to produce a comic book soon.
“So, the best time for me to get ideas for my work is in the morning, when my mind is still fresh.
“During the fasting month, after the ‘sahur’ (pre-dawn meal) and Subuh prayer as well as doing other religious rituals, I’ll spend time until noon on my cartoon work. That’s the time when I can focus,” he told Bernama.
He was met during an event “Jelajah Potret Penerima Anugerah Merdeka” by Petronas Gallery at the State Museum here recently. Lat is one of the recipients of the award. He received it in 2014.
On how he got himself into becoming a cartoonist, Lat said he had the skill since young and his father was the first person to discover his talent. He said most of his work was influenced by local cartoonists at that time like Raja Hamzah, Alias Kulub, Raja Sulaiman and Saidin Yahya.
“My father was the one who actually encouraged me. I remember during my childhood days, he would take us to the circus and when we got home, asked me to draw the animals which performed at the circus.
“That was how my interest in drawing started and it then progressed into drawing cartoons,” he added. The winner of the 2002 Fukuoka Asian Culture Award has so far published more than 20 cartoon series.
The first when he was 13 years of age. Most of his work depicts the life of the multi-racial society in Malaysia. Referring to “Kampung Boy”, he said it was based on his personal observation, life and experience.
“I don’t know how to create political stories because it is not an element that can last in the cartoon world.
“I prefer elements that are more remembered by the people, like friendship, neighbours and living in a society,” he added. He said the role of a cartoonist was not merely to produce work for people to view.
“At the same time, a cartoonist should be an agent to unite the people, especially in a country with various races, only then there is harmony,” he added.
THE one-year-old Al-Islah Mosque in Punggol, which has already built close ties with neighbouring institutions and residents, embodies ways in which places of worship can help create a more resilient society in these trying times. While the primary purpose of a religious institution is to serve followers, reaching out to the wider community shows the value it places on face-to-face relations. Al-Islah demonstrates this by partnering nearby schools to distribute food to poor families in the neighbourhood. It also opens its doors to others for free guided tours of its premises. Steps like these help to dispel misconceptions of what mainstream Islam stands for. This is especially important given the way some extremist organisations have taken the religion’s name in vain to cloak their dastardly attacks in a semblance of piety.
The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore notes that the mosque stands as “an important bulwark of Muslim identity and community integrity” in Singapore, where Muslims constitute a minority living in a society undergoing far-reaching changes. Community-friendly initiatives that benefit both Muslims and non-Muslims, such as blood donation drives and assistance to low-income families, help to integrate mosques into the wider life of the nation.
Masjid Al-Islah, Kampong Punjol, Singapore
Mosques are not just the focus of religious activities – although that is an essential function – but must act as centres of social development, too. It is in that spirit that they embrace their social calling in a secular state. Muslims, like followers of other religions in Singapore, are reassured that their religious obligations are respected. Simultaneously, they must acknowledge that no community of believers exists in a vacuum, but as part of a larger whole.
This is where Singapore’s model of religious harmony differs from practices in countries that dichotomise religion and public life to the extent that one becomes an affront to the other. Here, religion is accepted as a legitimate influence on social outcomes so long as no faith claims the right to influence these exclusively. Overlapping spheres of belief are anchored in a national centre. A national consensus has emerged on this policy, which treats all religious communities equally. It will be tested from time to time. Insistent foreign influences, travelling via the Internet, do and will make their way into Singapore. Having no stake in Singapore’s common religious and racial future, these groups have no qualms in dividing people. So that they do not lead impressionable minds astray, it is essential for Singapore to curb such influences with its local resources.
In their very co-existence, mosques and other places of worship show that Singaporeans are capable of not just living with religious diversity but also of thriving on it.
The Straits Times
Wednesday, 6 July 2016
Muslims performing prayer and reading al-Quran at Masjid Al-islah in Kampung Punjol, Singapore.
THERE’S a point of interest in the capital that sometimes escapes the attention of passersby, or even the workers in Bandar Seri Begawan who park their cars unassumingly in the car park next to it, but Makam Raja Ayang or the Raja Ayang Mausoleum embodies a sad story that harkens back to Brunei’s past.
The tombstone is dated 1452 AD, which corresponds to the time of Sultan Sulaiman and, according to stories passed down from generation to generation, Raja Ayang was a lady who was a descendant of Ibn Ismail bin Yusof bin Al Aziz Al Khawlani and related to the Brunei Royal family. The lady in question had an unlawful relationship with a sibling, which contravened Islamic religious laws, and was subsequently punished.
During that period, Sultan Sulaiman was known as a king who strictly adhered to Islamic principles. The incident provides a clear picture of the Brunei Sultan at that time, who was firm in carrying out punishments against anyone who went against the Islamic law, and those who were punished were willing to receive the punishments.
In the case of Raja Ayang, no one had the heart to stone the couple to death. However the couple could not be left unpunished, and so they were banished to live in an underground shelter, away from the rest of society, and to live out the rest of their days in seclusion. This punishment was willingly served by the couple, who understood the gravity of their crime. The shelter was shaped like a hill and had many rooms with cooking utensils and sufficient provisions to serve out their sentence. Historians say it was unclear as to how long they survived as some stories recount that they lived for a week, while others for as long as 40 days. According to one historical narrative, the lady was banished to live alone for the rest of her days, while another says she and her entourage voluntarily went to their deaths.
The hill, three metres tall and twelve metres wide, no longer exists as the grave was damaged and levelled by a bomb during the arrival of the allied forces that ended the Japanese occupation of Brunei Town around May 1945. The current mausoleum was renovated and built by the Public Works Department in September 2008, and handed over to the Brunei History Centre upon its completion in October 2009.
Members of The Brunei Museums Department and the History Centre once stumbled across an unmarked gravestone buried a few centimetres away from the Raja Ayang Mausoleum, which had no name or date of death marked on it. Researchers had previously never come across any gravestone at the mausoleum site, apart from Raja Ayang’s, and it is now believed to belong to Raja Ayang’s brother who, according to myth, was buried with her.
Today, visitors can read the story of Raja Ayang which is inscribed on the mausoleum in English, Malay and Jawi script. The inscription also conveys the hope that the punishment dealt was sufficient during the life of the couple that they would be forgiven and not suffer further in the life hereafter.
THE number of orphans registered with the Pengiran Muda Mahkota Al-Muhtadee Billah Orphans Fund (DANA) increased by 130 per cent between 2014 and 2015, a Legislative Council (LegCo) member said yesterday.
Yang Berhormat Datin Paduka Hjh Salbiah Hj Sulaiman questioned the Ministry of Religious Affairs over the sharp increase, asking if children born out of wedlock were classified as “orphans” under Islamic law.
“Although the mortality rate among men is higher than women… this did not indicate any logical explanation for the drastic upsurge in the number of orphans,” she said, pointing out that the number increased from 1,756 to 4,044 in just one year.
“Every child is born in a state of fitrah, clean without any sin,” said YB Datin Hjh Salbiah.
“This includes a baby born out of wedlock, for whom good treatment is obligatory… I wish to get some clarification as to why, in Brunei, an illegitimate child is regarded as an orphan.”
Religious Affairs Minister Yang Berhormat Pehin Udana Khatib Dato Paduka Seri Setia Ustaz Hj Awg Badaruddin Pengarah Dato Paduka Hj Awg Othman explained that according to syariah law, orphans are defined in a number of ways – children whose father has died, children born out of wedlock or abandoned, or children disowned through an oath given by a husband and wife denying parentage.
Pehin Udana Khatib Dato Paduka Seri Setia Ustaz
Hj Awg Badaruddin Pengarah Dato Paduka Hj Awg Othman
“In Brunei, if there are no laws or policies on a specific matter, we refer to Islamic law, which recognises them as orphans,” he said.
Belait representative YB Hj Mohd Shafiee Ahmad also voiced concerns on the status of illegitimate children, saying the stigma could have long-term emotional impact. In response, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports YB Pehin Datu Lailaraja Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Hj Halbi Hj Md Yussof said the Community Development Department provides counseling and other programmes to support such children, in collaboration with other government agencies.
“The Community Development Department focuses more on preventive programmes so that the (frequency of) cases can be contained,” he said.
“We need to brainstorm and implement the appropriate programmes to focus on how people can (play their role in) reducing the number of children born out of wedlock through the National Council on Social Issues and Action Team on Child Protection.”
HIS Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, yesterday ordered authorities to explain the two-year delay in the phased enforcement of Syariah Penal Code Order.
The monarch said the Syariah law has remained “stagnant” without any progress after being actively pursued for a brief period following the launch of the Order in 2014.
Delivering his titah during a meeting with the Brunei Islamic Religious Council (MUIB) at the Legislative Council (LegCo) building, His Majesty questioned how many of the Syariah law provisions have been enforced.
“How long has passed since it was launched and gazetted until now? It has already been two years but it is still at the stage where only general offences are dealt with.
“What about the other phases? When will they be implemented? I expect the ministry concerned might respond by saying that the Syariah Penal Code could not be fully enforced at this stage because the CPC (Syariah Courts Criminal Procedure Code) has not been finalised,” the Sultan added.
The CPC outlines the rules for conducting criminal proceedings, from the investigation to prosecution.
His Majesty said authorities might respond by saying they are still waiting for the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) to finalise the vetting of the draft documents.
“My next question is when will the draft law be sent to the AGC? Their response might be that it was already sent in 2014,” His Majesty said.
The Sultan went on to say that if this was the case, it is most regrettable because two years have passed and yet the CPC has not been completed.
“How thick is the draft? The AGC might tell us there are many other legal documents that need to be urgently dealt with too. The vetting of the CPC will only be able to be finalised in June 2016, after it has stalled for two years,” the monarch said.
His Majesty said this is an “unacceptable excuse”.
“It is as if people will be under the impression that the Syariah Penal Code is worthless as a law mechanism. Where is the Minister of Religious Affairs? And where is the Attorney General? Why have they not come forward to remedy this unsatisfactory situation?” the Sultan questioned.
The first phase of the Syariah Penal Code was enforced on May 1, 2014. His Majesty added that before the second phase can be implemented, the country has to wait for another 12 months after the CPC can be gazetted.
“Now two years have gone by, but the CPC is not gazetted yet and the vetting process has not even started. This means that after it is gazetted in 2016, we have to wait another year, until 2017 before the second phase can be implemented.”
He said it will be 2018 by the time the third phase of the Syariah law can be enforced.
“So when will the penal code be ready to be fully implemented? Is it true to say that the officers responsible in vetting the draft legislation could not do so as a matter of urgency? Is it just a matter of vetting or did they intentionally refuse to vet?” His Majesty questioned.
The monarch asked why had the religious affairs minister and attorney general failed to keep tabs on how the work was being done by their officers.
“May I remind all that we did not formulate the law out of whims and fancies but we do it solely for the sake of Allah, not in pursuit of glamour. Working for Allah must be done earnestly,” His Majesty said.
Religious education
His Majesty also raised concerns on the direction and future of Arabic education in the country.
Arabic schools are established to bring forth those who are competent in religious knowledge, with the objective of eventually getting Islamic scholars or ulama. With this in mind, Arabic schools must prioritise religious subjects such as Arabic language, fiqh, tauhid, Quran, hadith and tafsir, he said.
He added that this must be done without ignoring the importance of subjects such as Malay language, English language and Mathematics.
Everything went well since the inception, but Arabic schools introduced the science stream from the 1980s, making it compulsory to take Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Additional Mathematics – subjects that are available in mainstream schools under the Ministry of Education, he said.
This meant that students who took the science subjects are required to reduce the number of religious subjects so that it will not be too burdensome, and thus science subjects came to gain more prominence than religious subjects, he continued.
Science stream classes at Arabic Schools currently only offer classes up to O-levels. After completing their O-levels, the students would have to transfer to mainstream schools if they wish to pursue the sciences.
“At that point, they are no longer considered students of Arabic schools and they completely stop studying religious subjects after their O-levels,” he said.
The monarch said there is a need to review the impact of introducing the sciences in Arabic schools when it was implemented in the 1980s.
“Unfortunately, no such research has been done, we do not know the implications whether good and bad of introducing Science stream classes back in the 1980s,” he said.
The Arabic religious education system is experiencing major changes with the implementation of the National Education System for the 21st Century (SPN21).
Under the education system, Arabic school students will be able to master both religious and Science stream subjects. Year 11 students at Arabic secondary schools will have to sit for two major examinations, including the O-levels for their mainstream subjects and the Brunei Islamic Studies Certificate (SPUB) for their religious curriculum.
In Year Nine, the students will be divided into three streams based on their results: 1) fast track Science stream for students who obtained excellent results; 2) normal track Science stream for students who obtained ‘very good’ results; and 3) Arabic stream for students who obtained ‘good’ results and below.
The Sultan said the grading of the three streams reflects that the Arabic stream is of third class level, not on par with the other two categories.
They are also required to study all subjects for their SPUB and O-level examinations simultaneously, possibly doubling the number of subjects that need to be taken in mainstream schools, he added.
“Wouldn’t such a system make it burdensome for Arabic school students and difficult for teachers to teach and complete the syllabus with that many subjects?”
He added that this can cause students to choose the Science stream over the Arabic stream.
The monarch said it is generally known that religious education subjects are more difficult and taxing compared to the other subjects, a factor that can push students away from Arabic classes in favour of the sciences.
“All these need to be deliberated on as thoroughly as possible to save and popularise religious subjects so that they will be seen as a good choice, more attractive and more appealing than non-religious subjects, not a means to open an opportunity for them to get away or escape from.
“This is a matter of much concern to me – the future direction of Arabic schools. Are their roles fading into irrelevancy or diverting towards another direction. All these call for a thorough reassessment to turn back to its original course. Let it not be changed,” he added.
Islamic propagation
The monarch said da’wah (dissemination of Islamic teachings) in the country is still weak and needs to be strengthened amid uncertain times and social ills affecting the country.
Among the issues raised were the number of propagators at the Islamic Da’wah Centre and whether they were properly trained.
“In addition to having many propagators, we want the da’wah delivered to be effective. Effective da’wah is successful da’wah,” he said.
His Majesty pointed out that one important medium of the da’wah is through the mimbar. The mimbar is a pulpit where the imam delivers the sermon in mosques.
“It is vital to deliver effective messages in the sermons. That is why all aspects must be taken into account, starting from preparation, content, writing, policy guidelines and lastly, the individual who will deliver the sermon,” he said.
His Majesty said it is important to practise discretion in deciding the content of the sermon, adding that the content must be appropriate.
He gave an example of an incident where SEA Games become the topic of a sermon. “The khatib (sermon readers) called upon congregants and Muslims to flock to the stadium to witness the events that would take place. We might say that sports is not something Islamically impermissible, but for a khatib to persuade and herd people to the stadium, in my opinion, is something that needs to be given thorough deliberation.
“Have we exhausted all topics and there is no other more important issue other than the SEA Games? This is what discretion is in the choice of topic along with the need to adhere to policy guidelines on sermons,” he added.
The Sultan said khatibs need guidelines on the correct way of delivering the sermon.
“Some readers are too tense and some were repetitive in their presentation. Is this what is expected of them by the Mosque Affairs Department? Where are the mosque affairs officers? Have they not come across incidents like these,” he asked.
Official visits and functions
His Majesty went on to say that it is not necessary for both the Minister of Religious Affairs and his deputy to make visits together as one should stay at the ministry and attend to pressing matters, such as the need to formulate policies for schools and the Islamic Da’wah Centre.
“The minister and his deputy minister should not simply enjoy making visits upon visits, for instance to schools, mosques and elsewhere. In doing so, both of them pay a visit to the same place and enjoy media coverage,” His Majesty said.
The monarch also said there is no need for all senior government officials to attend official functions that were held either in the day or at night.
“It is alright to make a visit and hold a function, but if the events are becoming too many and frequent, what about office work and worse, if too many attend them – the minister, his deputy minister and a horde of other officers! Is it not more reasonable for one of them to make the visit while the other stays behind?
“Is it not true that there are a lot of more pressing matters that need to be dealt with and given serious thought in the office?
He said other pressing matters include formulating policies for schools, Islamic Da’wah Centre, mosques, zakat (tithes), following up on the development of new converts, maintenance and upkeep of Muslim cemeteries and burial grounds, as well as halal certification.
Following the meeting, His Majesty visited the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which houses several units under the Islamic Religious Council before making a stop at the Islamic Da’wah Centre.
THE first ever Mosque Family Day was attended by more than 7,000 members from Singapore’s 69 mosques, who gathered at Pasir Ris Park on Sunday (Jan 31) for a day of bonding activities.
A Singapore record for the longest chain of knotted sarongs – measuring 530m – was also set at the event, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) said in a press release.
More than 500 people were involved in tying the sarongs from one end to the other, symbolising close bonds within the community and the nation.
Mosque Family Day was held in recognition of the mosque volunteers who had sacrificed their time to serve the Muslim community, with six families given the inaugural Mosque exemplary Family Awards to honour their contributions.
Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim, Muis president Mohd Alami Musa, Muis chief executive Abdul Razak Maricar, and Mufti of Singapore, Dr Mohamed Fatris Bakaram attended the event.
Speaking to the media, Dr Yaacob, who was guest of honour, said that the mosques have become “significant nodes within the national grid”, contributing to social cohesion through their close links with grassroots organisations, Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circles, social service offices and other voluntary welfare organisations.
He cited the examples of mosques actively partnering with national agencies such as the Health Promotion Board to promote a healthy lifestyle, and the National Environment Agency to care for the environment.
Moving forward, mosques will continue to open their doors to the wider community regardless or race or religion, Dr Yaacob, who is also Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, added.
A NEW breed of leaders is needed to reconstruct a civilisation based on wasatiyyah or moderation, a Malaysian scholar said yesterday.
Tan Sri Prof Dr Mohd Kamal Hassan, eminent visiting professor of the Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Centre for Islamic Studies, said new leaders are those who possess moral excellence and technological brilliance.
In his public lecture “Malay-Islamic Civilisation: Its Birth, Development and Wasatiyyah Identity” at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, he said wasatiyyah is an important part of Islamic identity that has been forgotten.
“But now Alhamdulilah, people are coming back to the term wasatiyyah,” he said.
Wasatiyyah means a sense of justice, excellence and balance between extremes, he said.
The source of the term wasatiyyah is derived from Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 143: “And thus we have made you a justly balanced community that you will be witnesses over the people and the messenger will be a witness over you”.
There are three pillars of Al-Wasatiyyah, he said. First is justice — which includes strength, power and dignity — followed by goodness and excellence, and third, balance/moderation.
He said all three are connected, not separated, and that Muslims are supposed to represent these qualities. Religious identities of Muslims that uphold justice, moral excellence and upholding the principle of balance and moderation in certain aspects, he added.
In his lecture, he talked about major civilisational transformation and intellectual revolution of Malay culture brought about by the worldview of Islam.
Tan Sri Prof Dr Mohd Kamal Hassan
“The worldview of Islam consists of mainly three parts: aqidah (belief system), syariah and akhlak (character). The worldview of Islam represented by aqidah of tauhid (Oneness of Allah SWT), syariah and the morals of Islam brought about cultural and intellectual revolution with a new tradition of learning, learning by the book and not learning on the basis of myth, superstition and wrong beliefs,” he said.
With this change in the culture of the Malays, we have the development of what we called the tradition of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah, he added.
The whole of South East Asia came under the influence of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah (people who followed the sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) and the practices of Muslims who are the companions and followers of the Prophet (PBUH).
This tradition of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah also brought together three major branches of knowledge known as Ilmu Tauhid (Oneness of Allah), Ilmu Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Ilmu Tasawwuf (focuses on the spiritual development of the Muslim), he added.
He said the Malay world, which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Muslims of Philippines, Thailand and Singapore, still preserve this integration of these three branches of knowledge.
Tan Sri Prof Dr Mohd Kamal is presently a professor at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation, International Islamic University Malaysia.
INTERFAITH cooperation is the way forward in maintaining unity among ASEAN member states and protecting their people from being drawn into radicalisation and violent extremism, a visiting Indonesian religious leader said.
Kyai Hj Hasyim Muzadi (pictured), a member of Indonesia’s Presidential Advisory Board, said ASEAN member states need to understand that they have people practising different religions in their countries.
“Differences in religious beliefs should not harm the unity and humanity,” he told reporters on the sidelines of his visit here yesterday.
KH Hasyim Muzadi
The religious leader had earlier this week met His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam.
He said ASEAN should set a good example of promoting common understanding among people with different religious backgrounds.
To combat terrorism, he said ASEAN countries should promote “moderate thoughts of Islam, and put the religion in its place”.
“ASEAN should combat terrorism through moderation, not fundamentalism, not liberalism because moderation is the balance between faith and tolerance,” he said.
“If we have faith without tolerance, we will head towards fundamentalism and radicalism. If we radicalise religion, we will probably lose our faith and integrity in Islam or in other religions,” he added.
Kyai also spoke on the importance of building unity in diversity and putting into practice the rule of law.
“Each country in ASEAN must safeguard their people (against radicalisation and violent extremism) by putting into practice the rules and unity in the respective nation, such unity will subsequently be implemented together in the region as a whole,” he said.
Kyai said the real threat in connection to extremism includes an influx of thoughts that did not originate from Southeast Asia, but from other regions such as the Middle East or Europe.
“When such thoughts spread in the ASEAN region, what they bring in is not their religious faith or rituals but their political system and political situation from their country of origin,” he added.
The cleric also spoke on the importance of building unity in diversity and putting into practice the rule of law.
Earlier this month, the Special ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Rise of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism was held in Kuala Lumpur, in view of the security threats terrorist groups pose.
AN IMAM once regarded as one of New York’s leading religious figures had a sudden fall from grace. So what does the story of one man’s attempt to adapt Islam to modern America tell us, asks Sune Engel Rasmussen.
Before the controversy that cut him down, Shamsi Ali was the leading figure of moderate Islam in New York, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
For a decade, the biggest mosque in New York, the Islamic Cultural Center on 96th Street in East Harlem, was his stage. Here, the diminutive Indonesian with a brusque demeanour praised democracy and vigorously condemned extremism, to thousands of worshippers. Outside the mosque, he taught the FBI and congressmen in Washington about inter-religious co-existence.
He befriended presidents too. In the days after 11 September 2001, the city of New York picked him to represent the Muslim community on President George W Bush’s interfaith visit to Ground Zero. Another president, Bill Clinton, wrote the foreword to the new memoir, Sons Of Abraham, that Ali co-authored with a Jewish rabbi he counts among his close friends.
Although many of his conservative peers interpret the Koran to prohibit the use of music, Ali listens to rap and hangs out with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. He even shrugs, disinterested, at cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
In short, Shamsi Ali is the Muslim that liberal America wants. But he is not the leader all New York’s Muslims want. Ali is a divisive figure in New York’s Islamic community, and two years ago, the same mosque that gave him a platform to grow influential and popular, suddenly pulled the rug from under him.
Now, rather than preach to thousands at the 96th Street mosque, Ali speaks to a meagre congregation of 20 at the al-Hikmah Mosque, far out in the sticks of Queens, New York.
While his schedule is still packed with congregational duties at two mosques, and outreach activities and speaking engagements in public, the mosque that allowed him to rise to prominence at a young age no longer wants anything to do with him. The reasons for that are political, Ali says.
After years of tensions, he was quietly fired in 2011, or – depending on whom you ask – left of his own accord before he was. So quietly, in fact, that no one seems to know about it.
***
Tensions over how to practise Islam in the US mirror the challenges faced by any number of religions when they come to the US. Like Judaism and Christianity before it, Islam faces challenges of cultural integration, and lacks institutions to represent believers on their own terms in years of increased public suspicion against the religion.
Shamsi Ali at the Jamaica Center, Queens, New York .
“The lack of these institutions makes it difficult for Muslims to tell their own story, their own narrative,” says Khalid Latif, Muslim chaplain at New York University and another vocal interfaith proponent.
People who seek to integrate new religions into American society often meet as much resistance inside their communities, where prejudices against other faiths are rife, as they do from the outside, says Jose Casanova, professor at Georgetown University and one of the world’s leading scholars on sociology of religion. But if they persevere, people like Ali can make a huge difference.
“If you have leaders who commit themselves to it, then they can carry communities with them,” says Casanova.
An essential part of doing that is education, which is why religious institutions are so important, says Latif, and why Ali’s exit from the Islamic Cultural Center was such a blow to religious coexistence in New York.
“That mosque could be amazing in terms of really helping to educate and do outreach, right? But it’s not really doing that,” says Latif.
***
Ali likes to say he has a rebellious soul. But at the offices of the Indonesian Mission to the United Nations in New York, his first and longest remaining employer in the US, he wears the attire of American establishment.
The grey suit, lime green shirt and purple-striped tie all look slightly oversized on his lean, marathon-trained frame, as he edges forward on the couch to tell his story. It’s a journey that begins and ends with fights. Including internal ones.
Beginning at age six, when Shamsi led children from his village Tana Toa on the Indonesian island Sulawesi in fisticuffs against children from rival villages, through his teenage years of practising the Indonesian martial art, silat.
“That’s another thing I like,” he says. “I like to fight.”
The third of six children, Shamsi grew up five hours’ car drive from the nearest city. His parents had never read the Koran, but after they suggested he study it, it took him just eight months to learn it by heart. At 12, he enrolled in a pesantren, a strictly disciplined Islamic boarding school, where he quickly excelled as a top student.
“It was a jail in the beginning,” he says. “But later, I began to call it a divine jail.” At the school, he learned to sing verses from the Koran more beautifully than the other boys. And he learned to preach.
As a pre-teen, he gave sermons to the villagers, including his own mother who would superstitiously bless food by presenting it to a sacred rock. When Shamsi rebelled against that pagan custom and threw away his mother’s food, she got so scared the rock would curse the family that she fell ill for three days.
Shamsi’s view of Islam changed when at 18 he went on to study in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and found a stricter, more fundamentalist religion than he had been taught in Indonesia.
In Pakistan he married Mutiah, the 15-year-old daughter of the Islamic school’s headmaster, who three years later gave birth to their first child. A few years later, the Indonesian Ambassador to the UN heard Ali speak to a group of pilgrims in Mecca, and was so impressed with the young imam that he invited him to run a newly built Indonesian mosque in New York.
***
When he first landed in the US in 1996, at the age of 29, Ali was surprised to see that all Americans were not white. The first of them he saw were Asians, the cab drivers were Pakistanis, and his first neighbour and friend an elderly Irish Catholic man.
“It is not true that America is bad or worse than any Muslim countries. In fact, you find that America is better than many Muslim nations,” Ali says, explaining how the ethnic makeup of New York softened the doctrinaire Islam he had been brought up with.
“Islam for me is about justice, equality, tolerance, freedom, giving right to others, respecting the human rights. And if you don’t have these – even if you claim that you are a religious, Islamic country – that is a lie for me… Here in America, we have that.”
Yet, Ali’s liberalism has limits, and they are the ones that to him are unmistakably stipulated in the Koran. There is no way, for example, that he can approve of same-sex marriage. Centuries ago, he explains, Muslim scholars decided that homosexuality is a genetic mistake where a girl is accidentally born a boy, or vice versa.
While he would accept a child of his that came to him and said he or she was homosexual, he stresses that people who identify as homosexual should live a life in celibacy, get a sex change operation, or seek therapy, he says. “In that sense, I am orthodox.”
***
Ali was in the heart of the Manhattan when the two planes struck the towers. Al-Qaeda’s attack on the US on 9/11 became a crucial juncture in Muslim relations with American society, and it pushed Ali to the front of the public sphere.
After having noticed his burgeoning interfaith activities, the City asked Ali to join President George W Bush at a visit to Ground Zero with a host of religious leaders. At Ground Zero, Ali asked the president to explain to the American people that Islam was not terrorism. And that plea seemed to work.
“The face of terror is not the true face of Islam. That’s not what Islam is about,” Bush said a couple of days later in a speech in Washington. “Islam is peace.”
As Muslims came under scrutiny, he says, they became forced to rethink their place in society, and that brought some good things as well.
“After September 11, the Muslims became more open, more inclusive,” he says. “They opened their houses of worships for others to come and observe and see what they’re doing. They became more aggressive in terms of introducing themselves to Americans.”
In New York, however, the oldest and largest mosque in the city, the Islamic Cultural Center on 96th Street, was not rethinking anything.
Founded by the government of Kuwait in the late 1980s, the mosque wasn’t known for its progressiveness. In 2001, its head imam Muhammad Gemeaha said in an interview that “only the Jews” were capable of carrying out the attack on World Trade Center. Later his successor, Omar Saleem Abu-Namous claimed that there was no conclusive evidence that Muslims were behind 9/11.
Capsized by the following furore, the leadership of the mosque realized it needed a spokesperson more in line with the public opinion.
Enter Shamsi Ali.
He was working with the Indonesian UN Mission and at the Al Hikmah Mosque, and a press conference he gave after 9/11, in which he stressed the importance of faiths working together, had caught the City’s attention,
The mosque offered Ali, who was steadily gaining admirers outside the Muslim community, a part-time position as assistant imam. And he quickly became the face of the mosque.
***
Around the same time, Ali made an unlikely ally and friend. Like Ali, Marc Schneier is a self-declared orthodox believer who has raised ire with his outreach to other communities of faith. As vice president of the World Jewish Congress and head of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Schneier is also one of New York’s most influential rabbis.
“Most Muslims don’t trust Jews, and most Jews don’t trust Muslims,” says Schneier, a heavyset man of 54 with backcombed hair, in a stern, droning baritone. Recalling the time before he met Ali, he says: “I had a definitive bias in those days toward Muslims. I saw them as the enemy. They were the demons out to kill all Jews.”
Schneier’s suspicion was reciprocated. Ali, whose interfaith work had mainly been limited to working with Christians, saw Jews as the true, clandestine rulers of America, and as innately anti-Muslim.
Around the same time, Ali made an unlikely ally and friend. Like Ali, Marc Schneier is a self-declared orthodox believer who has raised ire with his outreach to other communities of faith. As vice president of the World Jewish Congress and head of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Schneier is also one of New York’s most influential rabbis.
“Most Muslims don’t trust Jews, and most Jews don’t trust Muslims,” says Schneier, a heavyset man of 54 with backcombed hair, in a stern, droning baritone. Recalling the time before he met Ali, he says: “I had a definitive bias in those days toward Muslims. I saw them as the enemy. They were the demons out to kill all Jews.”
Schneier’s suspicion was reciprocated. Ali, whose interfaith work had mainly been limited to working with Christians, saw Jews as the true, clandestine rulers of America, and as innately anti-Muslim.
***
Around the same time, Ali made an unlikely ally and friend. Like Ali, Marc Schneier is a self-declared orthodox believer who has raised ire with his outreach to other communities of faith. As vice president of the World Jewish Congress and head of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Schneier is also one of New York’s most influential rabbis.
“Most Muslims don’t trust Jews, and most Jews don’t trust Muslims,” says Schneier, a heavyset man of 54 with backcombed hair, in a stern, droning baritone. Recalling the time before he met Ali, he says: “I had a definitive bias in those days toward Muslims. I saw them as the enemy. They were the demons out to kill all Jews.”
Schneier’s suspicion was reciprocated. Ali, whose interfaith work had mainly been limited to working with Christians, saw Jews as the true, clandestine rulers of America, and as innately anti-Muslim.
As a response, opponents in another group, the Islamic Thinkers’ Society have taken to internet campaigns to denounce Ali. “Shamsi Ali is a moderate Uncle Sam Muslim who wants the Muslim community to imitate the west,” the group writes on its website.
In 2011, the mosque on 96th Street got a new chairman, Mansour al-Otaibi, who was less enthusiastic about Ali’s interfaith work. Suddenly, Ali no longer had the protection of the leadership, but it took a political conflict of global importance to topple him.
***
The outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011 pitted supporters of the popular protests against defenders of the autocratic order, also in New York.
Ali sympathised with the Arab protests. He also knew very well that his employer in the mosque, the government of Kuwait, a little oil rich monarchy ruled by the same family for nearly 300 years, did not.
On a Friday in February, 2011, Ali strode through the prayer hall to deliver his noon sermon. Mounting the pulpit, he overlooked several thousand people sitting on the floor. The atmosphere was filled with a sense of anticipation. At the end of his sermon, Ali fixed his eyes on the men on the floor and said, “Every human being in their lives view freedom as a necessity. Prosperity without freedom does not guarantee happiness.”
He then asked his Egyptian brothers and sisters in the mosque to join that afternoon’s protests on Times Square against the Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak. The protesters in the Arab world needed their solidarity and support, he said.
After the prayer, the chairman pulled Ali aside. “This mosque doesn’t deal with politics,” he told him. But Ali replied that anti-dictatorial struggle was an inherent part of Islam. He was told he had to spend more time with his congregation and less on outreach activities, and he left the mosque.
The mosque insists that Ali was fired rather than left on his own account, but the chairman, Al-Otaibi, denies that it had anything to do with his interfaith activity.
In an email, he writes: “It was advised to [Ali] and to the other imams as well, that it was preferable not to speak about politics in sermons.”
Abdulrazak al-Amiri, who is daily director of the mosque, elaborates: “The people are coming here to pray, some of them are with the regime, some of them are against the regime. We don’t want this in our mosque.”
However, Ali claims he was squeezed out for political reasons, including his friendship with the Jews.
***
Since his days at the pesantren in Indonesia, Ali has thoroughly enjoyed singing verses from the Koran for masses of worshippers. On a recent afternoon, in his family’s two-story home in the low-rise jungle of Queens, he recites verses for two men in his living room.
Ali has just returned from a two-week trip to Indonesia to visit his sick father, and while there, newspapers and magazines wrote extensively about him and his interfaith work. That’s the reason the men, one of them fresh off the plane, have come – unannounced – to pray on the floor, wedged in between the coffee table and the window.
Ali and his wife Mutiah have lived here since 2004, when Ali took a job at the Jamaica Muslim Center, which is smaller than the 96th but still serves a large, predominantly Bangladeshi congregation. He also preaches to a small number of worshippers at the al-Hikmah Mosque.
Mutiah, a mild-faced woman wearing a loose-fitted dark dress and a black headscarf, serves the two men tea and plantain crisps. At 36, she is nine years Ali’s junior, but looks younger. Three of the five children run haphazardly around the living room, waving plastic swords above their heads.
The daughter of a madrasa principal, Mutiah is more conservative than her husband. “But I support him in everything he does,” she says.
His face shows the first discreet signs of middle age as he readily admits that his influence over his large congregation is diluted by all the time he spends away from it, building relationships with other faiths. Later this year, he hopes to establish his own interfaith, not-for-profit organisation which will provide a prayer room to younger worshippers. With an international tour promoting his book, this year may end up being one of the most important in his career.
“I’m sure that will be the beginning of the real journey,” he says, as he closes the front door to his house and makes the five minute stroll to the Jamaica Muslim Center.
In front of the gold-coloured pulpit, he turns his back to the crowd to lead the prayer. He then begins to sing with that striking voice that so entranced people in his pre-teens.
The loudspeakers outside the mosque carry his song through the sleepy streets, then down the hill to the busy avenue, where it dissolves and disappears in the traffic.
***
BBC Magazine
3 November 2013
Ali with his two daughters Maryam (left) and Malika.
Rozan Yunos
Nur Firdaus Abdul Rahim
Islam In Indonesia 