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Pembangunan Ummah Islam Global

Universiti Kebangsaan MalaysiaFakulti Undang-undangProgram PHD Undang-undang

Musbri MohamedDIL; ADIL ( ITM )MBL ( UKM )

P58462

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Extract from a speech by Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard

There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.

It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.

One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.

When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.

……….the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world.

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The scholars of Europe were torn between their intellectual loyalty and the strong hatred of their teachers present in their culture.

The Arabs in particular were a light to the Christian West and yet this debt has rarely been fully acknowledged. As soon as the great translation work had been completed, scholars in Europe began to shrug off this complicating and schizophrenic relationship with Islam and became very vague indeed about who the Arabs really were… There is an unhealthy repression and doublethink about people who are at one and the same time guides, heroes, and deadly enemies. This is very clear in the scholarship about Islam.

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Another factor that plays alongside the long-standing hatred of Islam in Europe is the phenomenon known as orientalism. This concept was first articulated by Edward Said in his landmark book Orientalism, which is now considered required reading for anyone studying Middle Eastern culture or history. Orientalism is the result of the elaboration of the imaginary distinction between East and West: geographically, culturally, morally, and intellectually. The result of orientalism are claims that go along the lines of " ‘We’ are like this, but ‘they’, for unexplainable reasons, are fundamentally different, and in due course, inferior." This in turn serves as justification for "Us" to rule "Them", to exploit "Them", to guide "Them" to our enlightened ways. Academic orientalism gave rise to arrogant, seemingly humanistic ideals which drove imperialism, whose effects are felt very painfully in the Muslim, as well as most of the third, world.

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One may ask after looking at the reasons why Muslim scholars are vastly undervalued in Western books is "Why should we care now?" The scholars are dead. The ink in the history books has dried. What good will it bring Muslims, besides a headache, to raise this issue now? It is done to restore confidence to the Muslim Ummah, to remind believers what is needed to be great again. The Muslims ruled from France to India, not only because of being blessed with the true message, but also of being superior to the conquered people in all other "worldly" ways. The Muslims would have never conquered the Persians without superior military planning and tactics. The people of the Roman Empire in greater Syria and North Africa would have never converted to Islam if the Muslims were not materially superior to the Romans. The Khatib who gives the Friday sermon, who believes that Muslims will become great again once they start using their miswaks more often, is missing the whole story. Islam does not spread through prayer and piety—people go to the Jannah through prayer and piety. Islam provides a system that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in this life, and to encourage worship that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in the next.

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Studying the lives of the Muslim scholars also provides modern-day Muslims with a portrayal of the prototypical modern scientist. He is one who devotes his efforts to discovering Allah’s signs in this world and who tries to direct his or her discoveries those that produce social benefit.

For the Westerner, it is important to change these historical inaccuracies to help improve the relations between the West and the Muslim world by finally acknowledging the enormous debt owed to the Muslims. However, as the celeritous progress of Western science pushes on, it is more likely that the increasing arrogance and faith in Western science with its purely Western (Greek) origins will keep this overdue apology from occurring. While a historian may mention "Avicenna" or "Averroes" fleetingly in one of his or her books, the problem is that what is left out is far greater than what is told. The eminent historian George Sarton criticized those who "will glibly say ‘The Arabs simply translated Greek writings, they were industrious imitators…’ This is not absolutely untrue, but is such a small part of the truth, that when it is allowed to stand alone, it is worse than a lie."

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It is obvious that the thought of the Ummah as it stands at present is in need of reform. It is equally obvious that the psychological makeup of the Ummah as it stands at present is defective. Even if individuals and even entire generations are capable of ingesting new information and ideas, that intake will be superficial and significantly different from the processes involved in true character-building.

"The best of you in Islam are the best of you in Jahilyah, so long as you acquire an understanding of Islam," said the Prophet. It was for this reason that the free and daring Arabs of the desert, after they converted to Islam, were able to achieve so much in a remarkably short period of time.

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Ekonomi Islam

Pengkorporatan pengurusan institusi zakat seperti diamalkan di sebahagian negeri di Malaysia boleh dijadikan ikutan kepada institusi zakat serantau.Perkembangan institusi zakat serantau perlu mengambil pendekatan global bagi memperkasa dan memantapkan pengurusan dana zakat.

Mekanisme pemantauan zakat perlu diperkenalkan untuk memastikan pelaksanaan kutipan dan agihan dijalankan dengan cekap dan telus yang menepati syariat Islam.

Institusi zakat akan memainkan peranan lebih signifikan terutama dalam melahirkan modal insan Islam.

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Pendakwah perlu utama pembangunan modal insan

SEJAK negara di rantau Alam Melayu mencapai kemerdekaan, masalah pokok yang dihadapi ialah keinginan di kalangan sesetengah pejuang kemerdekaan untuk melakukan transformasi dan pembaharuan terhadap dasar ditinggalkan penjajah.

Keadaan bertentangan ini menyebabkan konflik berpanjangan antara pendukung Darul Islam (Negara Islam) dengan kelompok status-quo yang masih teguh dengan strategi keBelandaan dan keInggerisan.

Akhirnya lahir suatu keadaan yang amat kritikal iaitu strategi hitam-putih berkembang, kaedah menghukum menjadi subur dan isu agama tidak didekati secara intelektual tetapi dengan emosi.

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The civilizational horizons attained by the Ummah in the past were clearly the result of the overwhelming impetus provided by the early generations of Islam. Yet the spark had to fade eventually, and the movement had to come to a standstill sometime. Times and circumstances changed. But the Ummah truly lost both its way and its ability to renew itself when its political leadership became separated from its intellectual leadership. This spilt so encouraged literalism, taqlid, indulgence, and superstition that they soon became the order of the day. The Ummah lost its ability to give birth to new ideas, to update its institutions, and to produce the planning, means, and policies essential to further progress at the civilizational level.

Since the time of this separation, the Ummah has lived on the ruins of the broad societal foundations laid by the early generations of Muslims. Yet at the same time, the agents of political and intellectual decay have spread throughout the Ummah and its leadership, a trend that has resulted in the virtual disintegration of the historical Islamic social structure.

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The crisis in the Muslim mind is one related to the achievement of Islam's higher objectives and the embodiment of Islamic values. It is therefore a crisis of thought in its essence and its approach, and a crisis of the methodology, which the Ummah lacks, in the social sciences. The crisis of Muslim thought is one of the establishment of those social sciences that can assist the Ummah with its thought, organization, institutions, and policies. When we speak of the social sciences, we refer to the fields of methodological study, without reference to any specific (Western, leftist, Eastern or whatever) theories or schools. Certainly the Muslim mind, with its complete and comprehensive sources of knowledge, will have much of value to contribute to such sciences and disciplines.

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Where are Muslims in this coming new world and new frontier of space? Oh sure, a "Muslim" Saudi Prince went up in the space shuttle. Big deal. He didn't design it, his country didn't launch it and he was just a token presence. Anyway, what is so Islamic about a "Prince" coming from a "kingdom"?

Oh, Kazakhstan has the Russian spaceport on its soil, you say? Well, as if Kazakhstan is an Islamic or even a Muslim place! Half the population or more is Russian, the Russian government controls the spaceport and almost all of the so-called Muslims who make up the rest of the country are illiterate in Islam. They live like non-Muslims in their attitudes just like most people from Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey or wherever. There is no Islamic purpose being served there. Muslims have no space technology, we don't even have any Islamic state here on earth to begin with!

Even if Malaysia sent a rocket into space tomorrow, what of it? Malaysia isn't patterned after an Islamic system either.

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Reform is of equal importance to the Ummah and humanity alike.

The role of the present generation of Muslims is first to understand the nature of the present environment, assess the range of possible activities and available capabilities, and then propose workable and worthwhile ideas. For this to happen it will first be necessary to build exemplary schools for the young in which they may develop strong characters and unshakable faith in the objectives and precepts of Islam.It is the responsibility of the Ummah's thinkers and scholars to concentrate their energies on reform of the Ummah's thought, on clarifying its vision, and on presenting these to the Ummah in such a way that its institutions may derive benefit from them.

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The Ummah must begin now to prepare the people it needs for tomorrow.

In this undertaking, the educators of the Ummah need to consider the role of parents in bringing up children. Indeed, in these matters nothing compares in importance to the conviction held by mothers and fathers in general about how to raise children. To a great extent, the development of values and character depends upon the relationships between parents and children. Any effort expended in the school or in society which does not win the approval of parents is therefore doomed to certain failure.

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Islam provides humankind with a reason for living

If the future of the Ummah of Islam is to depend upon the degree of success it achieves in reforming its methodology, thought, education, and organization, as well as laying the foundations for new Islamic social sciences, then the future of all bewildered and threatened humanity rests on the degree of success achieved by Muslims in presenting a living example of Islamic teachings.

The moral bankruptcy of modern society is no secret to anyone. Under the shadow of materialism, the world is divided into north and south, white and black, rich and poor, overfed and underfed, colonizer and colonized, master and slave. To people today, peace is nothing more than the suppression of their fears about the unleashing of the forces of mass destruction by one or another of the nations, classes, or camps competing for supremacy.

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The believers are brothers and sisters

Islamic society stands on the foundations of unity and the concept of brotherhood. As such, it focuses on answering the basic needs of the individual and the interests he or she shares with others in terms of the family, the neighborhood, the nation, and humankind in general. If the materialist powers of the contemporary world stand on the philosophy of confrontation, then the philosophy of Islam, collective security, is the philosophy of tomorrow.

When humankind realizes its capacity to destroy itself and the planet on which it lives, then it will realize its need for decisive regulations as prescribed by wahy in the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

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Work of building for the future

It is clear that the Ummah is in no real need of resources, opportunities, or values. Rather, what it is lacking is a methodology for sound thinking. Indeed, the problems of the Ummah are clearly connected to confused thinking, obscured social vision, improper and inadequate education, and the decline of its institutions in general. The result is that it is divided and has begun to resemble an enfeebled and cringing slave.

Should it be the will of Allah, the Ummah will take over with the work of building for the future and progressing toward new horizons.

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How Islamic inventors changed the world

The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine.

One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called Al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi.

Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use.

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Dr. Maurice Bucaille said in his book "The Bible, the Qur'an and Science", which was published by the American Trust Publications 1979:

"Thanks to its undisputed authenticity, the text of the Qur'an holds a unique place among the books of Revelation, shared neither by the Old nor the New Testament. In the first two sections of this work, a review was made of the alterations undergone by the Old Testament and the Gospels before they were handed down to us in the form we know today. The same is not true for the Qur'an for the simple reason that it was written down at the time of the prophet".

Modern scientists have been amazed by the accuracy of scientific information presented in the Quran.

The Qur'an states several facts about astronomy which were discovered in the late twentieth century .

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Islam mengembangkan konsep tentang kebebasan beragama.

Dalam catatan sejarah, Rasulullah s.a.w mengamalkan toleransi dalam seluruh kehidupan Baginda sebagai Nabi dan Rasul utusan Allah s.w.t.

Antara lain, beliau menunjukkan sikap bersahabat terhadap para penganut agama lain, berkunjung dan menziarahi keluarga mereka yang kematian ahli keluarga, menghadiri majlis kenduri dan melawat orang-orang yang sedang sakit. Dalam erti kata yang lain, Rasulullah s.a.w mengamalkan sikap menghormati semua manusia biarpun berbeza pegangan agama dan pendapat.

Oleh hal yang demikian, umat Islam dari semasa ke semasa mengikuti jejak langkah Nabi s.a.w. yang bergaul dengan umat-umat lain khususnya yang bukan Muslim dengan penuh kejujuran. Dalam sejarah Islam, banyak contoh-contoh toleransi yang ditunjukkan oleh Nabi Muhammad s.a.w.

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What do Muslims believe?

There is only one God, Allah, who alone is worthy of being worshipped. Mankind has been guided at various times by the messengers of Allah of whom the most prominent were Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. The final message was sent to the last prophet, Mohammed, which replaces all previous messages. None of the prophets claimed to be god or part-god - they were human and were obedient to Allah. Finally, we wish to inform you that Islam is the universal message of Allah to all mankind and prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) is the last and final messenger of Allah. Therefore, Allah will not accept any way of life except Islam. He said in the Gracious Qur'an which is translated as follows: "And any one who chooses a way of life other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers." (3:85)

Please save yourself by embracing Islam.

Musbri MohamedApril 2012