Monday, October 01, 2007

ABIM's Policy Speech Part 2

The Islamic Movement's Integrity in Leading the Challenges of
the Times part 2

ABIM's president, Yusri Mohammad then goes on to put forward notions on
the relationship between the movement and government, the movement as a
moderating force and managing differences of opinion and diversity. Below
are excerpts translated, adapted and summarised:-


Our relationship with government has to be seen from the perspective of
the hadith, Ad deenu nasiha – religion is good advice. ABIM shall offer
ideas, concepts and alternatives to government. ABIM shall propose to
assist to improve any shortcomings but not intending to be a competitor
or to replace any government institution.

The movement shall promote the middle ground, by having clear and
correct framework of Islamic thought, to be a moderating trend in facing
current controversial issues. As exposĕs and the abundance of open
information can cause confusion, deviation, tension and conflict, these
sudden awareness has to be accompanied by reason and moderation.

In managing differences of opinion – khilaf, Pak Natsir's caution is
appropriate: "A person of da'wah sees everyone as his friend except those
who are really declared enemies. A politician sees everyone as his enemy
except those who are really declared friends."

In matters of khilafiyyah, the maxim is "not to reject anything which is
accepted as part of khilaf", so differing opinions which are already
accepted cannot be strongly rejected outright. Another extreme view is to
open the doors to unconstrained interpretation just to bring established
laws and rules to disrepute whereas jumhur or the majority of ulama' have
agreed on them. There is a trend to seek any controversial, marginal and
odd jurisprudence, thus justify it as khilaf, in order to freely choose
their own interpretation of laws. The rule is: "Not everything differed –
khilaf – is valid, except those supported by sound and substantive
evidence."


----------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my

No comments: