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The anti Islam agenda that is TMI

Again, another commentary by The Malaysian Insider (TMI), this time by the Editor himself, Jahabar Sadiq, was spewed out with the utmost contempt and prejudice towards Islam, its institutions in the country and the ulama especially.

It also targeted all the Muslims who refuse to endorse the kind of modification to the practice of Islam that Jahabar tried to promote through his writing.

In full arrogance, he vilified the ulama, made light of the concept of sin and reward (pahala) in Islam and ridiculed all Muslims who chose to uphold the role of ulama in the society as incapable to think properly.

Jahabar may hate to digest this but without the ulama we would not even know how to do our daily prayers. The Quran only prescribed it without the detail explanation on how to do it.

That task is done by The Prophet and passed down the generations of Muslims through the discipline of hadith which was carefully transmitted through the centuries by the ulamas.

Presuming that Jahabar has long mastered the ability to think of everything for himself all by himself, perhaps he could share how he learned to do his prayers without having to refer to any cleric.

Does he now choose to recite the Surah Al Fatihah during rukuk instead just to proof the point that that is how he thinks it should be done?

It would be doubly interesting if he could also share his views on whether hadith are still applicable in the present days given the great dependency the discipline has on the roles of ulama.

Thanks to the ulama too for handling the aftermath of the controversy IWTTAD event with level headed approaches. It is good to know that the organizer will still be provided with an opportunity to explain his position and how the program turned the way it did.

Of course this display of professionalism was deliberately ignored in Jahabar’s reckless commentary which instead chose to put the blame of the overreaction by some quarters squarely on the ulama.

And contrary to his simplistic assertion, having the ulama around does not mean you don’t have to do your own thinking.  Plus, as explained earlier, just because you can think does not mean you no longer need the ulama.

A case in point is the one quoted by Jahabar himself- that debate on dog ownership in Kelantan back in 1937. Although it was concluded then that keeping dogs was allowed provided the conditions were met, we did not see the dogs ownership in Kelantan suddenly spiked following the decision.

The judgment of the majority at that time was to keep abiding by their customary practice or ‘uruf’ as it is referred to in Islamic rulings. They still practiced the special cleansing method too whenever they came in touch with canines, as stipulated by the Shafii School of jurisprudence.

All four prominent schools of jurisprudence (mazhabs) in Islam accept ‘uruf’ as a valid source of hukum (although secondary in priorities); so long it does not contradict any of the Islamic fundamentals.

This partly contributed to the different take by each of these mazhabs on some issues, mostly of minor significance, faced by the society. As a matter of fact, the evolvements of these mazhabs were also influenced, among other factors, by its respective region of origin.

This goes to explain why it is not advisable to impose a general view of an ulama from one place upon the people who live in another, without proper consideration of the custom and native values related to the issues at hand.

Unfortunately, this practice has become a staple for TMI by randomly importing various views and hukum, sometimes by ‘scholars’ of dubious background, and then ridiculing the local ulama for having different assessments.

Of course there is a specific discipline of doing this in Islam but, as expected, it was ignored due to their chronic abhorrence towards ulama, besides fully knowing that their anti-Islam agenda will be severely compromised if they do it still.

This animosity towards Islam by TMI is getting more and more prevalent of late. Not enough with skewed reporting of the statements by Islamic leaders, religious bodies, NGOs or even Friday sermons, TMI now resorted to creating ‘news’ just by cherry-picking from the comment sections.

These trivial comments by public were turned into juicy headlines in their attempts to implicate the subjects to Islam. We could see this act of substandard journalism been deployed during the recent grenade attack in KL when TMI tried to put it as an act of Muslim extremism.

A similar effort could also be seen in the aftermath of the dog event whereby random comments were picked up to paint Islam and Muslims alike in a bad image, while also pitting them against non-Muslims in the process.

The latest piece by Jahabar marked the culmination of the game it played in the wake of the misguided dog touching event. The guy who masterminded the event had done numerous charity programs in the past but with little coverage, if any at all, by TMI.

Perhaps his ‘Tamak Pahala’ (Greed for Divine Reward) slogan was deemed as too Islamic to worth a highlight although some of the programs were quite extraordinary.

But we could see how TMI made the most out of IWTTAD, producing piece after piece as if they were the event’s official media partner. Even the dogs would have been interviewed if TMI had their way. And Jahabar had the cheek to complain how dogs dominated the headlines for the past week.

The difference between IWTTAD and the organizer’s previous programs was simply down to the presence of the opportunity to stoke the fire of distrust among Muslims towards the institution of ulama and to instigate a move to completely disband it.

People like Jahabar and his team and what they do in TMI simply proves that the threat to Islam in Malaysia is actually real.

Umar Hakim Mohd Tajuddin
ISMA Activist

Penafian: Kenyataan berita atau artikel ini adalah pandangan peribadi penulis dan tidak mewakili pendirian rasmi Media Isma Sdn Bhd atau Portal Islam dan Melayu Ismaweb.net.
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2 komen

  1. “Slay them wherever you find them…Idolatry is worse than carnage…Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme.” (Surah 2:190-) from religion of peace…

  2. Surah 2:190 states that
    “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you but do not transgress, for Allah does not love transgressors”

    Mr. Alex Lau, your statement is invalid.

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