Brother Osama:

How much blood has been spilled? How many innocent children, women, and old people have been killed, maimed, and expelled from their homes in the name of “al-Qaeda”?

Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders? It is a weighty burden indeed – at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions.

How could you wish for that? – after knowing that Allah’s Messenger said: “Whoever as much as kills a sparrow in vain will find it crying before Allah on the Day of Judgment: ‘My Lord! That person killed me in vain. He did not kill me for needful sustenance.”

This religion of ours comes to defense of the life of a sparrow. It can never accept the murder of innocent people, regardless of what supposed justification is given for it.

Didn’t you read where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “One of the prophets once sat under a tree and was bitten by an ant. Because of this, he burnt the ant’s nest. Thereupon, Allah inspired to him: ‘Why not only the one ant?’ ” [Sahîh Muslim]

Allah revealed to that prophet: “What? Just because one ant had bitten you, you have set fire to an entire nation that extols Allah’s glory!” [Sahîh Muslim (2241)]

If this is the case for a nest of ants, consider how much worse it must be to visit harm upon human beings.

Who is responsible for all of those young Muslim, who are still in the bloom of their youth, with all the zeal of their age, who have strayed down a path they have no idea where it is headed?

The image of Islam today is tarnished. People around the world are saying how Islam teaches that those who do not accept it must be killed. They are also saying that the adherents of Salafi teachings kill Muslims who do not share their views.

However, the reality of Islam is that our Prophet (peace be upon him) did not kill the treacherous hypocrites in his midst, even though Allah had revealed to him who they were and informed him that they were destined for the deepest depths of Hell. Why did he stay his hand? He gave the following reason: “I will not have people saying that Muhammad kills his companions.”

Brother Osama, what happened on September 11 –- crimes that we have condemned vociferously since that very day –- was the murder of a few thousand people, possible a little less than three thousand. This is the number that dies in the airplanes as well as in the towers. By contrast, Muslim preachers – who remain unknown and unsung -– have succeeded in guiding hundreds of thousands of people to Islam, people who have ever since been guided by the light of faith and whose hearts are filled with the love of Allah. Isn’t the difference between one who kills and one who guides obvious?

Our Lord tells us: “Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the Earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the lives of all mankind.” [Sûrah al-Mâ’idah: 32]

Guiding one soul to knowledge and faith is a momentous achievement. It is what will earn us great blessings.

Brother Osama, what is to be gained from the destruction of entire nations – which is what we are witnessing in Afghanistan and Iraq – seeing them torn them with plague and famine? What is to be gained from undermining their stability and every hope of a normal life? Three million refugees are packing into Syria and Jordan alone, not to mention those who are fleeing to the East and the West.

The nightmare of civil war which now reigns supreme in Afghanistan and Iraq brings no joy to the Muslims. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) heard about a man named Harb (meaning “war” in Arabic), he promptly changed his name to something else, because the Prophet hated war.

Allah says: “Fighting is prescribed for you, though you detest it.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 216]

War is something hateful that must only be resorted to under the most dire and compelling of circumstances when no other way is found.

Who stands to benefit from turning a country like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia – or any other country for that matter – into a battlefield where no one feels safe? Is the goal to obstruct the government? Is that, then, the solution for anything?

Is this the plan – even if it is achieved by marching over the corpses of hundreds of thousands of people – police, soldiers, and civilians, even the common Muslims? Are their deaths to be shrugged off, saying: “They will be resurrected in the Hereafter based on the state of their hearts.”

Indeed, all of those who are slain will be resurrected based on the state of their hearts. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is in what state are we going to be resurrected? How are we going to find ourselves when we meet our Lord? How will it be for someone who has all those countless deaths weighing down upon him, whether he wants to own up to them or not?

The concern for conveying Islam’s message to humanity is one that can influence others and convince them. This is a far greater and far weightier concern than that of using brute force and violence to bend others to one’s will. “Allah sent His Messenger (peace be upon him) as a guide for humanity, not as a tax collector.” as `Umar b. `Abd al-`Azîz used to say.

Who is responsible – brother Osama – for promoting the culture of excommunication which has torn families asunder and has led to sons calling their fathers infidels? Who is responsible for fostering a culture of violence and murder that has led to people to shed the blood of their relatives in cold blood, rather than nurturing the spirit of love and tranquility that a Muslim family is supposed to have?

Who is responsible for the young men who leave their mothers crying; who abandon their wives; whose small children wake up every day asking when daddy is coming home? What answer can be given, when that father may very well be dead, or missing with no one knowing of his fate?

Who is responsible for Western governments pursuing every charitable project in the world, so that the orphans, the poor, and the needy throughout the globe are deprived of food, education, and other essential needs? Who is responsible – brother Osama – for filling the prisons of the Muslim world with our youth, a situation which will only breed more extremism, violence, and murder in our societies?

Muhammad (peace be upon him) – my source of guidance as well as yours – is what he came with not enough for you? He was sent as a mercy for all humanity. Allah says: “And We sent you merely as a mercy for all humanity.” [Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 107]

The word “mercy” is not to be found in the lexicon of war. Where is the mercy in murdering people? Where is the mercy in bombing places? Where is the mercy in making people and places into targets? Where is the mercy in turning many Muslim countries into battlefields?

The Prophet (peace be upon him) brought all of Arabia under his sway without a single slaughter, despite all of the battles that were waged against him. The number of people who were killed during the twenty-three years of his mission were less than two hundred people. The Muslims who were killed during that time by their enemies were many times in excess of that number.

What do a hundred people in Algeria, or double that number in Lebanon, or likewise in Saudi Arabia hope to achieve by carrying out acts of violence – or as they say, suicide attacks? These acts are futile.

Let us say – purely hypothetically – that these people manage to take power somewhere in the world. What then? What can people who have no life experience hope to achieve in the sphere of good governance? People who have no knowledge of Islamic law to support them and no understanding of domestic and foreign relations?

Is Islam only about guns and ammunition? Have your means become the ends themselves?

That ideology that so many young people have embraced in many parts of the world, is it revelation from Allah that cannot be questioned or reconsidered? Or is it merely a product of human effort that is subject to error and to being corrected?

Many of your brethren in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere have come to see the end of the road for that ideology. They realize how destructive and dangerous it is. They have also found the courage to proclaim in their writings and on the air that they were mistaken and that the path they had been on was the path of error. They admit that it cannot lead to anything good. They have sought Allah’s forgiveness for what has passed and have expressed their sincere regrets for what they had done.

Those with brave hearts need just as much to have courageous minds.

Do you not hear the voices of the pious scholars, those who worship Allah day and night and are truly heedful of Allah – don’t you hear them crying out with the very same words that the Prophet (peace be upon him) used when Khâlid b. al-Walîd, the commander-in-chief of his army, acted in error: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Khâlid has done.”

These same words still echo after 1400 years in the cries of the scholars of Islam: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Osama is doing, and from those who affiliate themselves to his name or work under his banner.”

I wish to remind you of what our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said to Usâmah b. Zayd – whose name you carry – when he killed a man from Juhaynah in the heat of battle after that man had declared that there is no God but Allah.

After the Prophet (peace be upon him) rebuked him, Usâmah said: “O Messenger of Allah! He only said that because he was scared of the sword.”

The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: “How will you fare with the declaration of faith when it comes on the Day of Judgment?”

Usâmah pleaded: “Seek forgiveness for me, O Messenger of Allah.”

He just repeated what he had said: “How will you fare with the declaration of faith when it comes on the Day of Judgment?”

O Osama! What will you do with the declaration of faith when it disputes with you on the Day of Judgment?

Life, Osama, should not be a single lesson. We must face numerous lessons throughout our lives, and these lessons are of a great variety.

My situation is no different than that of a lot of other people who are concerned with Muslim affairs. My heart pains me when I think of the number of young people who had so much potential – who would have made such great and original contributions to society, who had so much to offer that was constructive and positive – who have been turned into living bombs.

Here is the vital question that you need to ask yourself and that others have the right to demand and answer for: What have all these long years of suffering, tragedy, tears, and sacrifice actually achieved?

I ask Allah to bring everyone together upon the truth and right guidance. I pray that he guides us all to what pleases Him.

Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah

The Chief Justice of Malaysia, YAA Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, in his officiating speech at IKIM’s seminar surrounding ‘Ahmad Ibrahim: His Intellectual Thought and Contributions’ last August, expressed his disappointment over the captive mentality of our legal experts, practitioners, judges and lawyers in reference to the high esteem the aforementioned accord English law, or to be more specific, English Common Law (ECL).

He regrettably noted that despite the fact that our nation has been independent for fifty years now, we still retain, follow and rigidly adhere to s. 3 and 5 of the Civil Law Act 1956 (CLA). The provisions of these two sections prescribe the complete application of ECL for the entire nation.

In reality, many tend to interpret these sections as if we are duty bound to refer to English Law in case of lacuna in our own law. In relation to this, Tun Ahmad Fairuz posits four important questions for us to ponder, particularly by the legal fraternity: (i) Does this condition reflect that this country is bereft of legal expertise? (ii) Does it mean that English Common Law is the best option? (iii) Does it mean that our legal experts are still shackled by the yoke of the colonials (di bawah tempurung penjajah)? (iv) Is it true that our legal scholars are impotent, in other words unable to formulate and develop a legal system better in comparison with ECL? He has called for the Common Law of England to be replaced by our very own common law.

The CJ’s remarks were reported in local dailies nationwide. Amazingly, many commented positively, including some political leaders. But, there were also voices of discontent from certain quarters describing the call to replace ECL as “baseless”.

What is “English Common Law”? In brief, it refers to the unwritten law of custom based on the decisions of judges over a period of years in England, i.e. law derived from custom and judicial precedent. This includes the rules of equity, and later, various statutes of general application, developed and administered in that country.

This set of laws was introduced to Malaysia by the British colonials firstly through various treatises with the local rulers followed by legislation and decisions by English judges or judges trained in the English legal system.

The call by Tun Fairuz reiterates the call made by another (former) Chief Justice, Tun Abdul Hamid Omar (in 1990), who said words to the effect that being an independent country, our reference to ECL and the rules of equity — by virtue of s. 3, CLA — is politically indefensible. He continued that s. 3 needs to either be repealed or amended.

It is not an exaggeration to say that actually all these recommendations may be traced to the famous legal expertise of Prof. Ahmad Ibrahim. Many would agree that he was not only the originator but the prime mover of this idea, and many were inspired by him.

Prof Ahmad wrote that s. 3 and 5 of the CLA shall be amended by repealing all references to ECL and the rules of equity administered in England. He strongly suggested that we should refer to the courts decisions in Malaysia instead by applying our own laws and by giving priority to the local conditions and its people, thus establishing and developing our own Malaysian Common Law (MCL).

Prof. Ahmad argues that the last part of s. 3 of CLA itself should allow for the formation and development of MCL. It provides that “the said common law, rules of equity and statutes of general application shall be applied so far only as the circumstances of the States of Malaysia and their respective inhabitants permit and subject to such qualifications as local circumstances render necessary.”

Obviously, the CLA is not to be followed blindly or literally. The very provision itself suggests that even its drafters expect us to develop our own common law. Indeed, there are enough grounds for us to establish our MCL.

Unfortunately, Prof. Ahmad laments, in spite of the fact that all our civil court judges, from the lowest to the highest, are all appointed from among Malaysians, they do not show interest or use their abilities to modify ECL to suit or to conform to local circumstances.

If there is any modification, which is very rare, it is done by rejecting an English law in preference for another English law. So, in spite of our independence, local judges and lawyers, and possibly draftsmen, are not. We are still tied to English law and to its court’s decisions.

Tun Fairuz lends his full support to the notion of repealing or amending CLA. He stresses that it should be done using whatever necessary and possible modifications, in the spirit and perspective championed by Prof. Ahmad.

It is hard to really understand why certain ‘learned’ groups – both within the legal fraternity and without – refused to forsake ECL. Prof. Ahmad boldly states that the formation of MCL must be based on the basic law of the land, i.e. Islam and Malay customs. He finds support for this in the court decision of Ramah v Laton (1927) presided over by an English judge. Could this form the raison d’etre for such a rejection?

To hold to this as true is baseless, unfounded and would encourage fear of the unknown and bring islamophobia to the surface. Historically, it is logical, and no one can argue the fact that the basic law of any nation must always be associated with real truth and justice.

All must understand that while Islam is theologically distinct from other religions and whose worldview is complete, in terms of similarities as far as ethics, morality, its value system and legal principles, it has a lot in common with other major religions. There’s tremendous parallelism of all world religions in these aspects.

So when we talk about a Malaysian Common Law, we mean the formation and development of a system of law based on these ethical, moral and legal values shared by the followers of the major religions.

There may be certain values in the English legal tradition that may not suit our common moral precepts. It is against these elements that we must stand united. This is the spirit that should be remembered when we argue for a cessation to reference to foreign laws to settle our disputes. In this regard, any notion of a super imposition of any one religious theological teaching upon the followers of other religions must never be part of that consideration.

For a common law system in our pluralistic society to become manifest, the basis should be Islam, and arguably to a lesser extent, Malay customs. This must not be taken as an outright denial of the role and contribution of other religions or races. Input from other cultures and traditions will serve as great additions towards a harmonious peaceful life in this beloved land. Perhaps the best term to describe the formation and development of this Malaysian Common Law is “Malaysianization”.

Dr. Wan Azhar bin Wan Ahmad is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Islamic Understanding (IKIM), Kuala Lumpur.

Takbir! Allahu Akbar!

A mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars
By Will Dunham 2 hours, 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in medieval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday.

By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be “quasicrystalline” designs, Harvard University’s Peter Lu and Princeton University’s Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science.

Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.

“Oh, it’s absolutely stunning,” Lu said in an interview. “They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn’t figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years.”

Lu and Steinhardt in particular cite designs on the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, built in 1453.

Islamic tradition has frowned upon pictorial representations in artwork. Mosques and other grand buildings erected by Islamic architects throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere often are wrapped in rich, intricate tile designs setting out elaborate geometric patterns.

The walls of many medieval Islamic structures display sumptuous geometric star-and-polygon patterns. The research indicated that by 1200 an important breakthrough had occurred in Islamic mathematics and design, as illustrated by these geometric designs.

“You can go through and see the evolution of increasing geometric sophistication. So they start out with simple patterns, and they get more complex” over time, Lu added.

ISLAMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, Islamic culture flourished beginning in the 7th century, with achievements over numerous centuries in mathematics, medicine, engineering, ceramics, art, textiles, architecture and other areas.

Lu said the new revelations suggest Islamic culture was even more advanced than previously thought.

While traveling in Uzbekistan, Lu said, he noticed a 16th century Islamic building with decagonal motif tiling, arousing his curiosity as to the existence of quasicrystalline Islamic tilings.

The sophistication of the patterns used in Islamic architecture has intrigued scholars worldwide.

Emil Makovicky of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in the 1990s noticed the relationship between these designs and a form of quasicrystalline designs. Makovicky was interested in particular in an 1197 tomb in Maragha, Iran.

Joshua Socolar, a Duke university physicist, said it is unclear whether the medieval Islamic artisans fully understood the mathematical properties of the patterns they were making.

“It leads you to wonder whether they kind of got lucky,” Socolar said in an interview. “But the fact remains that the patterns are tantalizingly close to having the structure that Penrose discovered in the mid-70s.”

“And it will be a lot of fun if somebody turns up bigger tilings that sort of make a more convincing case that they understood even more of the geometry than the present examples show,” Socolar said.

When land becomes an increasingly rare commodity in major cities, it’s not just non-Muslims who have difficulty in getting permission for building their places of worship or for burial grounds.

WE went through 18 holes of golf last weekend – and right through I was almost overwhelmed by the deafening sound of silence. Not so long ago, it was the hottest topic in town but last weekend my three playing partners did not utter a single word about the Altantuya murder trial. Why?

I asked some other friends soon after. Apparently, they are also not so glued to the ongoing trial any more because “we already have the postscript ready and are just waiting for the verdict so that we can append our postscript”.

What have been more on my non-Malay friends’ mind were the questions of religious freedom and the New Economic Policy. At first, there were the couple of activist friends who would e-mail to me every shred of literature produced by anyone who showed the Muslims and the Malays as being unreasonable on these two issues. Then I started to get direct questions on these issues from friends and even relative strangers with whom I sat down. How do I answer these questions in a plausible way? This time I will stick only to the first issue.

Article 11 of our Federal Constitution is often brought up and cases like Lina Joy’s are brought up to prove the lack of freedom to profess, practise and propagate one’s religion. My view is that we have as complete a freedom as is envisaged by Article 11 which, by the way, does not give absolute freedom in every sense. Clause 4 of Article 11, for instance, restricts the propagation of any religious belief among Muslims. Thus, adherents of other religions who evangelise, openly or secretly, among Muslims fall foul of this stricture. But what the punishment is for doing so I do not know, as my limited interest in this field in the past has not brought me to discover any Act of Parliament covering this. Perhaps someone knowledgeable will enlighten us in time.

I am not aware of any lay authority or Muslim religious affairs department interfering with the way Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, etc, practise their religion unless such practices infringe any general law relating to public order, public health or public morality. This limitation under Clause 5, Article 11, equally applies to Muslims!

So, what is the general grouse about? I discerned that it used to be – and still remains largely so – about the difficulty of getting land or planning permission for churches or temples to be built, and for cemeteries. If we are referring to government land here, I can vouchsafe that it is an increasingly rare commodity in certain cities and towns, and this is felt even by Muslims who want to build their own places of worship or acquire additional government land for burial.

In Kampung Gajah, Perak, my family donated a piece of inherited land for building the Sultan Azlan Shah mosque. The Hutan Melintang mosque built decades ago on land donated by my grandfather is now able to expand after I donated a further 2 ½ acres land some years back. We must look to the able among our congregation to solve some of these problems.

But from my knowledge of the feeling of the Muslims in general, they would rather that other places of worship are not built too close to mosques and surau. Ask them why and the answer would probably be that the bells, serunai, tok-tok or cymbals may disturb their concentration during prayers and the idols may jar their sensibilities. I am sure that followers of other religions generally feel the same way that there should be some distance between different religious places of worship as all want to worship in peace.

Talking about idols reminds me of the building of that towering statue of Kwan Yin in Penang almost three decades ago. A huge outcry welled up from Penang Muslims, both Malay and non-Malay. A compromise was found that didn’t quite please either side but it helped to calm the situation.

A more recent controversy was the stop-work order on a similar statue in Kudat that, in spite of having received planning permission, was alleged to be too close to a mosque. But two huge statues of the Buddha in Perak and in Kelantan have not elicited objections even from the serambi Mekah (Mecca veranda) state. Why? Perhaps because of the non-competing locations and, who knows, perhaps because a reclining statue, no matter how long, is not “challenging” compared to a towering idol.

Talking about a towering challenge and noise disturbances, I remember that the London authorities capped the height of the Regent Park Mosque and the loudness of its azan calls before giving it planning permission.

As for land for cemeteries, it is a problem for all, even Muslims. Gone are the days when Muslims can elect to be buried in any Muslim cemetery. In Kuala Lumpur, he gets buried where he lived if the local cemetery still has vacant plots or his family would have to beg for a place in a faraway cemetery, or take him back to his kampung cemetery.

Thus the Ampang Road Cemetery is for those living in the Kampung Baru area; and Bukit Kiara is for those in the surrounding areas. Thank God that many non-Muslims find cremation acceptable, otherwise this would be an even bigger problem with each passing day. In Jakarta, they were contemplating burying Muslims on their feet, so to speak, so that they would occupy minimal land.

Both my parents and three other close family members lie in the same grave, so my family doesn’t occupy much land in death and I have already instructed my grandson to bury me in my second daughter’s grave in the Ampang Road cemetery or to rebury her with me so that someone else can have her space. We have to be practical here or we’ll end up in hysterics. The Prophet Mohammad said the best grave is an unmarked one, indistinguishable from the area around it.

Faced with their difficulty in getting land for churches, I find that the Christians have opted for practical solutions. They have turned many shophouses, no less than two in my area alone, into places of worship – a solution most Muslim communities in England resort to.

As long as they can do this, I do not buy the allegation that they are oppressed in this respect. It would be quite different if they are prevented even from having this alternative. I remember when I was in Manila to accompany Tunku Abdul Rahman for the Maphilindo Summit, there was no Muslim burial ground and our Tunku asked President D. Macapagal to reconsider this policy. I remember Tunku telling us that the President said he would have to give serious thought to that as it was bound to be an unpopular suggestion in his staunchly Catholic city.

But today I discerned that part of the grouse is about the inequality of official treatment between Islam and the other religions. I think it is unreasonable to “demand” equality of official treatment when the Constitution singles out only Islam as “the religion of the Federation”. The Constitution does not even say what the other religions are! This is part of our social contract. If we challenge this, we lay ourselves open to further challenges from all sides that will unravel our national fabric.

To the Malays in the years of bargaining leading to Merdeka, few things were more important than to preserve the special place that Islam had had in this land from before British colonisation. Thus the question of religion occupies the third Article of the Constitution, immediately after the name and constituent of the federation (Article 1) and the admission of new territories and the inviolability of state boundaries (Article 2).

In my humble opinion, in this situation a soft sell by the adherents of other religions may go further than a hard sell – or a “demand”. Unless the Constitution is in their favour, political reality, particularly the Umno/PAS rivalry, will make it difficult for the non-Muslims to successfully pressurise the Muslims leaders.