LONDON, 26 September 2003 — Is Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed priming for a grand exit at next month’s 10th session of the Islamic heads of government summit due to be held in Kuala Lumpur? In London on Wednesday, the seasoned politician was at his forthright best when he admonished successive generations of Muslim leaders of losing the plot and contributing to the decline of the Muslim civilization.
Muslim countries, he stressed, have been wracked by differences in interpretations of the Shariah and verified Hadith, which have left their peoples confused, divided and feuding. Muslims, he urged, “must re-examine the Islam we practice. We have no need to reinvent it (Islam) when facing the new challenges of today. But we must certainly correct the wrong interpretations of Islam if we are to overcome successfully the threats and humiliation that we face.”
Mahathir was delivering a lecture entitled “Islam and the Ummah: Re-examining and Re-inventing Ourselves in the Face of New Challenges” at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies in London University.
The Malaysian premier, who is the host of the 10th session of the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 16-18, retires from the government at the end of October, when he will hand over power to his deputy Abdullah Badawi. He is one of the longest serving democratically elected prime ministers in history, having been in the job for some 22 years.
The fact that so many members of the Arab and Islamic diplomatic corps in London, including Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador in London, made the effort to come and listen to Mahathir, underpins his towering reputation among Muslims worldwide.
He stressed that the fundamentals of Islam cannot be changed, otherwise “we will be changing the message and the teachings of Islam as brought by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).” All Muslims can do, he added, “is to determine whether the Islam of today has deviated due to the interpretations of the fundamentals in order to suit changing circumstances”. He warned that Muslims cannot and must not accept “a ‘New Testament’ for Islam”.
Islam, he advised, changed the feuding Arab tribes into a united highly organized and sophisticated people who built a great civilization which lasted for 1,300 years. But today, the followers of Islam, the Muslims, are no longer the great people they were in the early years of Islam.
“The great Muslim civilization,” he lamented, “has almost disappeared, and the Muslims today are looked down upon, oppressed and humiliated, their religion said to be a terrorist creed, propagated by a terrorist prophet.” Yet the Prophet of Islam brought glad tidings to humanity.
He expressed concern over the state of governance in the Muslim countries, and emphasized that “democracy is compatible with Islam. The Prophet did not create a dynasty. He left it to his followers to choose from among themselves a leader, a Khalifah. It was only later that the Muslim dynasties were set up. One can say that a system where the leader is chosen by an electorate, regardless of his antecedents, is much more Islamic than otherwise. Having been elected, a leader must care for his people, for the Ummah. And caring means ensuring his people will have food, clothing, and shelter, and be secured from domestic and foreign aggression.” It is eminently possible to be Islamic even if a modern administration or system, including democracy, is adopted. The problem, according to Mahathir, is that Muslims tend to emphasize and venerate the form rather than the substance in the practice of everything. Even in modernization they look for the form.
“Thus clothing, which is meant to cover the body, is translated as the wearing of the Arab dress, and other forms of dress — including the now universal jacket and trousers — are regarded as being un-Islamic. Reading to acquire knowledge is interpreted as reading to acquire Islamic religious knowledge only. Defense of the Ummah is interpreted as veneration of the ancient weapons of war.”
This over-emphasis on ritual, procedure and form, as opposed to substance, has decimated the advancement of the Muslims in science and technology; in health, in education, in engineering; in agriculture and so on. Far from regarding science, mathematics, technology and the rest as not as good as the study of Islamic theology, Mahathir said they should be vigorously studied.
The progress and defense of the Ummah will require political stability and economic wealth. The early Muslims, he said, had a well-rounded education and knowledge but the later Muslims tend to concentrate on religious knowledge only, with the result that Muslim scholars gained a powerful role in the community. Being knowledgeable only in religion, the scholars downgraded other fields of learning.
This has contributed to the Muslim losing the edge in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Not surprisingly, Muslims were left behind and “missed the Industrial Revolution completely.” Today Muslims cannot even defend themselves and have to rely on arms from others.
The Malaysian premier had a strong word of warning to the wider world as well. “Islam means peace. We only fight against those who attack us, be they Muslims or non-Muslims. When the enemies sue for peace, Muslims must respond positively.” Mahathir warned that Muslims are being unfairly labeled as terrorists.
However, the predicament of the Muslims is entirely of their own making. “We have neglected and misinterpreted the teachings of Islam. When we should be acquiring knowledge which can help us ward off the attacks against us, we reject such knowledge. We rely merely on praying to Allah, when Allah has said in the Qur’an that we have to help ourselves first before He will help us.”
Indeed, Mahathir concluded by echoing that Islam does not need re-invention. “Islam,” he added, “is perfect and is for all times.”
Many who attended the lecture came out with the feeling that the septuagenarian premier, who is beginning to look frail and tired, was as candid as ever, and building up to a grand finale of his premiership when he addresses the OIC summit for the last time as prime minister of Malaysia.
