Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : ISTANA HOTEL, KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 07-05-2002
Tajuk/Title : THE OIC CONFERENCE OF THE
MINISTERS OF ENDOWMENTS AND
ISLAMIC AFFAIRS
Versi : BI
Penyampai : PM
I would like to welcome all the delegates to this
OIC Conference of the Ministers of Endowments and
Islamic Affairs being held here in Kuala Lumpur.
2. Alhamdullillah we are grateful to Allah the
Almighty for allowing Ministers from Muslim countries
to again meet each other at this conference. This
conference is only held once every three years, and I
am sure there are many issues on the development and
welfare of the ummah which must be discussed and shared
among OIC member countries, so we may better serve the
well-being of our people.
3. I am sure you have come here to discuss the religious,
economic and social problems of the ummah with open minds
and concerned about adhering to and implementing the true
teachings of our religion. I believe that we all have to
face the reality of the world of today, a world which has
become smaller because of jet travel and real time
communication of information, a world in which we the
Muslims can no longer isolate and insulate ourselves from
each other or the wider world of non-Muslim countries.
Whether we like it or not we have to make adjustments to
our way of life so as to maintain our faith intact, so as
to give meaning to our belief that Islam is for all times
and not just for the 1st century of the Hijrah or the
7th century of the Christian era only.
4. For 13 centuries the Islamic civilisation thrived.
Muslims were supreme in every field; in the
administration and development of their land, in the
arts and the sciences, in industry and in trade. The
world looked up to the Muslims and respected their
military prowess and submitted to their rule. It was
an empire that seemed destined to last forever.
5. But we know that it did not. In 1492 the last
Muslim ruler of Granada was forced to surrender his
country to the Spaniards and retreat to North Africa.
In the 1920's the Turkish Muslim empire collapsed due
to attacks by Anglo-French forces. Practically the
whole of Asia Minor or Turkey as we know it today came
under Greek occupation. If it had not been for Mustafa
Kamal, the leader many Muslims love to condemn, there
would not be any Turkey, secular or otherwise today.
6. Many Muslims accept the demise of the Muslim
Empire as "takdir", as Allah's will. Muslims never
really studied the role that they themselves played
which brought about their downfall. They never blame
themselves. In insisting that it was Allah's will,
Muslims are indirectly blaming Allah for their
misfortunes. Yet the Al-Quran clearly states that the
bad things that happens to us is due to ourselves, the
good is from Allah. So how could Allah bring us
misfortune? How could Allah be blamed? Surely the
people to be blamed for the collapse of the Muslim
Empire and the sad plight of the Muslims today are the
Muslims themselves. They have done little to save
their empire and civilisation, to save themselves from
oppression, their religion from being dishonoured.
7. If it is all the will of Allah why do Muslims
struggle at all? Why do they explode bombs on their
bodies and why do they crash aircrafts against the
World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, killing themselves
and many innocent people, some of whom are not even
their declared enemy. If they believe that this world
is for the infidels then they should suffer oppression,
indignities and killings even and not struggle against
oppression. They should say it is Allah's will and as
Muslims they cannot fight what is ordained by Allah.
8. To be very crude the fate of the Muslims today is
of their own making. It is not ordained but it is
basically because they ignore the true teachings of
Islam, the injunctions of the Al-Quran and the guidance
of the true Hadith. They quote the Quran often enough
but only to explain away their wrong deeds. They can
even explain why they as Muslims deny that all Muslims
are their brothers as taught by Islam. And having
declared certain Muslims are apostates they then kill
these Muslims in the name of Islam. The result is that
more Muslims are killed by brother Muslims than by the
infidel enemies of Islam. The result is that Muslims
and Muslim countries are weak and incapable of
protecting themselves and their countries. The result
is that Muslims live in poverty and misery. The result
is Jenin.
9. Islam enjoins upon the Muslims to read, "Iqraq".
You cannot read without learning and acquiring
knowledge. In the early years of Islam the Muslims
applied themselves diligently to reading. They did not
read just the Quran and the Hadith but they read the
works of the Greek and other ancient scholars and
philosophers and elaborated and extended the knowledge
that they acquired. The whole scholastic world in
those days had to study Arabic in order to learn the
teachings of the Greeks and other great scholars of
history. Arabic became the language of mathematics,
the sciences, philosophy, navigation etc.
10. Then came those Muslim scholars who condemn
knowledge that was not about the religion of Islam.
They formulated Islamic jurisprudence which tolerated
no opposition. Islam was all about sins and
punishment. All the rest that is enjoined upon Muslims
in the Quran and Hadith that was not about sins and
punishment were ignored. With the advent of these
Muslim jurists and their insistence that the only
knowledge that Muslim should acquire was about Islam,
the study of science, mathematics, philosophy and other
so-called worldly knowledge were ignored. Muslims
became more and more ignorant about the world in which
they live, about engineering and development, about the
advances in industry and the production of goods and
services. The weapons of war that they used did not
improve and they resorted to buying weapons from
others, many of whom were their enemies.
11. They missed the Industrial Revolution completely.
And they became client states of the non-Muslims. And
now they are going to miss the Information Age, the
revolution in communication and knowledge-based
economy. They are likely to say that it is the will of
Allah that they become even more backward and weak.
Yet if they participate actively in the development and
application of the new technologies they can become as
strong as their detractors. And if that happens surely
it will also be the will of Allah. Allah asks us to
change ourselves before He will grant us success.
12. It is an important part of the teachings of Islam
that we practise charity, that we give alms to the
poor, that we endow a part or the whole of our wealth
to Islam and the Muslim community. It is obvious that
charity requires ownership of wealth in the first
place. It is equally obvious that the more wealth and
property that we acquire the more we can endow. On the
other hand if we are poor there is not much or nothing
that we can give as endowment.
13. Yet there is a belief among many Muslims that
being rich is sinful. This belief is held despite the
Islamic teaching that being poor is close to being
kufur, being unIslamic.
14. There is jealousy and hate even of the rich, that
somehow they are not good Muslims. Yet Allah has
promised that He will raise some above others. In
other words we can be either rich, or poor, elevated in
stature and power above others without affecting our
equality before Allah. We are only better in
accordance to our submission or takwa before Allah,
whether we are high or low, rich or poor. The rich who
give to charity because he submits to Allah is as good
as anyone else who submits to Allah, who obeys the
injunctions of Allah.
15. If we can imagine all members of the Muslim ummah
as being uniformly poor, then charity would not be
possible and the poor cannot benefit from the
generosity that is enjoined by Islam upon Muslims.
They would have nothing to give away. That is why it
is important for Muslims to work hard to increase their
wealth. We must work hard not just as labourers but in
everything that we do which will contribute to our
wealth. We must work hard to acquire the knowledge and
the skills to rise to the highest level in our
occupation, in our business and in our industries. And
all the time as our income increases we must pay our
zakat, practise sedekah, build schools and mosques and
other facilities for the Muslim ummah and endow a part
of our accumulated wealth to Muslims while we are alive
or upon our death.
16. We must do all these systematically and without
self-interest in this world if possible. Our motive
must be charity and not so as to be hailed by the
beneficiaries or the public as practitioners of the
teachings of Islam. Allah will know that we have given
and given with sincerity and we will, insyaallah get
our rewards in the akhirat.
17. Rather than personally donating directly to the
beneficiaries we can just pay zakat to the officials
appointed to collect the zakat. The Governments have
provided the Office of Muslim Affairs which is tasked
with collecting the zakat and administering it. We
know to whom zakat is due and the proportion to be
spent on each. It is the duty of the officers to
ensure that each will get the correct allocation. Thus
the poverty and the needs of the Muslim ummah will be
overcome. But the zakat is not meant for the able-
bodied who are too lazy to work. There is no merit in
receiving, only merit in giving. That is the teaching
of Islam. And so everyone must try not to depend on
charity but to work and earn their own upkeep when
possible and then they too can donate and endow and
receive merit for themselves in the afterlife.
18. It is sinful for a Muslim society not to strive to
develop itself. Allah has showered us with all kinds
of resources, not least of which is human resources.
We are endowed with a strong body and a brain that can
think and solve the problems affecting us. Some of us
will depend on our hands and legs to perform numerous
tasks and as we employ our limbs Allah will gradually
increase our strength and our skills. We can become
the finest craftsmen producing delicate works of art
like the Moroccans and the Uzbeks. Somehow these
skills will be inherited by our children through the
generations.
19. It is the same with the brain, the acquisition of
knowledge and reasoning skills. With repetition we
will acquire great thinking, deductive and reasoning
skills. Through the generations we will become
cleverer.
20. With these skills we can enrich ourselves and
enrich our society. We can produce things and invent
things, trade and manufacture. Muslims are great
craftsmen and thinkers but for a long time they have
stopped improving their production or their thinking.
And so they keep on laboriously producing things by
hand one by one. But the Muslim population and others
has increased tremendously. Producing one by one by
hand cannot supply the needs of the six billion plus
people in the world. Because we do not know how to
mass produce good products to meet the demand of a mass
market, we have become poor. And because we are poor
we are not as able as we should be to give alms and to
endow towards the Muslim community.
21. We have not made use of what Allah has endowed us
with the brains and the brawn and it would seem that we
are ungrateful for what He has showered on us. On
every occasion we pray for Allah's help but Allah will
not help us because we have not helped ourselves.
Those who say that it is Allah's will that we are poor
have forgotten that the Quran has made it clear and I
repeat, that all the bad things that happen to us are
our own doing but all the good comes from Allah. If we
are poor and oppressed, if we can expect no charity
from Muslims who are all poor it is our fault and not
Allah's will. If we want to fulfill the Islamic
injunction that we be charitable then we must use our
brains and brawn to enrich ourselves in order to be
able to endow our wealth on the needy among us and to
provide the amenities for the performance of what is
obligatory (wajib) for us as Muslims. Mosques in
particular should be endowed by the rich after they
have paid their zakat and given alms to the poor. But
we must also endow institutions of learning, research
and development which can contribute to a better life
for us and our capacity to defend ourselves.
22. It is clear that the teachings of Islam if
followed by the ummah would result in an equitable and
just society and a rich and powerful one. Islam does
not preach absolute equality. The Quran is clear in
this matter for Verse 21 Surah Al-Israa' states that
Allah will elevate some people above others (in rank
and in wealth). But the Quran also requires us to be
charitable to the poor and to those below us by
distributing our wealth through the zakat, alms and
endowments. No one is prevented from acquiring wealth
and through his own labour no one needs to be poor.
But if he is poor despite his efforts to sustain
himself then the charity of Muslims will ensure that he
gets a share of the wealth earned by others. This
Islamic system of managing the inequities in human
society is far better than any ideology invented by
Man.
23. It is in order that Muslims can acquire halal
wealth that they must acquire knowledge and the skills
necessary to bring success to their enterprises. The
quest for knowledge is the first step towards the
fulfillment of the Muslim injunction to be charitable
and to endow the wealth earned for the well-being of
the Muslims and their need for institutions and
facilities to perform their ritual and non-ritual
obligations as Muslims. The acquisition of knowledge
that can contribute to the well-being of the ummah is
therefore a primary obligation. In addition of course
the Muslim ummah would be rich and strong and capable
of defending themselves. If today few Muslims can
practise charity and they are often so oppressed and
harassed by their enemies that they cannot even perform
the solat, it is because the Muslims are poor in
knowledge and skills, are unable to enrich their
countries and strengthen them against aggression by
their enemies. It is shameful and unIslamic that all
we Muslims can do when the Israelis massacred the
Palestinians in Jenin and elsewhere is to appeal to
others for pity and for help. Clearly the Muslims have
not been doing anything to change their own
helplessness and they do not deserve to be helped by
Allah. Remember that at Badar the small Muslim force
fought against huge odds and Allah came to their help
and gave them victory. The Muslim force did not fight
because of anger. They did not just want to kill their
enemy out of frustration. They fought as a force for
Islam and they were victorious.
24. Equipping ourselves with knowledge and skills and
using them to enrich ourselves and our countries is
therefore the sine qua non of fulfilling the injunction
of Islam to be charitable and to endow our wealth for
the performance and propagation of our faith. The
wealthier we are the more we can endow and the stronger
will be the ummah.
25. I am ashamed that many among Muslims and non-
Muslims have made fun of the OIC saying that it stands
for Oh! I see. The implication is that we just see and
we do nothing. Since its founding the OIC has not been
remarkable for the things that it does. Indeed it is
seldom that the members of the OIC can see eye to eye
and agree on anything that needs to be done. Very
often we are not even able to meet. Even the agencies
we have created have not been able to deliver.
26. If I may be permitted to say it, we Muslims and
our countries are not very Islamic. We cannot even
regard each other as brothers. While the enemy is at
the door we are busy trying to bring down governments
and weakening ourselves in the process. The sad thing
is that they do this in the name of Islam. Yet if in
the name of Islam we promote Muslim unity and if we act
together even our weakness can be overcome.
27. In the pursuit of the teachings of Islam on
charity we must at least agree to the process. There
is much we can do by ourselves and much more that we
can do together.
28. I hope that this Conference of Ministers of
Endowments and Islamic Affairs can bring about greater
cohesion and understanding of the aim of Islam and
Endowment and the way we can fulfill this obligation of
our religion. Islam is never wrong but the followers
often are wrong in their interpretation and practice of
Islam. Remember that the sad plight of the Muslims of
today is our own doing, is due to our not really
practising Islam.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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