The true meaning of Jihad must be explained.

Face the fact, the Islamic states of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) nowadays is considered to be the main threat all over the world. Focusing on our country, based on the police report, the number of those who involve into this group directly or indirectly has increased gradually. In other words, it reflects to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of our approach to cope with this problem.

The ISIS propaganda seems working compared to the previous Al-Qaeda. The main factor would be their success in forming a special state that governed by the ‘caliph’. Moreover, they still maintain to defend themselves from collation attack, leading from America and Arab countries. Now, one third of the map of Syria and Iraq is assumed to be the ISIS territory. This current progress undoubtedly has inspired other militant groups like Boko Haram and Abu Sayaf to be more aggressive and they even declared their support to ISIS.

While our intelligent and law enforcement need to be beefed up, education and explanation are still the most effective and long run solution to counteract ISIS threat. People might reject their brutal acts in term of humanity, but when the term of Jihad is justified, it leads the confusion among Muslim and non-Muslim. Thus, not surprisingly, this propaganda has successfully attracted some Muslim at least to be sympathetic to their fight. As for the non-Muslims, they might be phobia to Islam as Jihad seems to be a menace to human life.

In fact, Islam should be understood clearly between its principle and implementation. The principle in Islam like justice, peace, safety, happiness, people’s well-being is unchangeable regardless the place or period, while the letter could be different due to the current reality. As for Jihad, its principle like protecting the religion, promoting the justice, repelling the evil, safeguarding the lives and properties, spreading the virtues is clear to be understood. In other words, the philosophy of Jihad is to defend and to protect the humanity instead of bringing the bloodshed.

In terms of implementation, Jihad should not be restricted only to military activities against non-Muslim. Protecting the country’s sovereignty, Improving the quality of the nation, boosting the country’s economy, helping the helpless people, joining the charity and humanity activities are in line with the principle of jihad.

Even Fatwa council has already declared the status of ISIS, it is still not enough. Instead of giving the ‘true’ or ‘wrong’ answer, there are a few things that should be taken into account as follows:

1. Standardizing the real meaning of Jihad, predominantly its philosophy and benefits to human life.

2. Explaining the true implementation of Jihad in this era, especially in military form. What it should be and what are the rules and regulations? What are other ways to exercise Jihad apart from the military?

3. Clearing the current situation in Syria and another country that involve in armed conflict based on Islamic perspective. Some people might argue that their support is not directly for ISIS, but to overthrow the regimes as they justify it as an honorable fight

4. Airing the live or recorded dialogue program between Mufti or religious person and those who involved or sympathetic to ISIS, showing to them and audiences that their understanding about Jihad is totally wrong.

Society’s ethics far from living up to 2020 vision.

 Among the Prime minister’s answer towards Tun Mahathir’s critics is that he has already done many transformation programs to achieve a developed country status by 2020, the vision that had been set up by Tun Mahathir himself. Moreover, Datuk Seri Najib claims that his plan has started to see the fruition in the form of 5 percent of GDP growth, the PRIMA, the second Penang bridge, the MRT, the Borneo highway.

Amid petty argument between both two respected leaders, it is good to hear as this year will see the last Malaysia plan (Rancangan Malaysia) to reach that vision. Based on economic developments, many Malaysians are still optimistic that the vision is achievable, despite the controversy of 1MDB, national debt, and the drop in the price of crude oil that only to be assumed as temporary problems or political interests.

However, if our country to become a high-income economy as expected, coupled with rapid physical developments, are it enough to declare that we are a developed nation? Or just a developed economy? 24 years ago, Dr Mahathir has listed 9 challenges for Malaysians before achieving the 2020 vision.

The challenges are:-

1. Establishing a united Malaysian nation made up of one Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian Race).
2. Creating a psychologically liberated, secure and developed Malaysian society.
3. Fostering and developing a mature democratic society.
4. Establishing a fully moral and ethical society.
5. Establishing a matured liberal and tolerant society.
6. Establishing a scientific and progressive society.
7. Establishing a fully caring society.
8. Ensuring an economically just society, in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation.
9. Establishing a prosperous society with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.

To overcome these challenges is the benchmark to be a developed nation according to Tun. Even if there is no standard definition of “developed country”, but world's best countries commonly are measured by their education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism, and political environment. In other words, they are not merely counted by their wealth, but also by their citizen’s maturity.

To date, I never heard the word of Bangsa Malaysia used formally or informally. At the same time, religious and racial tension always shackle our move to be a liberated society. On top of that, looking for our citizens’ attitude in dealing with current or political issues via social media is embarrassing. The language, ethics and value of comments reflect the standard of our mentality. 

While the government continues their plans and efforts to put our country on par with the other high-income countries, our society mentality and ethic still unimproved even are worse than their past generation. Do we have enough time to change it in the next five years?

Heritage conservation based on Islamic perspective.

A basic knowledge of Islam should be enough to ease confusion about the ISIS whether they fight for the sake of religion or are the tyrant terrorists that fight for desire in the name of religion. The series of massacres, beheading hostages, who are not involved in the war, burning them alive are all brutal acts that prove that there is no Islam at that 'state'. 

However, when the current video showed them destroying monuments and artifacts at the Mosul Museum, begs the question are their acts in line with Islamic principles? The situation aggravated by the lack of response from Muslim scholars.

In fact, it was not the first of its kind. Ten years ago, the Taliban destroyed Bamiyan, the giant centuries-old Buddha in Afghanistan. This is not surprising as both group (ISIS and Taliban) come from the same ideological root and the statue are considered to be non-Muslim heritage. However, when a few sites of early Islam in the holy place Mecca also comes under threat of destruction, it seems that heritages even Muslim heritages have no place in Islam.

In our beloved country, we have witnessed some Lembah bujang archeological sites destroyed by developers. While this issue has triggered outrage politicians, historians, archaeologists and activists, it did not seem to attract Muslim scholar and religious authorities to make any comments based on Islamic perspectives. At the same time, there are claims that most treasury of our Malacca sultanate, have been sold on the black market.

Based on my instant research, there are a few Muslim scholars who claim that heritage conservation is prohibited in Islam, including of Muslim heritage materials. The reason is clear as most of the heritage materials, especially that from ancient civilization are statues or idols. In fact, Islam through its main sources namely by Al-Quran and prophetic teaching (hadith) does not tolerate with any kind of sacrilege. Moreover, those who involve or support this effort might be considered to be partaking in blasphemous activity. This view is exploited by certain governments to justify their acts in demolishing heritage site for physical development.

While the Quran and hadith are the highest references for Islam, these two sources have their own methods  of interpretation and implementation. With the heritage issue, it is necessary to understand the concept clearly, instead of jumping to conclusions. Nowadays the Heritage conservation and restoration awareness has emerged all over the world under UNESCO for the civilization and education purposes. Thus, to relate these efforts as the sacrosanct acts is totally wrong.

While there are no clear versus from Quran or Hadith to indicate this venture is prohibited, a few versus do show indirectly that ancient heritage are vital in Islam. For example, in chapter of Rum, Allah said:-

“Do they not travel in the land, and see what the end of those before them was? They were superior to them in strength, and they tilled the earth and populated it in greater numbers than these (pagans) have done, and there came to them their Messengers with clear proofs. Surely, Allah wronged them not, but they used to wrong themselves.” (Ar-Rum 30:9)

According to this versus, Allah asked people to travel and observe the ancient remains of bygone civilizations to learn the lessons from their history. In other words, to manage and preserve ancient sites is necessary so that man can learn from history.

In addition, there are not historical records that the companions of the prophet (PBUH) destroyed any idols, statues or artifacts related to the ancient civilization. When they conquered new lands like Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan which are rich in heritage materials, they still preserved. In Islam, the companions of the prophet (PUBH) were considered to be the best person in term understanding and implementing Islamic teaching. If this such materials were against Islam, why not the companions destroy it early?

As long as there is no clear evidence from Quran, Sunnah and the companions acts indicate that preserving the heritage materials is disallowed, we should not be too hasty in making the conclusion. In fact, heritage conservation is in line with the objectives of Islamic (maqasid syariah) which are to promote the well-being of all mankind. These objectives comprise with the safeguarding people’s religion ( faith ), their life, their intellect, their posterity and their wealth as follow:-

Protecting the religion : The sanctity and the truth of religion must be protected by its followers. By preserving remaining materials of bygone civilizations could be include the evidences for ancient folk tales in sacred book. In other words, it proves that the revealed book is truly from god. For example, the discovery of the royal ancient Egyption mummies has verified what was told in the Quran.

Protecting the life : The human self must be protected. Preserving heritage especially monuments pertaining to wars and human conflicts could be the best reminder for the current and future generation in order keep their relationship harmonious and avoid bloodshed.

Protecting the intellect : Islam encourages people to learn and discover knowledge as far as it give the benefits to their life. Protecting the heritage is in line with this objective since it is the broad source for science, history, civilization, sociology, religion and art studies as well as to build up human intellect.

Protecting the posterity : To maintain life and pass the torch to generations to come, Islam aims to protect progeny. By preserving heritage, our history, culture and identity can be safeguarded. This is important especially, when a nation faces a dispute with other nation as heritage could be the main proof to claim.

Protecting the wealth : People need property and money in their life and Islam asserts their right to gain, possess, and protect them. Maintained heritage sites and material can boost the government economy through collecting tax and also for the local people as they can sell their product for the tourists.

In a nutshell, if preserving heritages is beneficial to religion, education, civilization and also boost the Muslim economy, then this effort should be supported in the name of Islam.