RELYING ON OTHERS

Last Monday morning was hari raya aidiladha. As usual, like most hari raya, I went to the surau behind my house to perform the raya prayer and listen to the sermon. The khatib on duty that day was no other than Ustaz Imran Habil who is Imam Besar for the surau. From my point of view, he delivered an interesting sermon. He managed to grab my attention throughout the entire sermon. He discussed various issues concerning Muslims from yoga banned to the global economic meltdown. Ustaz Imran even mention about Barack Obama in his khutbah.

In the sermon, Ustaz Imran compared our reactions towards two recent events that are the Majlis Fatwa Kabangsaan decision to classified yoga as haram and Barack Obama’s winning in the US presidential election. The decision to make yoga as haram was made by Islamic scholars after deep studies. Unfortunately, a number of us questioned this decision. We acted as if we are more knowledgeable than the Islamic scholars. As for the second event, we celebrated happily Barack Obama’s winning and waited eagerly for his policies. Why should we be happy when his policies might not bring any benefits to the Muslims world? This show that we have started to rely on non Muslims to decide for us. What benefits will we get from following their footsteps?

The fact that we depends on others is one of the reasons why Muslims are becoming weaker and weaker. When we are too dependent, we will have no strength to disagree. Whatever that we’ve been told, we will follow blindly. There are many foreign policies made by the non Muslim countries particularly the West that are insensitive towards Islam but I fail to recall our action towards them. The reason why I can’t recall is because there are none.

I remember my friend’s respond towards my question during his seminar. I asked him what his view on Kyoto Agreement is. I heard that some people believe that the agreement is just a western agenda to prevent other countries from developing. As we can see, America itself does not follow the agreement. My friend was mad at me for giving him the question but frankly, he answered really well. I should credit him. Good Job Shahir! He responded by saying

“Why everything should follow America. Though America is not following the agreement, other countries are. Hopefully, when other countries work hand in hand, it can prevent from global warming”

Indeed, Shahir, you are right. Why should we follow them? America is just a country. If Muslims were to unite, Muslims will outnumber Americans. So, why should we be afraid? However, sadly for me to say that it is always easy to say but it is tremendously hard to make it a reality. But, nothing is impossible.