‘Time for Muslims to gain independence from scholars, leaders’

In a scathing criticism of Muslim political and religious leaders, former minister Zaid Ibrahim says the people should 'stop being led by the nose'.

PETALING JAYA: Zaid Ibrahim has raised the bar in his criticism of some Muslim political leaders, religious leaders and Islamic scholars, calling for the people to be more independent from the control of such people.

In a blog posting entitled Merdeka 2017, the former minister said to mark the country’s independence day, all Muslims should also stop being led by the nose by these so-called Muslim leaders who offer nothing except promises and free lectures.

“Our country has now been independent for 60 years and it is high time that we follow suit. We too must be independent. We must think for ourselves,” he said.

Zaid also urged Muslims to question what these leaders and scholars are saying.

“If these leaders and scholars say they are doing something in the name of Islam, we must ask them probing questions to assess how true their words are.

“If they say they are an Islamic political party we must ask if their leaders keep stolen property. If they accept Umno now after dismissing the party as haram for decades we must ask them, what changed their mind?

“In this month of August, let us all ask a lot of questions so these hypocrites do not take advantage of our vote yet again,” he said.

Zaid also claimed that all these people of authority were either in denial or lacked interest on the issues facing Muslims in the country.

“Muslims here have a number of peculiar social problems, including incest, child marriage, premarital sex and children born out of wedlock, to name just a few.

“What these leaders and scholars have in common is a complete lack of interest in discovering the cause of these problems, or resolving the difficulties of the people who are affected by them,” Zaid said.

Zaid, who joined DAP earlier this year, chastised these Muslim leaders and politicians for their attitude.“Passing laws and declaring fatwas is easy to do, but identifying the roots of social issues and giving real help to those affected by them is hard.

“That takes patience, compassion and yes, intelligence, qualities that we are hard-pressed to find among these leaders and scholars.

He added that these Muslim political leaders and so-called Islamic scholars instead only seem to argue among themselves over the appropriate hukum or punishment that must be meted out.

Taking particular aim at the Malaysian Islamic development department (Jakim), Zaid claimed that a lot of the large budget allocated by the government is spent on forums and roundtable discussions.

“However, they only hold these meetings to determine what sort of punishment they should dole out to ‘dastardly sinners’.

“But when it comes to providing help for those who suffer? Never. Why is that?” he said.

Calling these leaders and scholars “Talibans driving expensive cars”, Zaid went on to detail some of the problems that they refuse to acknowledge.

“They don’t want to admit to the world that Muslims are having serious drugs problems.

“They don’t want to admit that many Muslims are promiscuous.

“They don’t want to tell Muslims about universal morality that mankind has to live by, but only their limited understanding of Islam,” he said, adding that these people also talk as if Malays are so morally pure and do not commit any sin.

Touching on the recent issue on the naming of babies born out of wedlock, Zaid said the possibility of a child being given the generic “bin Abdullah” could result in someone inadvertently marrying someone who is actually related to them.

“When they decided on the bin Abdullah issue, they showed no interest in considering the effects of such a rule.

“Who would be responsible for the unwitting incest? Do these people weigh the pros and cons of their fatwa?”

Zaid also took a swipe at PKR saying that “some ambitious Malay opposition leaders are courting PAS, because they want to remain in power”.

“They are willing to go to bed with the people who have caused confusion and division among the Malays in the last 35 years,” he said, adding that he is throwing his support behind PAS-splinter Amanah.

“Let those opportunists do what they want, but Amanah must give hope to the millions of Muslims that Islam can be relevant and provide caring leadership to the country.” - FMT