"Darul Salafi" Bergolak Lagi - Baca Qunut, Baca Yasin Punya Pasal. Soalannya Siapa Sebenarnya 'raja' Di Perlis ?

May I request all my readers to read this post.
Especially for the Muslim readers - this is a must read.
And if someone can pass the message to the DYMM Raja of Perlis to also read this. Thank you.

Its a beautiful Saturday morning folks.  Luke warm morning sun coming in through the windows.

But all is not right in the realm. Perlis is again in the news for the wrong reasons.  And once again the Mufti of Perlis  seems to be in the middle of it.  

I have been getting news about Perlis for the past few days.  The Malay Press has been reporting the news.  

First lets quickly browse some news and some videos about the matter. 

The Mufti of Perlis Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin is behind the firing of 25 mosque imams in Perlis. This has not gone down well with everyone in Perlis. 

As a result of which there have been protests around Perlis after yesterday's Friday prayers.  Here are some pictures and video :

Mufti 2 x 5 Waythamoorthy?? 

Ini sudah silap haribulan kut?

Ok that was the mainstream press. They do not tell you the full story or as well. 

Here is Free Malaysia Today with more coherence :

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/01/04/anti-mufti-protest-in-perlis-over-fears-of-salafism-in-mass-sacking-of-imams/

KANGAR: 200 people gathered to protest mass sacking of 25 imams in state

set to renew long drawn tension between Sunni and Perlis Salafism

banners condemning state mufti 

mufti said imams sacked due to old age

Asri defended imams’ abrupt termination 

accused them of indiscipline 
making political speeches in mosques

spokesman for protesters questioned Asri’s claims

In other places, imams are in 70s and 80s 
Even our PM is 94 years old 

• challenged Asri to state real reason behind imams’ dismissal
• it had to do with mufti’s disagreement with practices of Shafi’i sect
• school of thought followed by majority Malay Muslims 

Some rituals by Shafi’i sect frowned upon by Salafists

They include :

1. formal recitation of doa by raising one’s hands
2. “doa qunut”  an invocation during Subuh or dawn prayers
3. Salafists also prohibit “zikir” or singing praises of Allah and Prophet 

Asri must explain whether sacked because 

1. they mention ‘bismillah’ before Surah Fatihah
2. recite qunut during Subuh prayers
3. read Surah Ya Sin every Thursday night 
4. zikir after every prayer,” said Zainol.

He said Asri should not hide behind the palace in justifying his actions

• Putrajaya,  state govt distanced themselves from decision to sack imams
• it was prerogative of (MAIPs) and State Islamic Religious Committee.

OSTB : Putrajaya and the UMNO led state government are washing their hands of the controversy. 

Basically they are saying 'Ini hang punya pasal. Kami tak mahu masuk campur. Hang pi buat,  hang pi tanggung sendiri'.

Lastly here is a Facebook video of the DYMM Raja of Perlis making a statement on the matter. 

The Raja of Perlis asks the people to refer (or defer) to the same Mufti of Perlis Dr Asri.

https://www.facebook.com/suaraassunnah/videos/1100458876790233/

My comments :

• With all due respect to the DYMM Raja of Perlis I dont think he is fully informed about the subject.  
• Religion is always quicksand and I believe the DYMM Raja of Perlis should not step into this quicksand. 
• He can get sucked in very suddenly.

Juga saya rasa tidak 'suitable' bagi  Tuanku sebagai Raja Negeri Perlis menegur orang sebagai "kambing".  These are your own subjects Tuanku. They are not 'kambing'. 

Also,  telling the people of Perlis to refer back to the Mufti of Perlis - in a matter where the Mufti himself is at the center of the controversy - is not really going to solve the problem.  

(Let me repeat the story when I saved a little boy from an angry neighborhood dog. The little boy was running away from an angry dog. The boy ran towards the nearest house - looking for help. I was driving past and stopped to help the boy. The dog kept coming at the boy. Then I realised the problem - the dog lived in that same house. The little boy had picked the wrong house to get help. I held the boys hand and moved away and the dog left us alone.  Moral of this story : You are not going to solve the problem if you seek refuge inside the source of the problem. It just wont work.)

There are three other things to note here .

1.  First of all I have deleted references to the word 'Islam' from those news articles above, including from FMT. 

• This is NOT Islam. 
• This is what I call "religion". 
• Religion and Islam are two different things. 

Do read on.

2. This is an extremely stupid and ridiculous waste of time, cause of unnecessary anxiety,  and misplaced anger. This is a fight over nothing.  This is not a relevant matter at all.   

3.  This incident is extremely dangerous for the future of our country. I hope the Police especially Dato Ayub Khan of the Special Branch's Counter Terrorism Unit are following this development closely.  

• There is no more "future threat" to Malaysia's security. 
• The "threat" is already here. 
• These are the beginnings of all Salafi - Sunni sectarian fighting and violence. 
• And it has already started here in Perlis. 

Folks, I am going to make an assumption and say that  9 out of 10 readers of this blog have been to Penang.

I am going to make another assumption that 9 out of 10 readers of this Blog have NOT been to Perlis.

In  my almost 59 years (this month !) I have been to Perlis just FOUR times. 

There is nothing going on in Perlis. 
Its as quiet as a paddy field. 
Well or so we all thought.

Until the arrival of this Mufti in Perlis.

The Mufti (and Perlis) has been in the news for the wrong reasons.

a.  Last year the Mufti of Perlis  wrote some stupid poem insulting other religions, including Hindus. Then he apologised for it. (Read here.)

b. Then it was found out that the Mufti has been insulting Hindus even from 10 years before that. An old video emerged from TEN YEARS ago showing the same Mufti had called Indians 'pariahs' etc. (Read here).

c.  Then the Mufti got into a tiff with the Police over the Salafi ideology. He became defensive when the Police exposed the writings of Ibnu Taiminyah which the Police correctly say advocated violence.  (Read here).

d.  Then last year the Police arrested some ISIS linked terrorists in Perlis. They were based in a Salafi madrassah in Perlis, which by the way had been receiving funds from the Perlis state particularly the Majlis Agama folks.

Once again Asri got into the thick of things and made a public statement requesting "that police exclude principal director of the Special Branch’s Counter Terrorism Division Ayub Khan Mydin Pitchay from any investigations related to terrorism in Perlis". 

This  prompted the IGP Tan Sri Fuzi to issue a warning telling Asri not to stick his nose into Police business  (Read here).

e.  Then the Mufti also got into a running battle with people, especially the Minister Waythamoorthy over the Zakir Naik controversy (Read here).

f. And now we have the people of Perlis themselves protesting against the Mufti for firing 25 imams in Perlis.

You cannot blame the people if they think that the Mufti of Perlis is constantly getting into controversies and picking a fight left, right and center. 

Asri obviously has big ambitions.

Talk is Asri has already extended his influence over the UIA (Universiti Islam Antarabangsa) and the USIM (Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia)  where the underperforming Minister of Education Maszlee HAS NOT YET STEPPED DOWN as the president.  It is well known that Maszlee Malik is a protege of the Mufti of Perlis.

Perlis has recently contributed millions of Ringgit to the UIA for the creation of a special Jamalulail Chair plus scholarships. In return quite a number of the scholarship winners will be picked by Perlis. Isnt that dandy? 

Here is more news.  Maszlee Malik has now appointed a new Director General of the Minister of Education.   Read here.

"Datuk Dr Syed Omar Sharifuddin Syed Ikhsan, the former secretary to the Perlis state government, is now the secretary general in the Education Ministry"

The new DG was previously the State Secretary of Perlis.  Perlis, Perlis, Perlis.

OK folks here is the more interesting part.  Here is some religion.

Now before I start I would like you to keep 'Star Trek' in mind. 
In Star Trek the distances travelled are huge. 
Everything was measured in light years. 

A light year is the distance travelled by light in ONE YEAR !!
Considering the fact that light travels 186,000 miles a second, a light year is therefore a huge distance.

Now when you talk about religion you have to keep these "light years"  in mind. 

But instead of distances, we must keep in mind the amount of time that has passed between one event and the next, between one imam and the next, between one 'religious' book and the next - it is huge. Hundreds of years or  a thousand years pass between major events or between the arrival of major imams.  With that much time between characters and events it is difficult to believe they were able to preserve any degree of accuracy or integrity at all. 

The Salafis are the inheritors of an Arabian group called the Wahabis who appeared more than 200 years ago in what is known today as Saudi Arabia. 

Salafism / Wahabism upholds a book known as the Sahih Bukhari as its bible. The Sahih Bukhari is a collection of what the scholars say are the authentic sayings of the Prophet - OUTSIDE of the Quran. 

It is believed to have been written by Imam Bukhari circa 846 AD - more than 200 years after the prophet.

By holding on to the Sahih Bukhari very tightly the Wahabis claim that they are also Salafi. 

The Salafis reject the FOUR other Sunni sects ie Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali and Shafie. They say that these sects are innovations or bidaah.

The Salafis say they take their religion "directly"  from the very first three generations of the prophet's followers aka the companions or sahaba. Since the companions observed the prophet first hand (so they say), they practised a religion that was the closest to the prophet. 

Hence the word salafi which literally means 'predecessors'. 

Now since the stories of these earliest companions are written in the hadith books, especially the Sahih Bukhari,  therefore the Sahih Bukhari has become the de riguer bible of the present day  Salafis.

Today's Salafism / Wahabism can be summarised in two words : SAHIH BUKHARI.

NONE OF THESE THINGS HOWEVER ARE FOUND IN THE QURAN (WHICH WAS WRITTEN DOWN AT LEAST ABOUT 200 YEARS BEFORE ANY OF THIS.)


Ok lets fill up a couple of missing links.

• Today's Salafism was projected onto the world stage (in the 20th century) by the Saudi Arabian folks and  some Egyptian counterparts (linked invariably to the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan Muslimin).   
• So 20th century Egypt and Saudi Arabia played a big part in giving birth to the crazy Salafism / Wahhabism that struts around the world today.

Both the Egyptian Salafis and the Saudi Salafis were inspired by a guy called Wahab (hence Wahabism) who was a religious preacher in the Arabian peninsula (today's Saudi). Wahab was born 316 years ago in 1703 .

Abdul Wahab was in turn inspired by another Salafi teacher called Ibnu Taimiyyah - who was a Turkish fellow born in 1263 AD ie 440 years before Wahab (and 631 years AFTER the prophet.) 

If there is a 'START' date to Salafism it has to go back to Ibn Taiymiyyah from Turkey in 1263 AD.

Saudi  Wahabism traces back to Abdul Wahab born in 1703 in Arabia.

Ok thats enough about Salafism / Wahhabism.

For those who may not know - and if you are interested - the Muslims are divided into dozens of sects.  The two biggest ones that dominate are the Sunnis (about 80% of all Muslims) and the Shias (about 15% - 20%).

In Malaysia the narrative is usually a Sunni - Shafie narrative.

According to the religious scholars (not according to me ok, ini scholar yang cakap, bukan saya cakap)  the prophet lived and died between 570 AD to 632 AD.

After the death of the prophet the religion went into various crises, wars and struggles. There were ideological and political crises.

The big split between the Sunni and Shiah ideologies happened almost immediately after the prophet's death.

Fast forward -  today the Sunnis count the largest number of followers.

After the Sunni - Shiah split,  both the Sunnis and Shias themselves broke up into even more smaller sects.

Sunnism today is broken up into FOUR major sects namely Hanafism, Malikism, Hanbalism and Shafieism.  
The scholars say that in the early days, there were many more Sunni sects. 
They disappeared - usually they got killed off. 
Only the FOUR survived. 

Malays follow Shafiesm.  
The majority of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey etc are Hanafi.

Now here is the interesting part - after the death of the Prophet (632 AD) the earliest theologians to arrive were the exact same founders of these FOUR Sunni sects.  

They were recognised as Schools of Jurisprudence or schools of fiqh (pronounced as 'fake') .

Imam Abu Hanifah was born in 699 AD - 67 years after the prophet
Imam Maliki 711 AD - 79 years after the prophet
Imam Shafie 767 AD -  135 years  after the prophet 
Hanbali  780 AD  -  148 years after the prophet.

So these FOUR sectarian imams (imam mazhab)  were born much closer to the Prophet than Bukhari.

Abu Hanifa was born in 699 AD within ONE generation after the death of the prophet.

On the other hand Bukhari  is believed to have written the Sahih Bukhari in 846 AD ie 214 years after the prophet.

Bukhari wrote the Sahih Bukhari more than 140 years after Imam Abu Hanifa was born. 

So the question arises : who is the real 'predecessor' ?

Now here is something else. I have written about this before. 

The Sahih Bukhari of today was not written by Imam Bukhari. 
Some scholars say that Bukhari died WITHOUT leaving behind a complete book.

There is nowhere in the world, in any islamic museum or library or university in the islamic countries where someone has the original copy of the Sahih Bukhari written by the hands of Imam Bukhari himself. There is no such thing.

There is not even a single piece of note paper or original manuscript form of the original Sahih Bukhari. Again there is no such thing.

The Sahih Bukhari that we have today was FINALLY EDITED AND COMPILED by someone else,  called Ibnu Hajar Askalani who died in Cairo in 1449 AD (during the time of the Melaka Sultanate).  THAT IS 867 YEARS AFTER THE PROPHET !!!  

Ibnu Hajar's compilation became famously known as the Fath al Bari.

Ibnu Hajar in turn based his 'compilation' on other "transmitters"  like Imam Firabri.

Here is some Wikipedia :

("Firabri is not the only transmitter of Sahih al-Bukhari.    There were many others that narrated that book to later generations, such as Ibrahim ibn Ma'qal (d. 907 AD), Hammad ibn Shaker (d. 923), Mansur Burduzi (d. 931) and Husain Mahamili (d. 941 AD).    There are many books that noted differences between these versions, the best known being Fath al-Bari.")

So the Sahih Bukhari does not exist in any original form.
There were various compilations of the Bukhari which gave rise to many versions.

People like Ibnu Hajar even wrote  books that noted differences between these versions   .

All these books and versions were written hundreds of years after the prophet. 

Remember Star Trek. There were huge distances of time between all these people and the events they claim to be talking about.  

So folks, wa akhirul kalam, isnt it better for us to argue about which shop has the best teh tarik kurang manis in KL? 

Because if we have a difference of opinion,  there is a simple and much easier method to solve our differences over the best teh tarik. We can come to a better conclusion - minus any fighting or bloodshed.

You just have to belanja me one teh tarik, and then I will know if your teh tarik shop is good or not so good.  No skin off anyone's nose.

Why argue and fight over totally useless things that neither profit nor help anyone. 

Finally for your interest here is a "sahih" from Bukhari :

"Sahih al-Bukhari 6227". Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Allah created Adam in His picture, sixty cubits (about 30 meters) in height. When He created him, He said (to him), "Go and greet that group of angels sitting there, and listen what they will say in reply to you, for that will be your greeting and the greeting of your offspring." Adam (went and) said, 'As-Salamu alaikum (Peace be upon you).' They replied, 'AsSalamu-'Alaika wa Rahmatullah (Peace and Allah's Mercy be on you) So they increased 'Wa Rahmatullah' The Prophet (ﷺ) added 'So whoever will enter Paradise, will be of the shape and picture of Adam Since then the creation of Adam's (offspring) (i.e. stature of human beings is being diminished continuously) to the present time."

A cubit is about 18 inches long - about the length of an adult male forearm.

Wow ! Adam was 60 cubits or 30 meters tall ? 
And since Adam the stature of human beings is being continuously diminished?

You can debate this over teh tarik. 
But please dont get into a fight ok.