To be Muslim is to declare that there is no God but the One God, and Muhammad is His last messenger. To be Muslim is to live that declaration, to be witness of, and witness to that declaration, al-shahada. It is to recognise God. In recognising, one takes the first step towards Him. To testify to that is to submit to Him: Islam.

To be a practising Muslim is to pray five times a day at the appointed times, solah, to remember God; to pay the social, purification tax, zakat, to remember that in our wealth there is a share for people not tested with wealth; to fast during Ramadan, as had been ordained to believers before the revelation of the Qur'an, to remind us on the excessiveness of desires; and to visit His house on Earth if one is able to, hajj, to remind us that all humanity, women and men, all are equal before God. To strive to keep all that are acts of worship, ibadat, is not easy, except for the faithful. There can be no ibadat without submission to Him.

The angels, the revelations

To be a believing Muslim is to believe in God, Allah in Arabic; His angels, from Gabriel who brought His revelations to Muhammad, to Izrafil who will bring us home to Him; in His books, from the Book of Abraham, to the Torah given to Moses, to the Bible given to Jesus, and to the Qur'an, the last book, given to Muhammad; in His messengers, from Adam to Jesus, one to every nation until Muhammad, the last messenger to all humanity, every messenger bearing the same message, that He is One; in the Last Day, when every women and men, will rise to be judged, when the rich and unjust can no longer rely on the eloquence of colluding lawyers, when the poor and marginalised will not be cheated of justice by corrupt authorities; and in divine destiny, both the good and the evil thereof. To believe in all these requires, and is to have, faith, iman.

To be God's vicegerent, khalifa on Earth, is to have iman, sustained with ibadat, to live in a state of islam, and to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not, yet truly He sees you. That continuous strive for excellence, permanent and deep consciousness of God, ihsan.(1)

Yet within the first months of my becoming Muslim, more than one Muslim had wondered who my husband, or husband-to-be was. Therefore, to them, to be Muslim, is not so much to be faithful to God, but to marry someone who has Malay written in his birth certificate and Islam written in his national identity card.

Thus to be Muslim, in the simplistic views of some Muslims in Malaysia is to be Malay. And then they wonder why their fellow citizens of non-Malay ancestries in Malaysia are suspicious of Islam. They say Islam is for all humanity, as it rightly is, yet they see less a Muslim in a woman not donning a baju kurung (2). They see less a Muslim in a Chan Mei Li, if she did not formally change her name to the likes of Jamila binti Abdullah Chan, yet a name like Ros Deraman is fine. Having an Arabic name with good meaning is good, but what is this pre-occupation in the overall list of priorities, especially when the 'original' names have good meanings in their bearers' mother tongue and that of their society? Mei Li in a person's name means "the beautiful one". Chan is her family name. In the same way, Ros is a beautiful flower in the Malay language. Deraman is her father's name in Javanese, a Malay tribe predominant in Jawa, Indonesia. If Ros Deraman does not need to be Warda binti Abdullah, why does Chan Mei Li need to be Jamila binti Abdullah? The message of Islam is much more than an obsession to changing names with good meanings in their original languages.

Turn the coin round: what good is there in having good Arabic names when nobody appreciates its meaning in Arabic? A Muslim in Sabah whose name is Talib often tells friends that his name in Dusun means to cut a path by crossing in front of someone (3). That is a little bit down-stream compared to its meaning in Arabic, student.

It is every Muslim's duty to seek knowledge. Try as a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a court clerk, an engineer, a plumber, a teacher, a cleaner, a house-husband, a house-wife to express opinions on Islam, amongst the first rebuttals one receives are, "What is your qualification in Islam?" "Your knowledge is secular, not religious," "You are not capable of learning enough about Islam to comment!"

Informed decisions

Not everyone can do ijtihad, or be a mujtahid (4), but nobody is exempt from the duty of acquiring adequate knowledge in order to discern soundly for herself or himself. We already make informed decisions everyday, from what to eat when having a toothache to which doctor to see when suffering an ailment. We do not need to study dentistry or medicine to make those informed decisions. We are not going to be dentists or doctors, but we still could arrive at an informed decision.

Then as the same thinking adult of sound mental abilities, we find in ourselves the audacity not to use these gifts from The One when it comes to deciding which scholarly opinion, fatwa, is most applicable for a particular social issue. We conveniently give ourselves the excuse that it is impossible to master all the Islamic sciences, therefore we imitate, taqlid, a particular scholar, in this case an imam of a school of jurisprudence, madhab, usually without any information other than the concluded opinions themselves. In being faithful to the Qur'an and the prophetic traditions, Sunna, it has to be unavoidable that we have to know the questions that were posed to Shafii, Abu Hanifa, Malik, Hanbal, Zayd, Jafar (amongst others) hundreds of years ago, the social conditions that led them to formulate their opinions in order for people of their times to remain faithful to the Qur'an and the Sunna, and most importantly, whether those opinions are applicable to our present questions. For present day Muslims who have not thought of these for themselves, surely an informed decision could still be taken by seeking the opinions of present day scholars who are mindful of these issues, and exercise caution on dictates of present day scholars who merely repeat the conclusions given by scholars of yore.

Doing such would not be out of disrespect to Shafii or any of the past and present scholars whose learning and servitude to God and humanity form the vast universe of reference we have as our resources. This is not to say that there is no need for scholars of Islamic sciences, or that it is a free playground for anybody to give "monumental" fatawa (plural of fatwa) to serve their convenience without any care for Islamic principles which we have chosen to submit to. It is in my humble opinion that with an informed state of mind and with conscience, that we can ask the "correct" questions, in order that the scholars could give contextual answers based on the text. Today we have many scholars of the text, but we lack scholars of the context.

Recently, in a live phone-in session on Islam Channel, a London-based free satellite channel available throughout Europe, North America and parts of North Africa, a caller asked a scholar on his views on body piercing, vis--vis Islamic boundaries and ethics. The scholar did not understand what body piercing was! In this small example, the caller was asking a scholar of the text to give an opinion on a cultural practice, the context of which is unknown to this scholar. Other "bigger" issues involving families, societies, countries are scrutinised in the same way. We are asking scholars of the text to pronounce opinions on a context they sometimes have no or little idea of!

To be Muslim is to use the ability to reason which God gave us when He created us. To reason critically, then to arrive at belief, and to submit to Him in humility, is to have faith. That is the duty of every believing woman and man; there are no short cuts in spirituality, same as there are no short cuts to heaven.

To be Muslim is both to seek knowledge and understand the limits of knowledge. The former is not a denial of the latter. The latter is not the limiter of the former. God calls on the Prophet, "Read in the name of your Lord." (5) It was read, knowledge, in the name of your Lord, the Creator and owner of all knowledge and the Educator. In being faithful to Him, He who taught His Prophet, and us, followers of His messenger, in believing in Him, in following His message, to seek knowledge.

To a Muslim, there cannot be "Islamic knowledge" and "secular knowledge". They are not worlds apart, one not compatible with the other. They are one. After almost half a millennium of colonialisation of Muslim majority regions, and later post-Renaissance industrialisation, Muslims today think of Islamic knowledge as the domain of the ulama and non-Islamic knowledge was deemed as secular knowledge. At the same time, Muslims sing the praises and glorify the achievements of figures the likes of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Khaldun as the golden age of Islamic civilisation. We are quick to highlight that the European Renaissance could never have taken place without the Abbasids and the Andalucians.

But we fail to realise that these scientists were equally at home in "Islamic knowledge" and "secular knowledge". There were no two types of knowledge. There was just knowledge. In faith, they sought knowledge; in knowledge they found faith. This verse was clear to them: "He who taught by means of the Pen, taught man that which he knew not." (6) The paradox today is, we speak of knowledge as two, religious and non-religious, in other words, religious and secular. Is religious knowledge of God, and secular knowledge not of God? The impossibility of that suggestion explains the paradox.

Yes, love

To be Muslim is to love. The Prophet loved humanity. His last words were, "umati," meaning "my people, my followers". Once he told Mu'adh ibn Jabal, "O Mu'adh, by God, I love you." This is the man who would narrate to us that the Prophet said, "Whoever has 'La ilaha illa Allah' as his last words will enter Paradise." (7)

Yet we have Muslims today who so easily label others with terms like kafir and kuffar and are very liberal in doing so. So many Muslims mistranslate the notion of kufr or kafir. In Islamic sciences, kafir has a neutral notion, to mean one who does not believe, or denies the evidence of the truth. In its root word, kafir means "a denier with a veiled heart." Muslims in Malaysia not only misuse these words, rendering them as a definite insults against non-Muslims, some feel judicious in calling other Muslims who were disagreeable to them such!

Where is the love which we are so evocatively reminded of by the words heard by Mu'adh from the mouth of the Prophet? Have we forgotten his teachings? We proclaim that we follow his Sunna, from censuring others who are not Ahl as-Sunna , to justifying marrying four wives. In the name of following his Sunna (8), some men marry three alluring virgins when their wife is old and no longer physically attractive to them. They forgot The Prophet married widows and women in need of protection. Often, the poor old wife of today suffers in silence, her children neglected by their father who is busy fathering a new brood. To rub salt to wound, some in our society, sometimes quietly, other times not so quietly, tell her that she does not know how to take care of her husband. She is seen as a not-so-up-to-mark wife, whilst he is fully entitled to claim his rights, never mind he is not a just husband to one woman, not to mention several women.

Often, when this particular issue is raised, the line of argument takes on a particular pattern: that it is wrong to disallow, to question, or make polygamy difficult because God has allowed it; the interlocutors might be called kuffar; sexual vices and violence might increase because marriages are made difficult. Arguments such as these are aimed at nipping discourses in the bud; they do nothing to ensure and preserve justice for all, for the women, for children both sons and daughters, for families. The principle of justice in the entire message of Islam seems to be forgotten.

Have we forgotten how to love? In the name of being Muslim, have we reduced our religion, and living in it, and by it, to only satisfying our wildest desires by maximising what is allowed? Even in this particular example, we fail to live the entire verse of the Qur'an: Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly, then only one, or that your right hand possess. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice. (9)

Has being Muslim been reduced to taking one, or half a verse to one's convenience, and forgetting the universal principles of Islam? Is being Muslim justifying certain actions with the maxim that Islam is not burdensome to believers? Yes, the Transcendent made it easy for us to be believers. The Creator does not burden His creations with more than the created could bear (10). But do we misuse this convenience by conveniently satisfying and fulfilling our unbridled material wants, and then say that they are done within the permissibility of Islam, and in the name of Islam? We should not, yet we do! In His mercy, He allows our thinking minds to do anything we want; our tongues to say anything we want to justify them. He gave us a lifetime to think about it. To be Muslim is to use the God given convenience to be closer to The Most High; not to misuse it to be closer to what drives the created further away from his Creator.

God is just, al-Adl. To be a servant of God is to strive for justice. Therefore to be Muslim is not only to refrain from injustice, and to speak out against injustice, but also to prevent possible injustice. How could there be allowance for injustice in good faith? Be it justice for the individual, in the family, in the community, in societies, or in international affairs.

To be Muslim is to remember God. The Prophet, after telling Mu'adh that he loved him, told him, "and I advise you, O Mua'adh, never to forget to say, after each ritual prayer: 'O God, help me remember You, thank You and perfect my worship of You." (11)

In one sentence, we are taught to love, to remember, to be Muslim.

Footnotes:

(1) The Prophet, peace be upon him, was asked by the angel Gabriel on what is Islam, iman and ihsan. His reply was recorded by Umar ibn al Khattab who was with him when he gave the answers. This is a hadith related by Muslim. The translation of that Hadith is such: On the authority of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who said: One day while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah (may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) there appeared before us a man whose clothes were exceedingly white and whose hair was exceedingly black; no signs of journeying were to be seen on him and none of us knew him. He walked up and sat down by the Prophet. Resting his knees against his and placing the palms of his hands on his thighs, he said: O Muhammad, tell me about Islam. The Messenger of Allah said: Islam is to testify that there is no God by Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to perform the prayers, to pay the zakat, to fast in Ramadan, and to make the pilgrimage to the House if you are able to do so. He said: You have spoken rightly, and we were amazed at him asking him and saying that he had spoken rightly. He said: Then tell me about iman. He said: It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and to believe in divine destiny, both the good and the evil thereof. He said: Then tell me about ihsan. He said: It is to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not, yet truly He sees you. He said: Then tell me about the Hour. He said: The one questioned about it knows no better than the questioner. He said: Then tell me about its signs. He said: That the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress and that you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute herdsmen competing in constructing lofty buildings. Then he took himself off and I stayed for a time. Then he said: O Umar, do you know who the questioner was? I said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: It was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion.

The word, ama, is normally translated as "slave-girl", is also capable of meaning any woman in that we are all slaves or servants of God. The words are thus capable of bearing the meaning: "When a woman will give birth to her master" i.e. a time will come when children will have so little respect for their mothers that they will treat them like servants. An-Nawawi in his commentary wrote that slave-girls will give birth to sons and daughters who will become free and so be the masters of those who bore them. Commentators also point out that the word rabba (mistress) includes the masculine form rabb (master).
(2) Baju kurung is a traditional garment worn by Malay women, consisting of a long tunic to the knees and a long skirt reaching the ankles.
(3) Warda is Arabic for rose, jamila for beautiful, Abdullah for servant of God, talib for student.
(4) Mujtahid, a scholar with the ability to draw judgements and legal rulings from scriptural sources. He or she is recognised as qualified in competence to practice ijtihad, in the absence of specific texts in the Qur'an of the Prophet's traditions, Sunna, on specific issues or problems.
(5) Qur'an 96:1
(6) Qur'an 96:4
(7)Hadith reported by Abu Dawud.
(8)Ahl as-Sunnah means people who follow the traditions of the Prophet, his Sunna. In practice, it is used by people to differentiate the two schisms in Islam, the Sunni and the Shi'i.
(9) Qur'an 4:3
(10) See Qur'an 2:286 for full context.
(11) Hadith reported by Abu Dawud and an-Nasai.



YASMIN OOI is a Muslim. She is also a polyglot.