9/7/13 A MUSLIMS SOCIETY, what and how should it be? An exploration. (draft-up dated 24 July)

Allah says, there are seven heavens. He had created seven heavens for humankind. The best among all is the Firdaus. Both in the Al Quran and Hadiths, the best description about heaven, is to the 180 degree contrast of the harsh deadly desert environs. For Muslims whom especially coming from the Green Tropical eco-system, and had either paid their Hajj and Umrah, the dry feeling of the Arafah is a clear manifestation of the harshness of lives if they hereafter missed the heaven. For the desert dwellers, be they the Arabs, Mongolians,  Central Russians, Upland Chinese, Central Africans, Red Indians of Central Canada or the Aborigines of the Australia, their best dream is always to have stream of clear clean water and green vegetation. For the Arabs, in particular, they love milk and honey. Thus, in heaven, as prophet Muhammad SAW said, and he had seen, and he promised, that Allah had created streams of milk, honey and clear clean water. The Zam Zam water is the kind of water that existed in heaven. Even specifically, being mention, Nile and Euphrates rivers are copycats of among the rivers existed therein. Accordingly, to all men, who love beautiful women, Allah had promised there are 24 hours, 7 days a weeks, 12 months a year, long lives perfect women for them to enjoy and celebrate with. Surely for the women, who love serenity, luxuries, perfection of happiness, Allah had promised gardens of fragrant flowers, orchards of delicious fruits, river of clear cool stream whereby the banks are made of germs and all the precious stones, big beautiful castles, and ever ready maids to care for her and the husband needs. For every good Muslim couples, their promised hereafter life is basically the life of the King and Queen.

(2) It sounds like a Fairy Tale. In Islam, one has to believe, that there is the hereafter heaven. It is fundamental to the Muslims’faith. Thus the best vision for the Muslims is to attain the Firdaus not the mere heaven. Therefore, their best mission is to be the best Muslims or the True Mankind as Allah want them to be. What is it? The only thing that Allah wants mankind to honour is to submit to Him and nobody or nothing but to Him. I’m not an authority to elaborate on what Allah really means by submitting only to Him. I would believe His meant is much broader and deeper than what the general Muslims, particularly the Malays are practicing or understood. Nonetheless, certain scopes and methodologies of such submission are well defined in particular to those related to Fardhu Ain ie personal obligation of Man to Allah, yet in the areas of Fardhu Kifayah ie Man's obligations to Man, I believe we need to explore and it seem non- exhaustive.

(3) I have been thinking, after working so hard, most of us, doesn’t matter who, why is it that humankind’s lives, especially among the Muslims had not come to term to the wisdom of Allah. Allah just wants a good life for all. Yet, though Islam had significantly being presence about 1,400 years ago (taking the date after Muhammad SAW only), we had not even been able to achieve the level of social welbeing to where Muhammad SAW and his Khalifah Arashiddin had left. There are miseries in most of the 57 Muslim nations. Lives, health and wealth security are absence to majorities. Hard core poverty is rampant in Somalia, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, etc. Even the Malays and Muslims in Malaysia, despite we had been Muslim for at least the past 700 years, we yet been able to significantly stand to our feet and walk tall. Worst for the minority Muslims in the non-Muslim countries, even in the most free states such as USA, France or Britain. I would believe, there must be a very serious wrong mould and or paths that we had chosen in the course of our community or nation building process. What would be the best Nation or Community Development Model that we should develop or emulate to come to the point where our general lives will be in harmony to Allah’s wisdom? Such is the area that I would like to ponder in this article.

(4) In general terms, Allah wants humankind to be Muslims by their choice. It is up to a person to choose his faith. Allah never impounded His Almighty authority to make every human as Muslim. He gave human being the heart and brain to feel and think, with clear guidance either in the Torah, Gospel, and or Al Quran, and to choose their faith to their free will. Thus upon one's choosing Islam as one's religion, one must then submit only to Allah. No second thought about it. Islam is for Muslims. There shouldn't be any mixed of it. Islam, the Al Quran indeed is a complete Way of Life the Adeen, the comprehensive spiritual-cultural doctrine that that every Muslim must comply for one to attain to one's best position hereafter. Being a Muslim, one is also given the freedom of choice. A Muslim or Muslims can choose between the worldly now or heavenly hereafter. Thus, who we are, where we are heading is of our rationalization. Nonetheless, He had laid clear paths to guide one's choice. Allah surely blesses man to his good deeds. But of course over the progression of humankind civilization or even one's life journey, Allah had impounded destructions over certain individuals, races or nations as His warning for man not to cross overboard. Such acts of Allah is His carrot and stick of guiding man to his correct true path.

(5) In the Islamic community development, one need to look at three fundamental elements ie oneself, the family, and society. There will never be a good society without good families, and accordingly there will be no good family without good individuals. Nonetheless, the Islamic individuals, family and society must exist as a tightly woven cloth. Neither should exist in independent of the others. Either Capitalism, Socialism, Communism or any blend of them doesn't fit into the Islamic Adeen. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, or any Ism created by man, or man made isms are mere the politic of wealth and social management. The element of spirituality is totally missing. Though there exist the elements of morality in those ism, but it totally devoid of the greater deeper management of human urge worst the greed. Islamic Adeen is a Total Way of Life, worldly and hereafter. It is not only about politic, economy, science, arts and tradition, or even spiritual, it is the whole system that should governs human course from embryogenesis to his death and resurrection.

(6) As I had said, an Islamic society is attributed by Muslim individuals and families. As an individual, a Muslim can't be seen as an individual in the context of  human made isms. A success person in the eyes of human made isms is not necessarily an Islamic person. He may devoid the soul of submission to Allah. In Islam, an individual Muslim must be fit clean to his true life purpose. What is our true life purpose? Please recall or research on Allah fundamental reason to create Adam and later Eve. The best example of such fit clean characters was Muhammad SAW, the last messenger of Allah. From his embryogenesis Muhammad was the product of good clean stock ie the humble, wise, truthful, and firm Abdullah (father) and Aminah (mother). His parents poor hard lives gave him the starting eco-system of being with his people. Majority of the Arabs, in those day were the poor the disadvantages. As a child he lived the lives of his people. He began his zuhud life from within his mother's womb. Are we today Muslims or specifically the Malays, let our kids to live the lives of our own people? Or do we care the lives of our own people? I doubt most of us do, as we are now too busy to care for our or their (kids) future and worst our today characters for seeing our kids as future capitalism commodities. As kid he was trained to be a shepard. To take care of among the most stubborn and naughty livestock in the burning desert. His passion and patience were well nurtured. He then was trained to be merchant and traveler between Mecca and Syam (today Syria). His socialization, trustworthiness, competitiveness, endurance and internationalize outlook characters development were greatly facilitated. He undergone a true process of a leader in the

making. How do we take care of leadership development in our kids' mind and heart? I would say soft and lavish is our today approach. His uncle, Abi Thalib, and grandfather Muthalib, entrenched the independent and sovereign soul into his heart. Then and there, Muhammad began to see from his soul the miseries of the poor, the devastating lives of the weak, the slavery lives of the women, arrogant and destructive culture of the have, etc, within his barbaric Jahilliah Quraish and the overall Arabia, that turned to be his daily foods of thought. Muhammad realized, the caused for all those was the lost sight of his people over their true lives purpose. His soul was disturbed. His mind spinning hard. Thus then he went out into the mountain cave Jabal Nur to seek for the knowledge of what is human true life purpose, what should govern human life? He forced himself to be thinker, the social engineer. That was there and then the first Quranic verse "...Read. Read in the name of your god, Allah..." which made him sweat and shivered in great fear but later comforted by his wife Khadijah, that he must stand to His called for him to submit and be truthful of what is right and what is wrong.  The fundamental to all the miseries and arrogance that he saw within the Quraish and Arabia were rooted to their stupidity of submitting to other than Allah. The poor, the weak submitted themselves to the arrogant have, while the later submitted to their illusion of nothing but greed. Are those not recuring now, be in Arabia or among the Malays? Everybody seem to submit to their stupidity for they have turned their eyes to blind, their ears to deaf and their mouths to dumb to the truth. Indeed, if one care to think deep and openly, the very fundamental of a Muslim individual is his independent of thought, characters, and outlook based on the true knowledge of human true life purpose. Thus I would say an individual Muslim is a man of integrity, amanah for his strong grasp of the true knowledge of his true life purpose. That is the very fundamental why Islam awarded great blessing, pahala to those who keep to the Al Quran. He further emphasized the need to study the Al Quran by making Ramadhan as the month where Muslims should read the Al Quran. Al Quran is the Total True Knowledge that Allah had passed onto Muslims. He wants every Muslim, to their best ability to study and practice the knowledge as He had prescribed in the Al Quran. But how do the Malays or even the Arabs read the Al Quran? I doubt they really study, research the Al Quran. They, mostly just merely recite the Al Quran. That I would believe, the not Muhamad's SAW way of reading the Al Quran. Based on the storyline in the Hadiths, Muhammad SAW recited, explained, discussed and shown the practices of  the Quranic verses to his disciples and the general Muslims. He attended to their discussion as well thoroughly checked on their application in lives and the affair of the Ummah.  .....ed by Gibrail before his ascendant to Heaven to ...to be continue