WHOM SHOULD WE FOLLOW IN STATECRAFT?

WHOM SHOULD MALAYSIANS FOLLOW IN STATECRAFT? By: Kassim Ahmad10th May, 2016darul_hikmah333@yahoo.com.my
            The great victory in recent Sarawak state polls raises the question of the 2018 14th General Election. We have followed the Westminster parliamentary type of democracy since independence. We have survived many crises, but still many are the weaknesses in our system. One of them is the clause in our Constitution stating “Islam is the religion of the Federation.”             Now a country or state obviously has no religion. Its citizens have; ours consisting of the religions of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and even animism. Although freedom of religion is guaranteed in our Constitution, the clause on Islam forever poses a danger of narrow and rigid interpretation of Islam  by officialdom. It has happened several times in Malaysia. This is a potential  threat to peace and harmony in our multi-national and  multi-religious country. I remember Prophet Muhammad’s famous  Medinah Constitution which stipulates religion to be autonomously administered by its adherence. This is the right way to solve the matter.             Taking cue from there, we might as well go the whole way. Why do not we re-examine our Federal Constitution and amend it to conform to the Prophet’s Charter. After all, Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Abraham have been mentioned in the Quran as our examples. Prophet Abraham was a progenitor of all humankind; he was a strict monotheist and he set the example of complete freedom for all mankind by destroying all false powers, even against his own father’s polytheism.             Now Prophet Muhammad’s  Medinah Constitution was the first written constitution in the world. KASSIM AHMAD is a Malaysian author. His website is www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com     
 

M. Hamidullah, The Fist Written Constitution in the World (Mohammad Ashraf: Lahore: 1975). The first revelation to Muhammad was,”Read, in the name or your Lord, who created. … Read, and your Lord, Most Exalted, eaches by means of the pen. He teaches man what he never knew.” These five verses caused a revolution in man’s thinking. It started the modern scientific age. (Quran, 96: 1-5) See Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: 1958); h. 126-127.     See Quran, 29: 50-51.   See his book, The Making of Humanity (Lahore: 1919) See his Introduction to the History of Science Vol I-III (1927-48: Baltimoe: Willims & Wilkins).