Minister Masagos’ comments are of concern.
Firstly, saying that raising issues like the tudung would ‘easily lead us to open old wounds that can instigate riots’ , to our minds, smacks of fear-mongering. What evidence is there that a rational look at the tudong issue would lead to riots? In fact, many Singaporeans regardless of race or religion do support the wearing of tudung by our nurses and those in uniformed services.
Secondly, merely stating that religion needs to be practiced based on context can be misleading without proper elucidation on the issue. For instance, what if someone were to say the command to fast came about during the Medina stage of the prophetic struggle. We now live in the Meccan stage, esp in SG. So fasting is not obligatory on me. Also the order for salat came in the late Meccan stage. We are very much in the era of Nation states. The khilafah will not be established anytime soon. Therefore why should I pray?
We ask the asatizahs in MUIS to comment on this.
If salat and saum is not something that would be applicable to the KPI in MUIS, then perhaps the next example would.
In context of Islamic history, zakat is paid to the khilafah. There is no khilafah for almost a century. Why then should we give out zakat?
We really ask the asatizahs in MUIS to guide us.
Wallahualam.
Source: Singapore Muslims for an Independent MUIS
