AsSalaam’alaikum!
I recently attended a seminar on making the Asatizah Recognition Scheme mandatory. It is clear that asatizahs are worried that if they resist the ARS scheme i.e. teach even if they are without ARS, they could be arrested and put to jail. One person actually asked that question during the Q & A. Of course, there is as yet no passing of any laws. There is no police force to watch over the asatizahs for now. But the indications that the speakers gave is that there will be law enforcement. One speaker spoke of levying fines upon asatizahs who do not comply. It is one thing to come up with a questionable policy but entirely another to implement it. I wonder if such enforcement is to be done by the government which is, by the way, secular. If so, will we have a secular non-Muslim government sending police officers out to arrest asatizahs who do not have ARS but are nonetheless qualified to teach given that they have been teaching for years and years and that they have been appointed to teach by ulama before ARS came along?
I spoke to a senior person who is knowledgeable in Islam afterwards. He is not convinced that making ARS mandatory is about stemming “ajaran sesat” (deviant teachings). Instead he, like many others know that this is becoming a draconian mechanism to control the asatizahs. He further quipped that if they are concerned with ajaran sesat, there are many ideas that the religious authorities themselves seem to propagate that can be classified as “ajaran sesat” such as the idea that all religions are the same and that it is ok to praise Lee Kuan Yew who is a non-Muslim (Kafir) in the mosque during Jumaat sermon even though the Jumaat sermon is part and parcel of our ibadah and that the Masjid should not be politicised.
It is glaring that the President of Pergas had to assure the audience that those behind making ARS mandatory are not agents of the government – pointing to the panelists and making the audience repeat after him several times that they are not agents of the government but instead they are Warathatul Anbiyaa’ (Inheritors of the legacy of the Prophets).
I was there and those who were there and reading this can verify or debunk what I say here.
May Allah swt save this ummah from internal and external enemies. Amiin!
Source: Ustaz Abd Al-Halim
