Masyarakat Islam tidak harus keliru dengan fakta bahawa ajaran pengganas ISIS walaupun atas nama Al-quran dan Sunah tetapi bukanlah satu ajaran Islam yang sebenar.
Pengganas ISIS ialah golongan yang melampau yang menggunakan agama bagi membenarkan sesuatu fahaman atau ajaran mereka termasuk pengganasan diterima oleh umat Islam yang lain.
Fahaman mereka itu hanya menuju ke arah radikalisme dan akan terus merosakkan Islam.
Naib pengerusi Kumpulan Pemulihan Keagamaan (RRG), Ustaz Dr Mohamed Ali, yang juga Penolong Profesor Program Pengajian Perhubungan Antara Agama Dalam Masyarakat Majmuk (SRP), Sekolah Pengajian Antarabangsa S. Rajaratnam (RSIS) di Universiti Teknologi Nanyang (NTU) berkata: “Adakah umat Islam perlu menanggung masalah ISIS? Sebenarnya masalah yang dihadapi oleh ISIS bukanlah masalah umat Islam keseluruhannya. Tetapi ini masalah salah guna agama dan tiada kena-mengena dengan Islam.”
Beliau berkata demikian ketika diminta mengulas mengenai tulisan Encik Sulaiman Daud di laman Facebook yang meminta umat Islam menanggung masalah militan ISIS.
Menurut Dr Mohamed, umat Islam perlu membezakan antara keperluan sebenar umat Islam dengan kehendak pengganas.
Beliau turut mengutarakan konsep ‘Al Wala Wal Bara’ iaitu di antara konsep Islam yang diputarbelitkan kumpulan pengganas bagi mengesahkan niat jahat mereka itu.
Konsep itu membicarakan tentang hubungan antara orang Islam dan golongan bukan Islam, serta Islam ialah agama yang mementingkan perhubungan baik sesama manusia.
Menyentuh tentang langkah mewujudkan negara Khalifah Islam, Dr Mohamed berkata tindakan mewujudkan negara khalifah bukan satu keperluan agama pada zaman hari ini.
“Zaman ini terdapat kuasa negara ‘nation state’ dan zaman telah berubah kepada bentuk sekular atau sistem pemerintahan yang lain. Umat Islam sebenarnya sesuai pada setiap zaman pemerintahan. Kita boleh tinggal di mana sahaja di England atau di mana sahaja. Apa yang diperlukan oleh setiap orang Islam yang berpegang teguh kepada agama dan menyesuaikan diri dalam apa sahaja keadaan,” ujar Dr Mohamed.
As i entered the lift two middle aged women seems shocked, i was in my normal islamic garb as i was heading to my lecture. I gave them a smile press close and face the door. From my back i heard a conversation in a language i didn’t understand but i could only recognized the word ‘PARIS…PARIS…PARIS’. Little they knew that i could see their reflection from the lift’s window, they where pointing to me a few times between the conversation. Trying to be hopeful that it is not what i think they might be talking about, as the lift opened i hold the door and gave them the biggest smile of the day. i walked away and my heart sank.
| 17 NOV 2015 | 1030AM |
After paying for my petrol i headed out to a heated shouting from two men, one of them was wearing a songkok (muslim headgear). Not knowing why they are fighting i could only hear cursing been thrown around. The muslim guy then drove away. As i was walking pass the other shouted the four letter word and said this “lian**** you isis! go and bomb yourself!”. I just kept silent and went away, my heart sank again.
To my brothers and sisters,
If you keep your conspiracy theories stories to your walls, you will just build walls not bridges. I sincerely hope that these two encounters of mine are isolated cases. I have beautiful friends from other faiths and cultures and i believe that to defend our homeland is a collective effort.
It is our responsibility to not let hatred hit our shores.
Your Singaporean brother from another mother Muhammad Zahid Humanitarian Worker
And the simple reason is that ISIS has not, does not, will never own my allegiance. This is stating the obvious but there are people too thick to figure this out by themselves.
ISIS has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims. Some were killed for refusing to swear loyalty to them. Female Muslim doctors were killed for refusing to wear veils when treating patients. There is a whole catalogue of horrors that they have perpetrated, including the rapes of women and the killing of children. I can’t even bring myself to watch any of their execution videos because just the description sickens me to the core of my being.
I don’t know how to ‘own’ a problem in which there is every possibility that I will be one of those executed.
So those of you who insist on telling Muslims to ‘own the problem’, do ask yourself why you are doing it. Does it give you the bully’s pleasure to associate someone with the very worst of (in)humanity? Do you think that there is not enough self-criticism within the Muslim community and having a discussion about ISIS will force some soul-searching? (In which case you really haven’t hung out with enough Muslims.) Or do you just need some ‘moderate Muslims’ to ‘apologise’ so that you can seize the opening to go off on one of your Islamophobic rants?
I keep hearing all these demands about ‘moderate Muslims’ needing to publicly denounce what the extremist ones are doing. And very often these platforms are subsequently hijacked by those who go on to denounce Islam. So it’s not surprising that many of us would prefer to keep our thoughts–the sorrow at the senseless murder of innocents, the anguish at how verses are interpreted into an ideology we can’t even recognise–private.
If you know of anyone who endorses what ISIS is doing, then go ahead and ask them to ‘own the problem’.
Leave the other Muslims alone. We don’t owe you any explanation or statement on something which we can even barely imagine or comprehend, much less condone or justify.
There is a viral post going around about a particular lady that seems to have posted a racially disparaging remark about the Malay language on her FB. I was also informed that this was the same lady that labeled me early in the election campaign as Taliban or ISIS for some strange reason.
I choose to ignore her posting but wishes to highlight the following.
I am convinced that Singaporeans mostly are not racist. There will always be that 10% and I hope lesser in any racial community that has this strange concept of racial superiority, which in essence goes against the grain, and teaching of all religion and cultures.
I believe in the maturity of most Singaporeans that have lived 50 years together, and mixed very well too in the region, which similarly is made up of people of many races, cultures and religion.
On this conviction, I decided to run as a candidate to allow me the opportunity to also engage the mainstream majority Chinese community on issues that are close to the heart of my Malay community.
I am heartened by the many more occasions when my Chinese brothers and sisters proudly declare their support for what I explained as discriminatory practices that still exists in Singapore that must be stopped. All the while reasoning that by championing issues of my community in no way mean that I am undermining other communities. These open and dignified dialogues strangely don’t happen often enough, which could have resolved many so-called sensitive issues much earlier.
I am glad that the things I openly said during rallies and in engagements with many people of all races have assured me of the ingrained value of universal brotherhood that is in all our hearts.
Let us strive to normalize the diversity that exists in our country into a true celebration of cultural and religious openness with mutual respect and goodwill that will breed genuine tolerance between us. It is unnatural policies driven by suspicion and distrust that hinders such progress towards unity. Nature and its wondrous diversity displays unparalleled beauty as a Sign and lesson for mankind from the Creator on unity in diversity.
For the lady in question, I do hope we forgive her, as clearly she doesn’t represent the majority of us and probably needed some form of help.
When Captain Mona Shindy climbed aboard HMAS Canberra to test missiles in the Pacific, a locker had to be converted into a sleeping quarters to accommodate her.
Never before had an active Australian warship carried women. But aged 23 and launching what would become a 26-year career with the Navy, this was just the first hurdle of a trailblazer.
Already she had a University degree in the blokey domain of engineering. Weapons engineer. And if this were not unusual enough, Captain Shindy happens to be Muslim, and for most of her career in the navy, has been a mother.
Australian Navy Captain Mona Shindy
On board HMAS Canberra Captain Shindy and her two female room-mates were like celebrities, and not all of it was positive publicity.
“We were an absolute novelty and people knew our every movement, what we got up to and where we were. Overall the experience was a positive experience but there certainly were times that were quite challenging,” Captain Shindy says.
“Most female engineers in any work environment _ you really do have to work that little bit harder initially to prove your worth, to demonstrate your competence to really be accepted fully as valued member and a real contributor to the team.”
Then came the challenge of Ramadan, and explaining as a young sublieutenant that she was fasting and would appreciate a meal being put aside for her.
The response was along the lines of: “You’ll eat with everyone else, or you just won’t.” Which left her “the middle of the ocean with a few cans of tuna”.
Once the right ranking officer was made aware of the problem, a solution was soon found.
Anger was never an option.
“My first reaction is to empathise, rather than get angry, and to try and be part of the solution and work on the education piece, through engagement and interaction and just being professional about what I do and delivering professional outcomes and results. In the end, people respect that.”
It’s an attitude that has delivered her to the pinnacle of her career, recognised this week when she was named NSW Telstra Business Woman of the Year. As Director Littoral Warfare and Maritime Support, Captain Shindy advises the Government on the best way to spend billions of dollars on replacement tankers, ships, patrol boats — almost everything except submarines.
She was previously charged with turning around the Fast Frigate System Program Office, from an inefficient organisation with adversarial stakeholder relationships, to a collaborative culture with performance-based contracts. And she shaved 30 per cent in costs from a $130 million budget.
“People were happy at the end of the tenure, ships were leaving the wharf on time with all the maintenance done, when initially they weren’t.”
Soon after her first tour of duty on HMAS Canberra, Captain Shindy married and had a daughter, now 20 and a son, 18, who finished his HSC on Wednesday. Their happy accident followed a decade later in the form of another daughter, now 11.
Captain Mona Shindy at Garden Island Navy Base in Sydney. Picture: Toby Zerna
The job has required service on ships for two-year durations, with time away ranging from two to six months.
“But six months in anyone’s language for a mother with two young children and a young family, is a very significant sacrifice.
“I’m not going to dress it up. It was tough.”
It could not have happened without an extended family backing her up. Crucial were her mother — “who in many ways acted as a pseudo mother for my children sometimes when I was away” — and husband, who has taken many career breaks.
“For me, the only thing that made it easier is knowing that those kids had just as much love and support from those that were with them than I could have given them myself.”
Her family migrated from Egypt when she was three.
“The moment my parents migrated to Australia, they were determined to feel as Australian as anyone else.” She holds the position of Chief of Navy’s Strategic Adviser on Islamic Cultural Affairs, for which she was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in this year’s Australia Day honours for her work bridging cultural divides.
It is her aim to encourage more Muslims to join the defence force — around 100 of the 45000 defence force personnel identify as Muslim, 27 of them in the Navy.
“There’s lots of Australian Muslims who feel very hurt … by previous military campaigns that our defence forces have been on that have I guess resulted in discomfort and difficulty …. where those campaigns have occurred that have caused ramifications for a lot of innocent people.”
She says terrorist attacks which have hijacked aspects of religious teachings to justify those behaviours have created “fear and uncertainty for others who are non-Muslims”.
“For some people that gets looked at as the whole Muslim community,” Captain Shindy says. Some young Muslim see this in black and white “us and them” terms.
“They don’t have the maturity necessarily to see the greys and to understand that this is not everyone that has those views about you. That erodes confidence for those kids.”
There’s lots of Australian Muslims who feel very hurt … by previous military campaigns that our defence forces have been on
Her message to them is this: “You can be a proud Australian that loves everything about this great nation and still love your roots and love where you came from and straddle both worlds and both communities. That’s how I live my life and I like to help other people find their way in living those two things.”
And she can cite her own experience, including active service at the start of the 2003 Iraq War.
“It’s always tough, when you go anywhere, whether that’s Iraq. They were difficult times, they were interesting times I think for the whole nation.
“We are an instrument of our democratically elected government and I think that’s something that is very much accepted, understood and part of the contract that I personally have with my organisation. That’s my role, that’s what I signed up to do.”
