SPEECH
BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA
<< I will not enumerate
the instances of our humiliation and oppression, nor will I once again
condemn our detractors and oppressors. It would be an exercise in futility
because they are not going to change their attitudes
just because we condemn them. If we are to recover our dignity and that of
Islam, our religion, it is we who must decide, it is we who must act.
To begin with, the
Governments of all the Muslim countries can close ranks and have a common
stand if not on all issues, at least on some major ones, such as on
Palestine. We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being
humiliated. But we who have been raised by Allah above our fellow Muslims
to rule our countries have never really tried to act in concert in order
to exhibit at our level the brotherhood and unity that Islam enjoins upon
us.
But not only are our Governments divided, the
Muslim ummah is also divided, and divided again and again. Over the last
1400 years the interpreters of Islam, the learned ones, the ulamas have
interpreted and reinterpreted the single Islamic religion brought by
Prophet Muhammad S.A.W, so differently that now we have a thousand
religions which are often so much at odds with one another that we often
fight and kill each other.
From being a single ummah we have allowed ourselves to
be divided into numerous sects, mazhabs and tarikats, each more concerned
with claiming to be the true Islam than our oneness as the Islamic ummah.
We fail to notice that our detractors and enemies do not care whether we
are true Muslims or not. To them we are all Muslims, followers of a
religion and a Prophet whom they declare promotes terrorism, and we are
all their sworn enemies. They will attack and kill us, invade our lands,
bring down our Governments whether we are Sunnis or
Syiahs, Alawait or Druze or whatever. And we aid and abet them by
attacking and weakening each other, and sometimes by doing their bidding,
acting as their proxies to attack fellow Muslims. We try to bring down our
Governments through violence, succeeding to weaken and impoverish our
countries.
We ignore entirely and we continue to
ignore the Islamic injunction to unite and to be brothers to each other,
we the Governments of the Islamic countries and the ummah. >>
-- PM Mahathir at the 10th Islamic Summit
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA,
THE HON. DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD, AT THE OPENING OF THE TENTH SESSION OF
THE ISLAMIC SUMMIT CONFERENCE AT PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA ON OCTOBER 16, 2003
1. Alhamdulillah, All Praise be to Allah, by whose Grace and Blessings we,
the leaders of the Organisation of Islamic Conference countries are
gathered here today to confer and hopefully to plot a course for the
future of Islam and the Muslim ummah worldwide.
2. On behalf of the
Government and the people of many races and religions of Malaysia, may I
extend a warm welcome to all and everyone to this Tenth Session of the
Islamic Summit Conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia's administrative capital.
3. It is indeed a great
honour for Malaysia to host this Session and to assume the Chairmanship of
the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). I thank the members for
their confidence in Malaysia's Chairmanship.
4. May I also take this
opportunity to pay a special tribute to the State of Qatar, in particular
His Highness Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa AI-Thani, the Emir of the State of
Qatar, for his outstanding stewardship of our
Organization over the past three years.
5. As host, Malaysia is
gratified at the high level of participation from member countries. This
clearly demonstrates our continued and abiding faith in, and commitment to
our Organization and our collective wish and
determination to strengthen our role for the dignity and benefit of the
ummah.
6. I would also like to
welcome the leaders and representatives of the many countries who wish to
become observers at this meeting because of their substantial Muslim
population. Whether they are Muslims or not, their
presence at this meeting will help towards greater understanding of Islam
and the Muslims, thus helping to disprove the perception of Islam as a
religion of backwardness and terror.
7. The whole world is
looking at us. Certainly 1.3 billion Muslims, one-sixth of the world's
population are placing their hopes in us, in this meeting, even though
they may be cynical about our will and capacity to even
decide to restore the honour of Islam and the Muslims, much less to free
their brothers and sisters from the oppression and humiliation from which
they suffer today.
8. I will not enumerate
the instances of our humiliation and oppression, nor will I once again
condemn our detractors and oppressors. It would be an exercise in futility
because they are not going to change their attitudes
just because we condemn them. If we are to recover our dignity and that of
Islam, our religion, it is we who must decide, it is we who must act.
9. To begin with, the
Governments of all the Muslim countries can close ranks and have a common
stand if not on all issues, at least on some major ones, such as on
Palestine. We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being
humiliated. But we who have been raised by Allah above our fellow Muslims
to rule our countries have never really tried to act in concert in order
to exhibit at our level the brotherhood and unity that Islam enjoins upon
us.
10. But not only are our Governments
divided, the Muslim ummah is also divided, and divided again and again.
Over the last 1400 years the interpreters of Islam, the learned ones, the
ulamas have interpreted and reinterpreted the single Islamic religion
brought by Prophet Muhammad S.A.W, so differently that now we have a
thousand religions which are often so much at odds with one another that
we often fight and kill each other.
11. From being a single ummah we have
allowed ourselves to be divided into numerous sects, mazhabs and tarikats,
each more concerned with claiming to be the true Islam than our oneness as
the Islamic ummah. We fail to notice that our detractors and enemies do
not care whether we are true Muslims or not. To them we are all Muslims,
followers of a religion and a Prophet whom they declare promotes
terrorism, and we are all their sworn enemies. They will attack and kill
us, invade our lands, bring down our Governments whether we are Sunnis or
Syiahs, Alawait or Druze or whatever. And we aid and abet them by
attacking and weakening each other, and sometimes by doing their bidding,
acting as their proxies to attack fellow Muslims. We try to bring down our
Governments through violence, succeeding to weaken and impoverish our
countries.
12. We ignore entirely and we continue
to ignore the Islamic injunction to unite and to be brothers to each
other, we the Governments of the Islamic countries and the ummah.
13. But this is not all that we ignore
about the teachings of Islam. We are enjoined to Read, Iqraq i.e. to
acquire knowledge. The early Muslims took this to mean translating and
studying the works of the Greeks and other scholars before Islam. And
these Muslim scholars added to the body of knowledge through their own
studies.
14. The early Muslims produced great
mathematicians and scientists, scholars, physicians and astronomers etc.
and they excelled in all the fields of knowledge of their times, besides
studying and practicing their own religion of Islam. As a result the
Muslims were able to develop and extract wealth from their lands and
through their world trade, able to strengthen their defenses, protect
their people and give them the Islamic way of life, Addin, as prescribed
by Islam. At the time the Europeans of the Middle Ages were still
superstitious and backward, the enlightened Muslims had already built a
great Muslim civilization, respected and powerful, more than able to
compete with the rest of the world and able to protect the ummah from
foreign aggression. The
Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access
their own scholastic heritage.
15. The Muslims were lead by great
leaders like Abdul Rahman III, AI-Mansur, Salah El Din AI Ayubi and others
who took to the battlefields at the head of their forces to protect Muslim
land and the ummah. 16. But halfway
through the building of the great Islamic civilization came new
interpreters of Islam who taught that acquisition of knowledge by Muslims
meant only the study of Islamic theology. The study of science, medicine
etc. was discouraged.
17. Intellectually the Muslims began
to regress. With intellectual regression the great Muslim civilisation
began to falter and wither. But for the emergence of the Ottoman warriors,
Muslim civilization would have disappeared
with the fall of Granada in 1492.
18. The early successes of the
Ottomans were not accompanied by an intellectual renaissance. Instead they
became more and more preoccupied with minor issues such as whether tight
trousers and peak caps were Islamic, whether printing machines should be
allowed or electricity used to light mosques. The Industrial Revolution
was totally missed by the Muslims. And the regression continued until the
British and French instigated rebellion against Turkish rule brought about
the downfall of the Ottomans, the last Muslim world power and
replaced it with European colonies and not independent states as promised.
It was only after World War II that these colonies became independent.
19. Apart from the new nation-states we also accepted the western
democratic system. This also divided us because of the political parties
and groups that we form, some of which claim Islam for themselves, reject
the Islam of other parties and refuse to accept the results of the
practice of democracy if they fail to gain power for themselves. They
resort to violence, thus destabilizing and weakening Muslim countries.
20. With all these developments over
the centuries the ummah and the Muslim civilization became so weak that at
one time there was not a single Muslim country which was not colonized or hegemonies
by the Europeans. But regaining independence did not help to strengthen
the Muslims. Their states were weak and badly administered, constantly in
a state of turmoil. The Europeans could do what they liked with Muslim
territories. It is not surprising that they should excise Muslim land to
create the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem. Divided, the
Muslims could do nothing effective to stop the Balfour and Zionist
transgression.
21. Some would have us believe that,
despite all these, our life is better than that of our detractors. Some
believe that poverty is Islamic, sufferings and being oppressed are
Islamic. This world is not for us. Ours are the
joys of heaven in the afterlife. All that we have to do is to perform
certain rituals, wear certain garments and put up a certain appearance.
Our weakness, our backwardness and our inability to help our brothers and
sisters who are being oppressed are part of the Will of Allah, the
sufferings that we must endure before enjoying heaven in the hereafter. We
must accept this fate that befalls us. We need not do anything. We can do
nothing against the Will of Allah.
22. But is it true that it is the Will
of Allah and that we can and should do nothing? Allah has said in Surah
Ar-Ra'd verse 11 that He will not change the fate of a community until the
community has tried to change its fate
itself.
23. The early Muslims were as
oppressed as we are presently. But after their sincere and determined
efforts to help themselves in accordance with the teachings of Islam,
Allah had helped them to defeat their enemies and to create a great and
powerful Muslim civilization. But what effort have we made especially with
the resources that He has endowed us with.
24. We are now 1.3 billion strong. We
have the biggest oil reserve in the world. We have great wealth. We are
not as ignorant as the Jahilliah who embraced Islam. We are familiar with
the workings of the world's economy and finances. We control 57 out of the
180 countries in the world. Our votes can make or break international organizations.
Yet we seem more helpless than the small number of Jahilliah converts who
accepted the Prophet as their leader. Why? Is it because of Allah's will
or is it because we have interpreted our religion wrongly, or failed to
abide by the correct teachings of our religion, or done the wrong things?
25. We are enjoined by our religion to
prepare for the defense of the ummah. Unfortunately we stress not defense
but the weapons of the time of the Prophet. Those weapons and horses
cannot help to defend us any more. We need guns and rockets, bombs and
warplanes, tanks and warships for our defense. But because we discouraged
the learning of science and mathematics etc. as giving no merit for the
akhirat, today we have no capacity to produce our own weapons for our defense.
We have to buy our weapons from our detractors and enemies.
This is what comes from the superficial interpretation of the Quran,
stressing not the substance of the Prophet's sunnah and the Quran's
injunctions but rather the form, the manner and the means used in the 1st
Century of the Hijrah. And it is the same with the other teachings of
Islam. We are more concerned with the forms rather than the substance of
the words of Allah and adhering only to the literal interpretation of the
traditions of the Prophet.
26. We may want to recreate the first
century of the Hijrah, the way of life in those times, in order to
practise what we think to be the true Islamic way of life. But we will not
be allowed to do so. Our detractors and enemies
will take advantage of the resulting backwardness and weakness in order to
dominate us. Islam is not just for the 7th Century A.D. Islam is for all
times. And times have changed. Whether we like it or not we have to
change, not by changing our religion but by applying its teachings in the
context of a world that is radically different from that of the first
century of the Hijrah. Islam is not wrong but the interpretations by our
scholars, who are not prophets even though they may be very learned can be
wrong. We have a need to go back to the fundamental teachings of Islam to
find out whether we are indeed believing in and practicing the Islam that
the Prophet preached. It cannot be that we are all practicing the correct
and true Islam when our beliefs are so different
from one another.
27. Today we, the whole Muslim ummah
are treated with contempt and dishonor. Our religion is denigrated. Our
holy places desecrated. Our countries are occupied. Our people starved and
killed.
28. None of our countries are truly
independent. We are under pressure to conform to our oppressors wishes
about how we should behave, how we should govern our lands, how we should
think even.
29. Today if they want to raid our
country, kill our people, destroy our villages and towns, there is nothing
substantial that we can do. Is it Islam which has caused all these? Or is
it that we have failed to do our duty
according to our religion?
30. Our only reaction is to become
more and more angry. Angry people cannot think properly. And so we find
some of our people reacting irrationally. They launch their own attacks,
killing just about anybody including fellow Muslims to vent their anger
and frustration. Their Governments can do nothing to stop them. The enemy
retaliates and puts more pressure on the Governments. And the Governments
have no choice but to give in, to accept the directions of the enemy,
literally to give up their independence of action.
31. With this their people and the
ummah become angrier and turn against their own Governments. Every attempt
at a peaceful solution is sabotaged by more indiscriminate attacks
calculated to anger the enemy and prevent any peaceful settlement. But the
attacks solve nothing. The Muslims simply get more oppressed.
32. There is a feeling of hopelessness
among the Muslim countries and their people. They feel that they can do
nothing right. They believe that things can only get worse. The Muslims
will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews.
They will forever be poor, backward and weak. Some believe, as I have
said, this is the Will of Allah, that the proper state of the Muslims is
to be poor and oppressed in this world.
33. But is it true that we should do
and can do nothing for ourselves?
Is it true that 1.3 billion
people can exert no power to save themselves from the humiliation and
oppression inflicted upon them by a much smaller enemy?
Can they only lash back blindly in anger?
Is there no other way than to
ask our young people to blow themselves up and kill people and invite the
massacre of more of our own people?
34. It cannot be that there is no
other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews.
There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to
assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategies and then to
counter attack. As Muslims we must seek guidance from the Al-Quran and the
Sunnah of the Prophet. Surely the 23 years struggle of the Prophet can
provide us with some guidance as to what we can and should do.
35. We know he and his early followers
were oppressed by the Qhuraish. Did he launch retaliatory strikes? No. He
was prepared to make strategic retreats. He sent his early followers to a
Christian country and he himself later migrated to Madinah. There he
gathered followers, built up his defense capability and ensured the
security of his people. At Hudaibiyah he was prepared to accept an unfair
treaty, against the wishes of his companions and followers. During the
peace that followed he consolidated his strength and eventually he was
able to enter Mecca and claim it for Islam. Even then he did not seek
revenge. And the peoples of Mecca accepted Islam and many became his most
powerful supporters, defending the Muslims against all their enemies.
36. That briefly is the story of the
struggle of the Prophet. We talk so much about following the sunnah of the
Prophet. We quote the instances and the traditions profusely. But we
actually ignore all of them.
37. If we use the faculty to think
that Allah has given us then we should know that we are acting
irrationally. We fight without any objective, without any goal other than
to hurt the enemy because they hurt us. Naively we
expect them to surrender. We sacrifice lives unnecessarily, achieving
nothing other than to attract more massive retaliation and humiliation.
38. It is surety time that we pause to
think. But will this be wasting time? For well over half a century we have
fought over Palestine. What have we achieved? Nothing. We are worse off
than before. If we had paused to think then we could have devised a plan,
a strategy that can win us final victory. Pausing and thinking calmly is
not a waste of time. We have a need to make a strategic retreat and to
calmly assess our situation.
39. We are actually very strong. 1.3
billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million
Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They
get others to fight and die for them.
40. We may not be able to do that. We
may not be able to unite all the 1.3 billion Muslims. We may not be able
to get all the Muslim Governments to act in concert. But even if we can
get a third of the ummah and a third of the Muslim states to act together,
we can already do something. Remember that the Prophet did not have many
followers when he went to Madinah. But he united the Ansars and the
Muhajirins and eventually he became strong enough to defend Islam.
41. Apart from the partial unity that
we need, we must take stock of our assets. I have already mentioned our
numbers and our oil wealth. In today's world we wield a lot of political,
economic and financial clout, enough to
make up for our weakness in military terms.
42. We also know that not all
non-Muslims are against us. Some are well-disposed towards us. Some even
see our enemies as their enemies. Even among the Jews there are many who
do not approve of what the Israelis are doing.
43. We must not antagonize everyone.
We must win their hearts and minds. We must win them to our side not by
begging for help from them but by the honorable way that we struggle to
help ourselves. We must not strengthen the enemy by pushing everyone into
their camps through irresponsible and un Islamic acts. Remember Salah El
Din and the way he fought against the so called Crusaders, King Richard of
England in particular. Remember the considerateness of the Prophet to the
enemies of Islam. We must do the same. It is winning the
struggle that is important, not angry retaliation, not revenge.
44. We must build up our strength in
every field, not just in armed might. Our countries must be stable and
well administered, must be economically and financially strong,
industrially competent and technologically advanced. This will take time,
but it can be done and it will be time well spent. We are enjoined by our
religion to be patient. Innallahamaasabirin. Obviously there is virtue in
being patient.
45. But the defense of the ummah, the
counter attack need not start only after we have put our houses in order.
Even today we have sufficient assets to deploy against our detractors. It
remains for us to identify them and to work out how to make use of them to
stop the carnage caused by the enemy. This is entirely possible if we stop
to think, to plan, to strategies and to take the first few critical steps.
Even these few steps can yield positive results.
46. We know that the Jahilliah Arabs
were given to feuding, to killing each other simply because they were from
different tribes. The Prophet preached the brotherhood of Islam to them
and they were able to overcome their hatred for each other, become united
and helped towards the establishment of the great Muslim civilization. Can
we say that what the Jahilliah (the ignorant) could do we, the modern
Muslims cannot do? If not all at least some of us can do. If not the
renaissance of our great civilization, at least ensuring the security of
the ummah.
47. To do the things that are
suggested will not even require all of us to give up our differences with
each other. We need only to call a truce so we can act together in
tackling only certain problems of common interests, the Palestine problem
for example.
48. In any struggle, in any war,
nothing is more important than concerted and coordinated action. A degree
of discipline is all that is needed. The Prophet lost in Jabal Uhud
because his forces broke rank. We know that, yet we are unwilling to
discipline ourselves and to give up our irregular and uncoordinated
actions. We need to be brave but not foolhardy. We need to think not just
of our reward in the afterlife but also of the worldly results of our
mission.
49. The Quran tells us that when the
enemy sues for peace we must react positively. True the treaty offered is
not favorable to us. But we can negotiate. The Prophet did, at Hudaibiyah.
And in the end he triumphed.
50. I am aware that all these ideas
will not be popular. Those who are angry would want to reject it out of
hand. They would even want to silence anyone who makes or supports this
line of action. They would want to send more young men and women to make
the supreme sacrifice. But where will all these lead to? Certainly not
victory. Over the past 50 years of fighting in Palestine we have not
achieved any result. We have in fact worsened our situation.
51. The enemy will probably welcome
these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for
the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived
2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented
and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy
so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal
rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most
powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become
a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our
brains also.
52. Of late because of their power and
their apparent success they have become arrogant. And arrogant people,
like angry people will make mistakes, will forget to think.
53. They are already beginning to make
mistakes. And they will make more mistakes. There may be windows of
opportunity for us now and in the future. We must seize these
opportunities.
54. But to do so we must get our acts
right. Rhetoric is good. It helps us to expose the wrongs perpetrated
against us, perhaps win us some sympathy and support. It may strengthen
our spirit, our will and resolve, to face the enemy.
55. We can and we should pray to Allah
S.W.T. for in the end it is He who will determine whether we succeed or
fail. We need His blessings and His help in our endeavors,
56. But it is how we act and what we
do which will determine whether He would help us and give us victory or
not. He has already said so in the Quran. Again Surah Ar-Ra'd verse 11.
57. As I said at the beginning, the
whole world is looking at us, the whole Muslim ummah is placing their
hopes in this conference of the leaders of Islamic nations.
They expect us not just to vent our frustrations and
anger, through words and gestures; not just to pray for Allah's blessings.
They expect us to do something, to act. We cannot say we cannot do
anything, we the leaders of the Muslim nations. We cannot say we cannot
unite even when faced with the destruction of our religion and the ummah.
58. We know we can. There
are many things that we can do. There are many resources that we have at
our disposal. What is needed is merely-the will to do it, As Muslims, we
must be grateful for the guidance of our religion, we must do what needs
to be done, willingly and with determination. Allah has not raised us, the
leaders, above the others so we may enjoy power for ourselves only. The
power we wield is for our people, for the ummah, for Islam. We must have
the will to make use of this power judiciously, prudently, concertedly.
Insyaallah we will triumph in the end.
59. I pray to Allah that this 10th
Conference of the OIC in Putrajaya, Malaysia will give a new and positive
direction to us, will be blessed with success by Him, Almighty Allah,
Arahman, Arahirn.
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