Islam Hadhari: Wujud atau Tidak?

Al-fadhil Ustaz Dr Mohd Asri has not personally replied my email dated on June 7th. But alhamdulillahi rabbil 'alameen, I've found the clarification for my incertitude regarding the issue Islam Hadhari in an interview with al-fadhil Ustaz in i-Magazine (May 2008 issue).

Again, he agreed the fact that the contents of Islam Hadhari proposed by Pak Lah are in no way against the principles of Islam. In fact, the contents are there to actuate Islamic modernization in our country. Among the contents are to create a fair and clean state administration, to help the people of the nation to be progressive and proactive, etc. However, the main problem here is that the label used--Islam Hadhari--conveys a controversial message. "Bayangkan sudah empat tahun, kerajaan masih berusaha keras untuk memberi kefahaman, mengenai Islam Hadhari. Semua orang keliru," Dr Mohd Asri said.

As I mentioned in my email to al-fadhil Ustaz, the label has brought up the idea that the government is introducing a new and more "modern" Islam, which is Islam Hadhari. Al-fadhil Ustaz personally in the interview agreed that the word Islam should be replaced with other labels like "Gerakan Hadhari", or "Pemikiran Hadhari". According to him, a careful analysis must be conducted before we decide to use the word Islam as label to avoid misunderstandings, especially, in the era when Islam is constantly suffering from immense criticism and poor reputation.

"Banyak yang melihat Islam Hadhari lebih sebagai branding (jenama), tetapi produk sebenar tidak ada," he added. To me, the product is there, but the branding does not represent the product at all. The branding has totally swayed people away from learning and understanding the product. That's the reason why until today, the government has been increasingly defensive regarding Islam Hadhari--to not have people thought that it is a new religion. "Perkara ini tidak diterima rakyat, kita hanya membuang masa untuk berkempen sesuatu yang tidak wujud," al-fadhil Ustaz replied when asked about the next approach for Islam Hadhari.

Let's now take a look at the decision of Selangor's Pas to unauthorize all activities promoting Islam Hadhari. Personally, I feel that publicizing their decision to unauthorize any activity pertaining Islam Hadhari is more politically motivated. It will be much wiser if they sat only with the Ulama' and Imams of the state and discussed their intention to clear up the confusion surrounding this issue. Going to the press and "proudly" announcing to the public that "we will ban any program promoting Islam Hadhari" will only reheat the controversy and complicate the confusion. The people who have the required knowledge to discuss and understand all the perplexities behind this issue are not the majority.

The unauthorization could be executed without a public announcement to the people and that would be much safer to the aqidah of the people. Learn from the mistake of the federal government--they've spent all the years since they first introduced the idea talking about the label. And we don't want to do the same. We all realize that the label has confounded our people. Hence, distract the crowd from the label and pull them near to tarbiyah activities (so they will learn what is actually Islam). Direct them to the 10 practices listed by Dr. Said Ramadhan al-Buti in his book, Hadharah al-Islamiah, which is where Pak Lah got the idea to embark on Islam Hadhari model.

wAllahu 'alam