The Importance of Hikmah
admin on 05 23, 2009
I’ve not been writing a lot these days, being caught up with so much work. But alhamdulillah I’ve taken some time off to share my reflections after going through a very interesting reading circle session with the honourable A/P Farid Al-Attas on the topic of intellectuals.
In a nutshell, according to A/P Farid, what society lacks are intellectuals who go through rigorous thought processes so as to identify unique problems and formulate suitable strategies and solutions to address that problem. The intellectual does not merely receives information, he interprets it, and applies a scientific method to analyze the information that is passed down to him/her. And what we mean by scientific is an endeavour or pursuit of truth and reality involving various processes that encompass both the spiritual and intellectual dimension.
Even if we do have a group of intellectuals, or what we know of as the class of ulema, they lack the hikmah or wisdom to prioritize what society really needs first. Or simply to put it in another way, the art or the finesse, to prioritize and classify what is important and what is less important. This act of classification and prioritizing is what we come to know of as adab as previously indicated from the Syed Naquib Al-Attas school of thought. Which is why it is mentioned that society faces the serious challenge of the loss of adab, the loss in the ability to prioritize, classify and organize, partly due to the lack of hikmah in dealing with things. And as previously mentioned, hikmah has something to do with spiritual purification, experience and rigorous thought processes.
For instance, our ulema would rather discuss on the trivial issue of maulid as a bid’ah or not, whether visiting tombs of saints are an innovation, whether zikir as a grp is an innovation, etcetera. When in fact we have so many bigger problems to discuss.
Or even worse, we are preoccupied with the trivial issue of whether yoga is haram or not!
Why don’t the ulema talk about saving the environment? Why don’t the ulema talk about eliminating poverty in third-world countries? Why don’t the ulema condemn that particular sheikh! (who now owns Chelsea Football Club and was willing to spend money on a single football player by the name of Kaka, when people in Gaza are facing a humanitarian crisis)
When the Jewish Rabbis are so advanced in their thought processes, redefining kosher as beyond the slaughtering of animals in accordance to the laws of the Torah. Kosher, or more specifically eco-Kosher, now includes the level of hygiene, the level of nutrition of the food, and the level of friendliness to the environment.
What the ulema or the intellectuals shld be doing is to redefine things according to their root words to solve contemporary challenges. For instance, they shld contemplate and discuss “Is the term “Halal” simply restricted to the way we slaughter our livestock, excluding all those that are not permissible to eat such as pigs and dogs?” to address the issue of nutrition and hygiene levels!
When the Qur’an says:
“O ye messengers! Eat of the good and pure things, and do right. Lo! I am Aware of what ye do.” 23:51
If as such, shouldn’t the term “Halal” encompass cleanliness and hygiene in food preparation too? When cleanliness is part of religion as mentioned in the hadith!
But unfortunately, we like to bicker about trivial things! Why? Because the commonfolk are interested in these things! Because these pseudo-intellectuals can make money out of these trivial conversations!
If the intellectual ulema can address this issue and redefine “Halal”, insya-Allah we will see a change in the Muslim dietary habits! The Malay community will insya-Allah not be plagued with health problems like diabetes and high blood pressure! Because consumption of all these food would be considered makruh! And even better, we will do away with cockroaches running all over the utensils at the warungs and stalls, because the food would be considered haram for consumption!
Another example, which I really don’t understand, is the current trend on “Helping madrasahs”. Since when did madrasah students have a problem? The problem is not with the students, but the system that was imposed on the students! If I were to be imposed under the same conditions of a heavy workload, even I would fail to perform! Let us not be obsessed with the 5% of the community, when the other 95% still remains untouched!
Wisdom is what we need.
Unfortunately, “bebalisme” as noted by Syed Hussein Al-Attas, is the school of thought that most of us are holding on to.
