Critical Thoughts

Begrudgingly I have to accept the fact that yet another person had decided to leave the body of the ummah and while I agree with the conclusions on why the Shariah Court in Penang approved the application of apostasy in the aforementioned case, I lament the fact that we still do not have any proper legislation to deal with apostasy and apostates from Islam in particular. In this particular case, there is evidence that she was never exposed to the proper teachings of Islam (which is where the sole blame lies with MAIPP, PERKIM, MACMA, etc., and no one else) and thus this judgement is correct. But there is, of course, the issue of another “Siti Fatimah” in Malacca who was raised as a Muslim and of course, Lina Joy who was also a born Muslim in the first place.

Let it be clear that there is no way the Muslim ummah should ever accept Muslims committing the heinous sin of apostasy and there is only one punishment for that: Man badala deenahu, faqthuluhu!

Today, we see in the Muslim world that the ummah is slowly making this prophecy come true.

Sure seems so, given my opposition to “libertarianism” as well as the fact that this definition of Communitarianism sure fits my ideals of a civil society, or the term that I much more prefer, ummah.

Communitarianism and libertarianism emphasize different values and concerns. Libertarianism is an individualist philosophy, with a strong focus on the rights of citizens in a republic. Communitarians believe that there is too much focus on these concerns, arguing that “the exclusive pursuit of private interest erodes the network of social environments on which we all depend, and is destructive to our shared experiment in democratic self-government”. They believe that rights must be accompanied by social responsibility and a maintenance of the institutions of civil society if these rights are to be preserved….

This is an echo of Dr. Ismail Faruqi’s ideas regarding Ummatism. Reminder to self: read up more on Communitarianism.