Next Level

It’s been four months since I attended the weekend madrasah classes at Masjid Al Amin. Today, before the commencement of a Tamil talk by a guest Ustaz, I decided to sit in the class for a while. I was pleasantly surprised to see that quite a few “boyz” had become “men” – noticeably taller, and voices "broken". There was one student who in the last four months had khatamed the Qur’an! (considering that a student may take up to 8 years to do the same). That was one of the strange things of being in the same class for many years. You see people grow up.

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The Tamil talk was a run-of-the-mill talk aimed at the masses. More like a compilation of Qur’anic verses, ahadith and history, the talk did not penetrate too deeply on the core of the speech. To avoid the confusions of the mind and prevent depression and negative thoughts, the advice given was to dwell in the remembrance of Allah, but a lot was not said on how to remember Allah, and other more practical elements of preventing a confused mind, such a positive thinking.

I don’t know if the masses are ready for a more nuanced discussion of such topics. The normal speech which is acontextual and basically in a format of “point #1” followed supporting Qur’anic verses and ahadith, is good to expose people to the broad facts.

But in the long term, I think it’s important to assume that even the masses know the basics, and are ready to move on to the next stage. The next stage would involve thinking more deeply about the socio-historical contexts of the verses and ahadith, and a critical examination of our current situation as an ummah in Singapore.

The second one is not being addressed by most Tamil-speaking ustazes so far. Most of them are from India, and quite frankly, they are very disconnected with what the working Muslim, the student Muslim, and the homemaker Muslim (just to typify a few groups) feel about leading their lives as God-fearing folks in Singapore.

To these scholars, I get the unsettling feeling that they think Islam is a blanket rule that is to be applied by strict application to the various laws of jurisprudence. While this is wholly true, and the surest way to earn rewards due to strict conformation of the laws set out, I think it’s our duty as thinking, reasoning human beings to use our God-given powers of logic and reasoning to understand the reasons why we do things and bring ourselves to a higher level in our relationship with God.

How do we change this arrangement whereby the community is advised by scholars who unfortunately do not take into consideration the socio-politico-historical context of our times and tastes and thinking? We can try to encourage the ustazes to think more deeply about their speeches by really defining their topics for them (for those of us in the power to do so). The more radical step would be to train local folks to be ustazes, thereby creating local imams among our midst.

Whatever it is, change might not be that quick – in the meantime, we can all do our small part by expanding our horizons, by first and foremost seeing Islam as a message from God to guide His creation to lead an ideal life as a human being. No labels, no complicated cultural or political baggage. Just a message of good advice from a Creator Who created us.