11th SEPTEMBER 2001 - TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO

Assalam,

11th September 2001 - Twenty One Years Ago.

This day twenty one years ago a momentous event took place in the world, at the same time a momentous event took place in the personal life of this Islamic banker. The manufactured event in New York shocked the world even as the happy event is etched in the memory of the Islamic banker. On the fated day, September 11, 2001 he got married whilst the world got mired in a devastating fraud that would lead to the loss of a million innocent lives in Iraq.

September 11 2001 was the night of my wedding reception in Kuala Lumpur. A momentous event in the Aziz Yeop family, it being the wedding of the last of the family’s siblings. I met my match, married a wonderful girl, and started a new journey in my life. Fated to learn Western Economics in university life in the late 70’s I was then dipped in conventional banking for two years in early 80’s. Both as if in preparation for what was to come. This was followed by a five year religious renaissance  and respite in my life which prepared me to understand life from the context of Islamic demands.

I was a citizen of the end of time Muslim; brought into the world alien of the true demands of Islam and far from the extension of Medina as the expected true model of Muslim and Islamic life to the end of time. Medina, the ultimate model and basis for Muslim life never happened to us end of time Muslims. Somewhere along the line we were hijacked of our Islamic destiny. The post independent generation of end of time Muslims were informed their country was once colonised by these foreign people from the West. There was some entangle with invading Japanese forces and here we are in the late fifties independent of all that. 

We then learn to speak their foreign language, adopt their laws, adopt their education, monetary and financial systems. We were told these were the best of systems, and by implication and abandonment, the Quran and its teachings, we were told, were not relevant in our life. We are to learn to recite the Quran properly but to pay little attention to its meanings. Our school and education life was packed with too many important subjects to pay much attention to Quran and Sunnah. There will be Ustazs and Ustazahs to ensure we are not totally ignorant of our religion, will learn of its basics, but no more. There were serious fears that if we are taught more we will become heretics who will innovate the religion beyond recognition. In any case we have these super British systems why do we need ancient Islamic systems.

That was how the post independent generation of this country grew. Admiring everything of the West to the total exclusion and ignorance of Islamic superiority in all matters.

We were not taught of the Golden Age of Islam in the 15th Century where Muslims led the world in Medicine, Science & Technology, Mathematics and Engineering producing world class scholars and became the teachers of Dark Age Europe. We did not know at this Age and Century Muslims were Masters of Quran and Sunnah and Masters of Worldly Knowledge. Because we then understood Quranic Arabic we began Scientific Research by referring to the Quran to extricate its Scientific secrets.

We were told by the West combining religion and life is not good ; we must follow them and separate religion from life. Hence our secular education system where the underlying philosophy led to the Quran and Sunnah as not being important in education; Shariah is to be learnt as a specialty subject divorced to all other people. How could another Golden Age of Islam arise if Muslim Scientists do not command Quranic Arabic to explore the Quran as did the 15th Century Golden Age Muslims?!

A lesser known impact of the British legacy is to unknowingly imposed a huge inferiority complex in end of time Muslims. Drummed into our heads all Scientific and Academic Research must begin from the Western pool of knowledge; it is implanted in our self consciousness  that the Western knowledge is superior and there is no other source of knowledge other than them. We are informed by design or by implication, the Quran is a kunu kitab read only by people not as suave and intelligent as the rest of the Muslim world. Leave alone for the Quran and Sunnah to be the Source of knowledge that could easily outclass Western knowledge. We didn’t know the Quran mentioned the Big Bang Theory, the Expansion of the Universe, the moving continents, the seeding wind, the intricate stages of growth of the foetus, the orbits of celestial bodies, thousands of years before Western scientists announced their belated discoveries. The Quran says there are seven levels of the sky; will we again bow in awe to Western knowledge when they confirm this fact, God knows when?

But we discuss above only of knowledge ; what about life systems? What if the monetary system we practised is in direct defiance of Allah and His Rasul? In Surah AlBaqarah ayat 279 Allah and His Rasul declare war on the practitioners of riba ; how do we reconcile our central bank announcing to the umat we will move the Muslim economy at the end of time by changing the Nation’s Rate for Riba?!

Have we no fear of Allah and His Rasul? Pray tell what is our words when questioned in Yaumul Akhir? Are we with them? Do we endorse and redha and  defend their words? Or we take a stand and say NO, we are not with you?!!

The Movement for Monetary Justice, Malaysia do not just discuss problems. We offer solutions. Visit us at https://telegra.ph/MMJ-Home-01-04 

Confessions of an Islamic Banker; The Foams of the Waves of the Sea- The Case for an Islamic Monetary System, and Umpama Buih Dilautan – Suatu Hujjah Untuk Perlaksanaan Sistem Monetari Islam are inadequate efforts by the author but Dear God, please bear witness, they are my hopes and du’a in desperation.

AlFatihah to the million and more who died in Iraq based on a contrived event that happened this day 21 years ago.

And this day 21 years ago I married my dear wife, Happy Anniversary Sayang.

Muhammad Zahid Abdul Aziz.