The Qur’an in its four verses is explicit about Allah being the one who governs the entire universe(s). (See IKIM Views of May 5, 2009) Al-Mudabbir (The Governor), as such, is a Divine Name and Attribute. In fact, a number of renowned scholars of Islam were unequivocal about it, such as Imam al-Bayhaqi (d. 458 A.H.) in his Al-Asma’…
The public is basically ignorant especially when it comes to religious matters. They may be categorized into two groups: the uneducated or the non-formally educated and the formally educated. Regardless of the groupings, in Islam, all Muslims are advised to consult men of knowledge on matters that they do not understand. Scholars (ulama), therefore, are…
Our previous article (“Adab defines Islamic education”) has clarified how adab manifests the beautification of ethics, whose fundamentals are ultimately based upon the worldview of Islam. This directly contradicts one of the integrals of secularization, namely the “relativization of all human values”. Islam disagrees with a secular view that each and every value system is…
We often hear people say ‘money is not everything but everything needs money’. However, it is hard to deny that we are in a materialistic world. Naturally, in this type of the world, religion has almost no significant role to play in guiding our daily actions. It looks as if all religious or virtuous values…
When divorce occurs, majority of the children live with their custodial mothers. However, the right of access would normally be given to non-custodial fathers. For many reasons, contact with non-custodial father may lessen over time or become non-existent. Social policy analysts, welfare experts and mental health professionals have shown concerned on fathers’ absence after divorce…
The word “Islam” is derived from the Arabic root “SLM” which means, among other things, peace, purity, submission and obedience.In the religious sense the word Islam means submission to the Will of Allah and obedience to His Law. Islam acknowledges the fact that Allah s.w.t. has created mankind in the form of different races and…
Compared to the English words “management,” “administration,” and “governance” or the Malay words “pengurusan,” “pengelolaan,” and “penataan,” tadbir being a Malay term that is appropriated from the original Arabic is meaning-wise more stable, clear and definite. It has not undergone much semantic change, thus signifying basically the same thing to different people at different times. In a…
‘Religion’ is a belief in, or the worship of, a god or gods. The Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus defines it as the belief in a superhuman controlling power, especially in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. It may also refer to anything to which one is totally devoted and which rules one’s life.…
In his essay “Modern Education and the Classics”, T. S. Eliot aptly observed that, “to know what we want in education we must know what we want in general. We must derive our theory of education from our philosophy of life.” In the same vein, Muslim must think out his ideas about education as grounded…
Polygamy remains a controversial issue not only in Malaysia but also in many Muslim countries around the world. It has been the subject of many debates but is actually far from settled (latest – newly-formed polygamy club propagated by Ikhwan). According to a Malaysian anthropologist, Professor Azizah Kassim, whenever the issue of polygamy is debated…
