{"id":17596,"date":"2016-10-11T11:07:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T11:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/new-wp\/?p=17596"},"modified":"2016-10-11T11:07:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T11:07:10","slug":"the-importance-of-civilisational-rihlah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/the-importance-of-civilisational-rihlah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance Of Civilisational ‘Rihlah’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSeek knowledge even in China.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rihlah<\/em>, or travel, is an important element in the intellectual tradition of Islam.\u00a0Through it one sees the vastness of the world created by God and gains much knowledge. As Islam\u2019s luminary Imam al-Shafi\u2018i says in his <\/span>Diwan<\/em>: \u201cThe intelligent cultured man would not, in a place, settle;\u00a0So, leave home and travel!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Quite recently, the author was given the opportunity to attend the \u201cWorld Youth Summit on Civilization: China\u2013Malaysia Exchange on Confucian and Islamic Cultures\u201d as IKIM\u2019s representative cum academic rapporteur.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Held in Shandong, China, on 11-17 August, the summit was jointly organized and supported by the alumni associations of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and Peking University, Confucian Chinese Society, Zen Tao Business School, Sino Youth Entrepreneur Association, Shenzhen Zhi Chong Culture Broadcast Co., Ltd., the Perak State Government, The Federation of Malay Students Union (GPMS), the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM), and Zailan & Associates.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Malaysian delegation, comprising students, professionals, and academics, was invited to partake in a cultural and scholarly exchange between Islam and Confucianism. Later, we were brought on a tour to interesting places including Peking University, the Temple of Confucius in Beijing, and the great philosopher\u2019s birthplace in the provincial city of Qufu.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our sojourn also took us to Peking University, an important institution where we glimpsed Chinese people\u2019s strong love for the sciences and soon realized that Muslims too must rediscover theirs.\u00a0\u201cOf all God’s creatures, the Chinese are the most efficient at engraving, manufacturing, and in every craft making.\u00a0Indeed, none of the other people matches them in this respect,\u201d says 10<\/span>th<\/sup> century Muslim traveler Abu Zayd al-Sirafi in his book <\/span>Akhbar al-Sind wa\u2019l-Hind<\/em>\u00a0(<\/span>Accounts of China and India<\/em>).<\/span><\/p>\n

The current geopolitical situation calls for a civilizational dialogue opportunity such as this \u2013 rather, even greater discourse \u2013 as well as understanding of the interaction (<\/span>ta\u2018amul<\/em>) between the world\u2019s great powers.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also calls for the returning role of the Muslim sovereign states as a stabilizing force as Muslim kingdoms, including those of the Malay world, had done in the past. As the divine vicegerency of Man requires him to subject his animal impulses under his God-given rational faculty of the soul, so too the Muslim conduct of state seeks to overcome military strategies that follow animalistic logic as well as those that reduce politics to a Hobbesian mad scramble for land, power, and resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Muslim legal theorist\u00a0Imam al-Sarakhsi, commenting on his teacher\u2019s work on Muslim conduct of state <\/span>Kitab al-Siyar<\/em>, underlines the prime importance of a Muslim country to develop the strength necessary for maintaining regional peace and stability.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Malaysia\u2019s continual demonstration of that strength, with its memberships such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the United Nations Security Council as well as various involvements in UN peacekeeping operations, is presentable as proof of concept.<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00a0\u201cUnless one is intimately aware of this Chinese historical experience,\u201d cautions former Stratfor geopolitical analyst Robert D. Kaplan in his book\u00a0<\/span> Asia\u2019s Cauldron,<\/em>\u00a0\u201cone cannot comprehend what motivates China today in the South China Sea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, let us find strength in history\u2019s lessons. Where geopolitics fails to assuage the world\u2019s anxiety, Islam\u2019s civilizational language as well as historical knowledge can redress old wounds, make peace (<\/span>sulh<\/em>) between nations, and bring the discourse to a higher level.<\/span><\/p>\n

We should remember China\u2019s history as well as Islam\u2019s have been intertwined ever since Caliph Uthman ibn Affan dispatched the Companion of the Holy Prophet, Sa\u2019d ibn Abi Waqqas, on diplomatic missions there. Later, Caliph al-Mansur would send a contingent of 4,000 soldiers to help the Chinese emperor suppress the An Lushan Rebellion.<\/span><\/p>\n

As al-Sirafi and many other Muslim scholars have recorded, the heyday of the glorious Tang dynasty had seen numerous exchanges between Muslim world and the Chinese civilization.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNever the twain shall meet,\u201d declared Rudyard Kipling in <\/span>The Ballad of East and West<\/em>. Yet, as an older, more mature, and culturally richer civilization, China shares not the propensity to destroy other civilizations. Its past friendly gestures invite us to hope for more, unless this too would change come, as the prominent thinker S.M.N. al-Attas puts it, \u201cthe pestilential winds of secularization.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The penetrating intellectual gaze of Muslim scholars mentioned above very much demonstrates the strength of Islamic scholarship as well as its ability to remain relevant across the ages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such testament of true knowledge should make us realize that Islamic scholarship is in itself an institution of prime importance as much as institutions and exchanges are the pillars of a civilization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSeek knowledge even in China.\u201d Rihlah, or travel, is an important element in the intellectual tradition of Islam.\u00a0Through it one sees the vastness of the world created by God and gains much knowledge. As Islam\u2019s luminary Imam al-Shafi\u2018i says in his Diwan: \u201cThe intelligent cultured man would not, in a place, settle;\u00a0So, leave home and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-star","category-220","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}