In less than a week, Muslims around the world will be celebrating Eid\nal-Adha or Hari Raya Korban (the Feast of the Sacrifice). It is celebrated to\ncommemorate Prophet Abraham\u2019s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of\nobedience to Allah\u2019s command \u2013 which is a trial from Allah to test his piety to\nsubmit to His will. For his obedience and patience to God\u2019s will, that before\nAbraham could do the sacrifice, Allah ordered the angel Gabriel to provide a\nsubstitute for his son i.e. a substitutionary ram. This had been recorded in\nthe Quran as Allah says to the effect: \u201cAnd We have ransomed you with a mighty\nsacrifice.\u201d (Qur\u2019an 37: 107). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In honour of Abraham\u2019s submission to Allah\u2019s command, Muslims emulate\nhis dedication and obedience by sacrificing their livestock as an act of\ndevotion to God during Eid al-Adha festival which commences from the 10th to 13th\nof Zulhijjah<\/em> (the twelfth and final\nmonth in the Islamic calendar). Here the ritual has nothing to do with atoning\nfor sins as it actually signifies the willingness of those who perform the\nsacrifice to give up or share bounties in one form or another which is close to\ntheir hearts with others. If it is carried out with full sincerity and solely\nseeking the pleasure of Allah, the sacrifice will result in the intended\noutcome i.e. piety. In the Quran, Allah says, \u201cIt is neither their meat nor their\nblood that reaches God but your piety\u201d (Qur\u2019an, 22: 37). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sacrifice is a multidimensional\nconstruct. In the above scenario,\nsacrifice is religious in nature. Nevertheless, regardless of the context,\nsacrifice is an essential element for man in his life journey in this world. Therefore,\nin order to succeed or survive in this journey requires sacrifice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the context of Covid-19, the presence of sacrifice as an underpinning\ncore value in managing the pandemic is very glaring. It has made a huge impact\non the effectiveness of the overall mechanism employed by the Malaysian government\nin containing the pandemic from further spreading and causing more damage to\nthe well-being of the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With most of the countries are affected by Covid-19 and we have yet to\nfind the vaccine for the cure, people around the globe are now struggling with\nso many issues and challenges that Covid-19 has thrown up. The problems are not\nconfined to medical treatment and health care issues as they also have a\nprofound impact on the wellbeing of people in various aspects and contexts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO), for example, has\nslowed down our economic activities as all government and private premises have\nbeen instructed to close or cease their operations temporarily. Many employees\nhave been out of job or got retrenched as companies adopt cost optimisation and\ndownsized their operations. Thus, their livelihood were also affected not only\nbecause of financial hardship, but also due to restrictions imposed by the\ngovernment through the MCO which makes it difficult for them to react and apply\na quick fix to the problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The MCO which began on 18 March 2020 saw the country had to sacrifice\nRM2.4 billion in economic value per each MCO day. The unemployment rate rose to 5.0% or 778, 800\npeople as many were laid off as business owners stopped or slowed down their\noperations. To mitigate the impact of Covid-19, three stimulus packages were\nintroduced by the government. The packages\u2014Prihatin Economic Stimulus Package\n2020 (Prihatin), Prihatin SME and Pelan Jana Semula Ekonomi Negara (PENJANA)\u2014are\ntargeted towards providing job security to employees and empowering businesses\nand SMEs. The initiatives which are meant to cushion the impact of lockdown\nmeasure due to Covid-19 have cost the government RM295 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides the economic loss, Malaysians also endure great inconvenience as\nthey must conform to new norms and sacrifice established routines, ceremonies,\ntraditions and even religious practices. Indeed, all these trade-offs are\nprofoundly uncomfortable to deal with and yet, this is the price that is needed\nto be paid in order to contain and flatten the curve of the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, many parties are involved in combating Covid-19 in Malaysia. The\nmost notable one is the frontline workers. It is very unusual and very\nuncomfortable to work long-hours in a high risk environment. But for the sake\nof the nation, our healthcare staff together with the national defence and\nsecurity team; and various other agencies have gone above and beyond the call\nof duty. Without their dedication and commitment, we would not be recognised as\none of most successful countries in the world in handling Covid-19. Otherwise,\nwe could have been struggling in the battle of this pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result of the sacrifices made by all parties, Malaysia has been\nrecognised by the world community as one of the successful countries in\nhandling Covid-19. As one of the few early countries which managed to keep new\ncases remain low and in control, we hope to win the battle and finally restore\nour daily life and revolve the wheel economy again. The Ministry of Finance and\na few international agencies have made some forecast that we can achieve\neconomic recovery as early as 2021 with 6.3 per cent to 7.5 per cent of growth\nof gross domestic product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, this forecast is subject to Malaysia’s success in\ncontinuing to curb this epidemic and the extent to which it is able to attract\ninvestors and consumers to be active in the economy. At the same time, we also\nhope that politicians can sacrifice their lust for political power for a while\nby giving full support to the current government to implement preventive and\ncorrective measures to curb and minimise the impact of Covid-19 on the\nwellbeing of the entire population in Malaysia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In less than a week, Muslims around the world will be celebrating Eid al-Adha or Hari Raya Korban (the Feast of the Sacrifice). It is celebrated to commemorate Prophet Abraham\u2019s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to Allah\u2019s command \u2013 which is a trial from Allah to test his piety to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"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":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27579","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}