There is a good story on the first page of the Home section of today's Straits Times. Last month, a young Malay Muslim girl lost her life after her boyfriend's motorcycle got into an accident. The boyfriend sustained serious injuries, but survived. The girl, Syahida Said ("Sy" in Malay is pronounced as "sh"), had severe brain and lung injuries, and was pronounced brain dead three days after the accident. However, the good news is that Syahida's mother allowed some of her daughter's organs to be donated.
The problem here is that the Muslim community is reluctant to donate organs after death. This despite the fact that MUIS, the ministry for Muslim affairs, has written two fatawa permitting the donation of organs in emergencies to save lives (the fatawa were written in 1986 and 2003). "Now, under the Human Organ Transplant Act, kidneys, livers, hearts and corneas suitable for transplant are taken from all Singaporeans and permanent residents - unless they have opted out - except Muslims, upon their death. Muslims have to opt in, with the consent of two Muslim men, who need not be relatives."
In 2006, six hearts, one lung, seven livers and 56 kidneys in all were transplanted from dead donors. Of those 70 organs, only four came from one Muslim - Syahida Said. There were no Muslim donors in 2005. That's pathetic. We, the Muslim community of Singapore, need to help contribute our organs after death so that we may help others in need. Should I meet an untimely end, I authorize my wife's family to allow my organs to be donated.
May Allah (swt) reward Syahida for her gifts of life. Ameen. Her heart now beats in the chest of a man in his 50s who suffered from heart failure. Her liver saved a woman in her 50s with cirrhosis. Her kidneys went to two men in their 40s. May all of these people treat Syahida's gifts with respect and prayers for her wellbeing in the hereafter. Syahida's mother said, "She was very helpful and had wanted to be a nurse. I'm happy she managed to save four people."
Alhamdulillah!
Showing posts with label MUIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MUIS. Show all posts
January 9, 2007
September 22, 2006
Ramadhan/Singapore Slingers
Ramadhan
I know there's a bit of confusion among American Muslims as to when Ramadhan starts. Here in Singapore, because the weather is often overcast, relying upon moon sightings to determine the start and end of Islamic months is not really feasible. As a result, MUIS (the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore), uses the method of counting days. (I believe the other countries in this area (Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.) follow the same method.) So, to let my American brothers and sisters in Islam know, we will start fasting on Sunday, the 24th. Ramadhan will be for 30 days this year and ends, insha'allah, on Monday, October 23rd. Obviously, Eid will be on Tuesday, October 24th. At this time, Singapore is 12 hours ahead of the East Coast (i.e., it's now about 3:30 p.m. here, Friday afternoon, which makes it 3:30 a.m., very early Friday morning back home), so adjust accordingly.
Singapore Slingers
Singapore has joined the Australian National Basketball League, winning their first game in the team's history by beating the Adelaide 36ers, 98 to 91. I happened to catch about the last minute of the game on TV last night.
Singapore is the first Asian city/country to join the NBL and, insha'allah, hopefully won't be the last. A couple years ago, there was an episode of a local TV show that asked why Singapore didn't have a sporting culture. I had responded to that question by writing a letter to the editor of the Straits Times, although it was never published.
Singapore does have a small sporting culture, but you'd never know it by reading the newspapers. In S'pore, there are two main English language dailies, The Straits Times and The New Paper. The former is your typical, serious paper, similar in size and tone to any major American newspaper (e.g., Phoenix's The Arizona Republic); The New Paper is more of a gossipy tabloid. Of the two, The New Paper has the larger sports section, but focuses almost exclusively on European soccer, F1, and horse racing (there's a local race track and gambling is popular here). The Straits Times' sports section is 1/3 to 1/2 the size of The New Paper's, and covers mostly European soccer. Neither paper devotes any significant effort to covering local sports. The S League (the local soccer league) gets what little ink there is for local coverage; in the past few months, the Straits Times has only made a tiny effort at covering sports at the secondary school level (something that would get tons of ink back home).
Anyway, as a person who enjoys watching, participating in, and reading about sports, Singapore is very much a backwater compared to the US or even Korea. One of the ideas that I proposed in my Letter to the Editor was the creation of a basketball league wherein there would be a team from each of the major cities in SE Asia (somewhat similar to the way SE Asian countries send a national team every other year to compete in the Tiger Cup, a regional and popular soccer tournament). Perhaps in time, insha'allah, the NBL could continue its northward expansion to include other Asian cities in the league (KL, Manila?).
So, I've got a new team to watch and cheer for, although the name...ugh. The colors are OK (red, white and gold), the logo's OK (see above), but the name...dumb.
I know there's a bit of confusion among American Muslims as to when Ramadhan starts. Here in Singapore, because the weather is often overcast, relying upon moon sightings to determine the start and end of Islamic months is not really feasible. As a result, MUIS (the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore), uses the method of counting days. (I believe the other countries in this area (Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.) follow the same method.) So, to let my American brothers and sisters in Islam know, we will start fasting on Sunday, the 24th. Ramadhan will be for 30 days this year and ends, insha'allah, on Monday, October 23rd. Obviously, Eid will be on Tuesday, October 24th. At this time, Singapore is 12 hours ahead of the East Coast (i.e., it's now about 3:30 p.m. here, Friday afternoon, which makes it 3:30 a.m., very early Friday morning back home), so adjust accordingly.
Singapore SlingersSingapore has joined the Australian National Basketball League, winning their first game in the team's history by beating the Adelaide 36ers, 98 to 91. I happened to catch about the last minute of the game on TV last night.
Singapore is the first Asian city/country to join the NBL and, insha'allah, hopefully won't be the last. A couple years ago, there was an episode of a local TV show that asked why Singapore didn't have a sporting culture. I had responded to that question by writing a letter to the editor of the Straits Times, although it was never published.
Singapore does have a small sporting culture, but you'd never know it by reading the newspapers. In S'pore, there are two main English language dailies, The Straits Times and The New Paper. The former is your typical, serious paper, similar in size and tone to any major American newspaper (e.g., Phoenix's The Arizona Republic); The New Paper is more of a gossipy tabloid. Of the two, The New Paper has the larger sports section, but focuses almost exclusively on European soccer, F1, and horse racing (there's a local race track and gambling is popular here). The Straits Times' sports section is 1/3 to 1/2 the size of The New Paper's, and covers mostly European soccer. Neither paper devotes any significant effort to covering local sports. The S League (the local soccer league) gets what little ink there is for local coverage; in the past few months, the Straits Times has only made a tiny effort at covering sports at the secondary school level (something that would get tons of ink back home).
Anyway, as a person who enjoys watching, participating in, and reading about sports, Singapore is very much a backwater compared to the US or even Korea. One of the ideas that I proposed in my Letter to the Editor was the creation of a basketball league wherein there would be a team from each of the major cities in SE Asia (somewhat similar to the way SE Asian countries send a national team every other year to compete in the Tiger Cup, a regional and popular soccer tournament). Perhaps in time, insha'allah, the NBL could continue its northward expansion to include other Asian cities in the league (KL, Manila?).
So, I've got a new team to watch and cheer for, although the name...ugh. The colors are OK (red, white and gold), the logo's OK (see above), but the name...dumb.
September 9, 2006
Regarding Ijtihad
After writing my Salaam 'alaikum essay and posting it on Street Prophets, I've had a number of questions asked of me in the past few days. I've felt that a number of these responses should also be reposted back here, on my blogs. This first reposting is with regard to the some questions concerning ijtihad (the original questions are in italics):
"I have been advised that there is a significant tradition in Islam of "Ijtihad" or the individual Muslim's responsibility and authority to interpret the Qur'an."
Ijtihad is a much broader concept than just trying to interpret the Qur'an. As I mentioned in a previous comment, Islam is considered by Muslims as a way of life. We try to apply Islamic principles in all aspects of our lives. For us, the means are just as important - and perhaps even more important - than the ends. And so you have a major world religion that's created an enormous corpus of law that's known as Shari'ah.
Ijtihad itself is "the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources, the Qur'an and the Sunnah." But even here, ijtihad is not the first resort. The basis for Islamic law, called fiqh (pronounced "fee-kay"), is first the Qur'an, then the Sunnah (which includes the various collections of ahadith, or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)), then qiyas or analogies, and finally ijma or consensus of the scholars. If there is no guidance to answer a question based upon the Qur'an or Sunnah, or through qiyas, only then is ijtihad supposed to be used. But even there, a consensus (or better yet, a unanimous opinion) is sought because Muslims recognize that there are differences of opinion. In such cases, it is better to avoid the extremes and follow the middle path. (Sort of like how figure skating and diving used to be judged: toss out the high and low scores and average or total the remainder.)
In which case, the question becomes, who should be a mujtahid (one who applies ijtahid)? The traditional answer is a scholar of Islamic law, or alim. Liberal Muslims (which I am not) argue that any Muslim should be able to perform ijtahid, but I strongly disagree with this. Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (d. 819), who founded the Shafi'i school of thought, recognized the problem of individual laymen trying to perform ijtihad, who would come up with haphazard opinions. IMO, this is exactly the problem the liberal Muslims are recreating in that perhaps 99.99999% of Muslims worldwide are not qualified to be a scholar who can perform ijtahid.
I bring all this up because I'm trying to say that it is not an "individual Muslim's responsibility and authority to interpret the Qur'an." This is the irony that irritates me with the so-called non-Muslim "Insta-Experts" on Islam. It takes a Muslim years and years of education and training to get to a point where he or she can competently perform ijtihad, whereas these people have little or no education or training and yet they think they're qualified to express an opinion. To analogize, this is like deciding who to see when you have a medical problem: do you visit a qualified doctor or do you go to the person who has little or no education or training? (This analogy is applicable to both the non-Muslim "Insta-Experts" and the liberal Muslims.) What makes it worse from an Islamic perspective is that providing wrong advice compounds the problem (sin) onto the person who provided the faulty information. For example, if you asked me, say, if it were all right for you to have pre-marital sex from an Islamic perspective and I said, "yeah, sure, go ahead," and you did, not only would you accrue the sin of zina (sexual activity outside of marriage), but so would I because I gave you the wrong advice. So, once more, it's better to seek information from the qualified source.
"As you noted, different schools of Islamic thought would seem to offer more ot less authoritative jurisprudence (if that is the right word) on matters of Islamic law and teaching. How do individual Muslims approach this possible tension between individual interpretation and scholarly tradition at the practical human level, i.e. do non-scholarly or non-academic Muslims have rules of thumb on such matters, at the real, practical level?"
The basic, orthodox interpretations of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and life in general as a Muslim are well known and long established; after all, we've had 1400 years to work out most of the "bugs." Media for education are numerous. Most of the primary information is taught in classrooms or through various media (books, magazines, videotapes, the Internet, and so on). When answers to specific questions are needed, Muslims can go to numerous sources. Many people will ask questions of their imams or ustaz (religious teacher). In some countries with significant Muslim populations, there may be some sort of authority that can provide guidance. For example, here in Singapore, we can ask questions to MUIS, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore. And there are numerous sources of information on the Internet who answer specific questions. Of course, with any of these sources (especially the last), it's to our benefit to seek out other opinions (similar to seeking a second opinion from a doctor). Even my ustaz, who is an imam at one of the most important masjids here in Singapore, has told us to go ask other people if we felt uncomfortable in any way with what he tells us.
The problem for many North American Muslims, IMO, is that they don't have a lot of the educational institutions that other, more developed Muslim communities have. They have the books and magazines and the Internet to rely upon - and these are a great help - but I think they lack in terms of the qualified imams and ustazs and educational facilities for both children and adults. Still, despite this very fragmentary approach to educating individual Muslims in their deen (religion), the nice thing from my perspective is that, after praying in Allah (swt) knows how many masjids in five countries and on three continents, and having met Muslims from perhaps two dozen different countries to date, I have found there to be a strong unity of beliefs, interpretations and practices of Islam worldwide.
"I have been advised that there is a significant tradition in Islam of "Ijtihad" or the individual Muslim's responsibility and authority to interpret the Qur'an."
Ijtihad is a much broader concept than just trying to interpret the Qur'an. As I mentioned in a previous comment, Islam is considered by Muslims as a way of life. We try to apply Islamic principles in all aspects of our lives. For us, the means are just as important - and perhaps even more important - than the ends. And so you have a major world religion that's created an enormous corpus of law that's known as Shari'ah.
Ijtihad itself is "the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources, the Qur'an and the Sunnah." But even here, ijtihad is not the first resort. The basis for Islamic law, called fiqh (pronounced "fee-kay"), is first the Qur'an, then the Sunnah (which includes the various collections of ahadith, or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)), then qiyas or analogies, and finally ijma or consensus of the scholars. If there is no guidance to answer a question based upon the Qur'an or Sunnah, or through qiyas, only then is ijtihad supposed to be used. But even there, a consensus (or better yet, a unanimous opinion) is sought because Muslims recognize that there are differences of opinion. In such cases, it is better to avoid the extremes and follow the middle path. (Sort of like how figure skating and diving used to be judged: toss out the high and low scores and average or total the remainder.)
In which case, the question becomes, who should be a mujtahid (one who applies ijtahid)? The traditional answer is a scholar of Islamic law, or alim. Liberal Muslims (which I am not) argue that any Muslim should be able to perform ijtahid, but I strongly disagree with this. Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (d. 819), who founded the Shafi'i school of thought, recognized the problem of individual laymen trying to perform ijtihad, who would come up with haphazard opinions. IMO, this is exactly the problem the liberal Muslims are recreating in that perhaps 99.99999% of Muslims worldwide are not qualified to be a scholar who can perform ijtahid.
I bring all this up because I'm trying to say that it is not an "individual Muslim's responsibility and authority to interpret the Qur'an." This is the irony that irritates me with the so-called non-Muslim "Insta-Experts" on Islam. It takes a Muslim years and years of education and training to get to a point where he or she can competently perform ijtihad, whereas these people have little or no education or training and yet they think they're qualified to express an opinion. To analogize, this is like deciding who to see when you have a medical problem: do you visit a qualified doctor or do you go to the person who has little or no education or training? (This analogy is applicable to both the non-Muslim "Insta-Experts" and the liberal Muslims.) What makes it worse from an Islamic perspective is that providing wrong advice compounds the problem (sin) onto the person who provided the faulty information. For example, if you asked me, say, if it were all right for you to have pre-marital sex from an Islamic perspective and I said, "yeah, sure, go ahead," and you did, not only would you accrue the sin of zina (sexual activity outside of marriage), but so would I because I gave you the wrong advice. So, once more, it's better to seek information from the qualified source.
"As you noted, different schools of Islamic thought would seem to offer more ot less authoritative jurisprudence (if that is the right word) on matters of Islamic law and teaching. How do individual Muslims approach this possible tension between individual interpretation and scholarly tradition at the practical human level, i.e. do non-scholarly or non-academic Muslims have rules of thumb on such matters, at the real, practical level?"
The basic, orthodox interpretations of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and life in general as a Muslim are well known and long established; after all, we've had 1400 years to work out most of the "bugs." Media for education are numerous. Most of the primary information is taught in classrooms or through various media (books, magazines, videotapes, the Internet, and so on). When answers to specific questions are needed, Muslims can go to numerous sources. Many people will ask questions of their imams or ustaz (religious teacher). In some countries with significant Muslim populations, there may be some sort of authority that can provide guidance. For example, here in Singapore, we can ask questions to MUIS, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore. And there are numerous sources of information on the Internet who answer specific questions. Of course, with any of these sources (especially the last), it's to our benefit to seek out other opinions (similar to seeking a second opinion from a doctor). Even my ustaz, who is an imam at one of the most important masjids here in Singapore, has told us to go ask other people if we felt uncomfortable in any way with what he tells us.
The problem for many North American Muslims, IMO, is that they don't have a lot of the educational institutions that other, more developed Muslim communities have. They have the books and magazines and the Internet to rely upon - and these are a great help - but I think they lack in terms of the qualified imams and ustazs and educational facilities for both children and adults. Still, despite this very fragmentary approach to educating individual Muslims in their deen (religion), the nice thing from my perspective is that, after praying in Allah (swt) knows how many masjids in five countries and on three continents, and having met Muslims from perhaps two dozen different countries to date, I have found there to be a strong unity of beliefs, interpretations and practices of Islam worldwide.
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