on international solidarity

These past few days, the Intelligence Bureau at Reflective Perspectives (with only one staff member -.-) has been picking up almost similar snapshots of the public mood..yes, this intelligence source is none other than Facebook:

"congratz malaysia!!"

"see, indonesia can't play!"

which sometimes degrades into..

"indonesians are dishonest"

"indonesians are creating a facebook page to condemn malaysians.."

"..please, don't respond to these provocations, this is a conspiracy to split muslims."

I'd like to give a gold star to that last commenter.

At the beginning of the 20th century, old empires started to crumble and lose their power. These were vast empires with control over huge territory, like the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Prussian Empire. Another important characteristic of these empires was that they ruled over a multi-ethnic society.

For example, the Ottoman Empire didn't just consist of Turks. There were Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, and so on.

For the empires of Islam, what binded all of inhabitants together was islamic brotherhood, eventhough there was sometimes fighting amongst the rulers. This was what enabled to Ibn Battuta to travel far and wide throughout Dar-ul-Islam, the Muslim Lands.

But towards the end, islam and islamic principles no longer took centre stage in people's hearts. So people began to have a feeling that you're only my brother if you have my skin colour and speak my language.

Add that to a whole lot of other reasons, and the empires began to crumble into small nation states. So now there was Syria for Syrians, Turkey for Turks, and so on.

This happened throughout the muslim lands.

And there was Malaysia for Malaysians and Indonesia for Indonesians. There was a lot of nationalist sentiment all around. soulless nasionalism.

That things could degrade to such a level is a shame. Take the malay archipelago, for example. When Malacca was invaded by the Portuguese, the islamic Sultanate of Aceh and the Sultanate of Demak in Java tried to repel the invaders. Aceh and Java are in present-day Indonesia.

There is even a malay proverb,

"Kalau roboh Kota Melaka,
papan di Jawa kami tegakkan."
(If the city of Melaka crumbles, we will build a new one in Java)

International islamic solidarity.

'Umar ra had it right when he said,
"We were a humiliated people, and Allah gave us honour through islam. If we tried to seek honour through other ways, Allah would humiliate us again."

Allah also says in the Quran;

إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ فَأَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَ أَخَوَيْكُمْ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ

"The believers are nothing else than brothers (in Islâmic religion). So make reconciliation between your brothers, and fear Allâh, that you may receive mercy." (Al Hujurat:10)


The history i present to you today is simplified, to know more there are lots of good books to read. But the main thing is,