Thursday 18 March 2010

The Integration

Bismillahirahmanirrahim

Actually i have to discuss some Quranic verse on Thursday in this entry, but i dont have any idea to choose suitable verses for this week. In the mood of confusing and scaring to end this semester, i'm also happy for the acceptance of Department of Quran & Sunnah on my thesis title and they already had a meeting to discuss my thesis proposal. I already made some correction as mentioned by my supervisor, and i thank him for his awareness to the small mistakes done by me under his supervision. I'm just waiting for another meeting under Kulliyah IRKHS to approve my thesis proposal before i start thesis writing.


As the title written above, the general view of my thesis is about the integration of society. The integration as defined in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Science is "a process by which individuals and groups come to interact freely and equally in society regardless of skin colour distinctions. There will be no systematic or institutional discrimination exists against the members of any racial groups in a racially integrated society". The main focus in this concept is the plural society with different backgrounds, religions, customs, cultures, and lifestyles.

Allah mentioned in the Quran:"O people! surely We have created you of a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other surely the most honorable of you with Allah is the one among you most careful (of his duty);..." shows that HE created men of different ethnic groups, tribes, cultures, and languages, so that they can know each other with a perfect reason to appreciate His diverse creation in this whole universe. This verses will be a strong argument to support the concept of Integration of society.

The issue arrised when W. Montgomery Watt wrote a book entitled Islam and the Integration of Society, where it contains a discussion on the integration of Islamic society in terms of political life, social life, and intellectual life. It insists that Islam brings unity to human kind and illustrates the integration of society in Makkah, Madinah, and the rest of Arabia in an interesting way. He saw that the integration of society as brought by Islam will be a good example for mankind to be integrated and live in a peaceful conexistence among different societies.

In addition to all discussion on the integration of society, i will focus on two important societies; Madinan society and Malaysian society, and will not include other societies in discussing the integration of society from Sunnah perspectives. These two societies will also be analyzed in two different times, where the study on Madinan society focuses at the time of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), while Malaysian society is studied in the past and present time. As a secondary source, hadÊth plays an important role in supporting, explaining, and clarifying the Quranic verses, and as everybody knows that Qur’Én and hadÊth both are the main sources in Islam and they complete each other. Thus, the researcher will analyze this study based on Sunnah perspectives only without neglecting the Qur’Én, generally because Prophetic traditions usually supplied the details, either by showing in his practice or by giving an explanation in words.

I will not discuss further because the main idea which mentioned here is the general thought on my thesis to complete two years postgraduate in IIUM. Any supporting information are warmly appreciated and sincerely welcomed from the reader..

I end this entry with a beautiful hadith by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "Everyone will be with those whom he loves." (Hadith Bukhari 8.189, Narrated Abdullah)


Wallahua'lam bissawab..

Wassalam

Saadah Khair

Lab IRK, 3.30pm, 18 March 2010

No comments:

Post a Comment