Malam Itu.......

Angin berpuput bayu. Menerpa ke wajahnya. Terasa kedinginannya. Sedingin persekitaran itu. Dan dia keseorangan di situ. Mencari angin malam. Di puncak bukit, sambil menyaksikan keindahan lampu neon Bukit Damansara dan Bukit Kiara. Terpancar cahaya keindahan, keriangan. Bak pesta tahun baru umpamanya.

Syariff cuba membetulkan duduknya. Takut-takut kalau terjatuh. Ketika itu ada suatu suara menyapanya…….

“Haa you kat sini rupanya. Puas I cari you. Call Kasyah pun dia tak tahu….”
“Owhh…. Terkejut I. Ingatkan sape tadi. Ada apa cari I?”
“Why? I dah tak boleh dah cari you?”
“Haih… Come onlah Liz. I penatlah. And I malas dah nak bertekak dengan you…”
“You ingat I sukalah. You memang selfish. Pentingkan diri sendiri….”
“What??? I pentingkan diri sendiri?? Okaylah now you tell me, siapa yang pentingkan diri sendiri sampai tiba-tiba ajer hilangkan diri? Tak tinggalkan note ke, email ke, apa ke… Siapa??”
“You tak tahu ker your mom jumpa I and asked me to leave you? You tahu ker yang dia marah-marah I, cakap macam-macam kat I? Ader you tahu semua tue??”
“You ingat I tak tahu ke?? I tahulah….. Haih….”

Suasana sunyi seketika. Tanpa sebarang bicara. Masing-masing mendiamkan diri. Untuk meredakan suasana yang tegang sebentar tadi. Sambil cuba untuk menikmati suasana dingin malam itu.

“Okaylah I nak balik dah. Ada kerja nak buat.”
“Iff… I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay. Benda dah lama berlaku. Malas nak fikir.”
“But I still love you…..”
“Allysa, you dah nak kawin dengan Smith lagi dua bulan. You patut lupakan I and apa yang dah berlaku antara you and me. Ok?”
“Hmmmm……”
“I know it’s hard for you. Tapi you mesti ingat, you are going to marry him. Kalau you tinggalkan dia dalam keadaan macam nie, tak kesian ke dia? I know that he loves you so much Liz. And I know that dia akan jadi suami terbaik untuk you. I’m happy for both of you…”
“Tapi Iff…..”
“Dah. Jangan cakap apa-apa. Jom balik. He’s waiting for you. Nanti risau pulak dia. Jom…..”

Allysa kelu, tidak mampu bersuara lagi. Hanya menuruti langkah Syariff menyusuri taman dingin itu untuk pulang. Meninggalkan segalanya di situ……

Homeless

Waiting here

For you to call me

For you to tell me

That everything’s a big mistake

Waiting here

In this rainfall

Feeling so small

This dream was not suppose to break

I’m so sorry now

For the pain I caused you

Wont you please forgive

Please

But you don’t love me anymore

You don’t want me anymore

There’s a sign on your door

No vacancy, just emptiness

Without your love

I’m homeless

In this cold

I’m walking aimless

Feeling helpless

Without a shelter from the storm

In my heart

I miss you so much

Missing your touch

And the bed that used to be so warm

I’m so sorry now

For the pain I caused you

Wont you please forgive

Please

But you don’t love me anymore

You don't want me anymore

There’s a sign on your door

No vacancy, just emptiness

Without your love

I’m homeless

My, My baby

I’m sorry

But you don’t love me anymore

You don't want me anymore

There’s a sign on your door

No vacancy, just emptiness

Without your love

I’m homeless

Kampung Di Tengah Kota....

Setiap kali menyelusuri bahagian tengah Kuala Lumpur pastinya kita tidak dapat mengelak dari melalui kawasan penempatan orang Melayu yang sangat signifikan bagi warga kota iaitu Kampung Baru. Bagi warga kota, terutamanya orang Melayu, Kampung Baru sangat dekat di hati mereka. Ini kerana sukar bagi kita untuk melihat suasana dan pemandangan kehidupan "orang kampung" di tengah- tengah hiruk pikuk kehidupan bandar. Di bandar-bandar lain negara ini kehidupan kampung dengan pengekalan identiti dan budaya yang biasa diamalkan merupakan satu pemandangan biasa.

Namun berbeza dengan Kampung Baru yang dihimpit dengan rentak kemajuan dan arus pemodenan serta pelbagai bangunan pencakar langit dan mercu tanda moden seperti KLCC dan sebagainya. Suasana sebeginilah yang menambahkan lagi keunikannya sebagai sebuah kampung yang tebal dengan budaya dan tradisi Melayu di ibu kota. Sedikit sebanyak arus pemodenan tidak mampu diketepikan oleh penduduk di Kampung Baru. Namun dengan binaan dan kedudukan rumah yang biasa kita lihat di kampung, apatah lagi masih terdapat rumah-rumah yang tetap utuh dengan ciri-ciri tradisional sememangnya sebagai orang Melayu kita patut berbangga dengan semua tradisi yang masih dipertahankan sehingga kini.

Jika kita menyelongkar tentang kehidupan seharian penduduk di kampung ini sememangnya jalinan perhubungan dan semangat kerjasama masih menebal seperti yang biasa kita lihat di kampung-kampung. Soal-soal kemasyarakatan dan perhubungan penduduk setempat seperti kenduri kendara, kematian, hal-ehwal kejiranan dari yang paling remeh sehingga membabitkan soal-soal yang rumit seperti soal tanah dan sebagainya masih lagi menuntut permuafakatan yang jitu antara penduduk. Keperluan bagi penduduknya untuk terus mengikuti aktiviti dan program keagamaan yang berlangsung di masjid dan surau di sini masih tetap menjadi keutamaan penduduknya. Lebih membanggakan setelah tiga atau empat generasi anak Kampung Baru menetap di sini semua mereka masih tetap mengambil berat antara satu sama lain serta sangat sepakat dalam soal-soal membabitkan kampung kesayangan mereka ini.

Kampung Baru sebuah perkampungan rizab Melayu tunggal di tengah-tengah metropolitan Kuala Lumpur adalah seluas 225.89 ekar dan dibentuk oleh tujuh buah kampung iaitu Kampung Periuk, Kampung Pindah, Kampung Hujung Pasir, Kampung Paya, Kampung Masjid, Kampung Atas A dan Kampung Atas B. Terdapat tiga kategori tanah milik Melayu wujud di Kampung Baru iaitu Tanah Simpanan Melayu, Tanah Simpanan Pertanian Melayu dan Tanah Melayu Diberi Milik. Kampung Baru mula dibuka pada tahun 1899 dan digazetkan setahun kemudian. Sebuah lembaga pentadbir khusus untuk Kampung Baru ditubuhkan serentak dengan pembukaannya sebagai Penempatan Tanah Pertanian Melayu atau Malay Agriculture Settlement (MAS) serta bertanggungjawab kepada Residen British ketika itu dalam menguruskan perkara mengenai pentadbiran kampung.

Kampung ini pada awalnya terbentuk apabila sekumpulan orang Melayu yang tinggal di kawasan Sungai Gombak dan Sungai Kelang terpaksa berpindah untuk memberi ruang kepada pembangunan Kuala Lumpur. Bandar ini ketika itu sedang pesat membangun apabila beberapa projek yang kini menjadi ikon sejarah dan seni bina seperti Kelab Diraja Selangor, Bangunan Pejabat Pos Utama, Victoria Institution dan Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad sedang dalam pembinaan. Oleh itu Sultan Selangor ketika itu, Sultan Sulaiman atau Sultan Alauddin Sulaiman Syah bin Raja Muda Musa telah memperuntuk sebuah kawasan di tepi Sungai Kelang untuk orang Melayu berpindah dan MAS diwartakan pada 1 Jan 1900.

Menurut Setiausaha Kehormat Lembaga MAS, Shamsuri Suradi, MAS diwujudkan untuk memindahkan orang Melayu yang menghuni pinggir Sungai Gombak dan Sungai Kelang walaupun ketika itu mereka aktif dalam kegiatan perniagaan dan perlombongan. Ini kerana British berpendapat orang Melayu wajar bergiat dalam sektor pertanian dan dengan menempatkan orang Melayu di sebuah kampung khas akan memudahkan anak-anak Melayu menerima pendidikan dan mengambil bahagian dalam pentadbiran. Ini sekali gus memberi peluang kepada penduduk Melayu untuk menikmati sebahagian daripada kemakmuran Kuala Lumpur ketika itu yang kaya dengan bijih timah.

MAS telah dipertanggungjawabkan untuk mentadbir kampung ini dengan kuasa yang luas antaranya melulus dan menetapkan perjanjian pemberian lot rumah dan pelan bangunan, menyimpan butiran pertukaran serta mengawalselia keselamatan dan kegiatan penduduk. Selain itu MAS turut mempunyai kuasa untuk memberi kebenaran hanya kepada orang Melayu untuk tinggal di sini dengan luas kawasan kediaman tidak melebihi setengah ekar seorang. MAS turut berkuasa mengusir penduduk yang tidak patuh dengan peraturan serta mereka yang mampu memberi ancaman dan dianggap berbahaya kepada penduduk. Menurut Shamsuri, anggota lembaga MAS pada peringkat awal terdiri dari kalangan pegawai tinggi penjajah dan kerabat diraja (Raja Muda Selangor pada asalnya menjadi Yang Dipertua) sehinggalah selepas Perang Dunia Kedua. Di bawah pemerintahan Jepun barulah beberapa orang penduduk Kampung Baru dilantik menganggotai lembaga itu.

Pada masa sekarang, tujuh orang wakil yang dipanggil ahli jemaah dari tujuh buah kampung di sini telah dilantik untuk menganggotai lembaga MAS. Ahli jemaah ini boleh dianggap sebagai penghulu di setiap kampung berkenaan. Beberapa buah kampung kecil seperti Kampung Manggis dan Kampung Sungai Baru turut digabungkan ke dalam Kampung Baru selain beberapa kampung setinggan, iaitu Kampung Limau, Kampung Cendana dan Kampung Paya Baru. Namun disebabkan semua urusan pentadbiran tanah adalah hak lembaga tadbir MAS, ia tidak dapat memenuhi harapan tuan tanah yang berhasrat membangunkan kawasan ini kerana mereka tidak memegang apa-apa surat hak milik yang boleh diurusniagakan hinggalah pada tahun 1960-an.

Bagaimanapun Menteri Besar Selangor ketika itu, Datuk Harun Idris yang menjadi pengerusi MAS telah berjaya mengusahakan geran hak milik tanah bagi penduduk kampung ini. Sejarah Kampung Baru ini jika ingin dihuraikan mungkin terlalu panjang apatah lagi pelbagai peristiwa dan cacatan yang amat bersejarah telah berlaku sejak dari awal penubuhannya. Pada peringkat awal kebanyakan jalan-jalan yang terdapat di sini dinamakan dengan nama Inggeris dan pastinya ia dianggap sebagai pelik pada ketika itu apatah lagi Kampung Baru sendiri merupakan penempatan terbesar orang Melayu.

Sebagai contoh Jalan Raja Alang yang sangat terkenal dengan Bazar Ramadan sebelum ini dikenali sebagai Perkins Road. Hale Road yang dinamakan sempena seorang pentadbir British di zaman penjajah kini bernama Jalan Raja Abdullah, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz di tengah-tengah Kampung Baru dikenali sebagai Princess Road manakala Jalan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman pula pernah dikenali sebagai Stony Road.

Kelab Sultan Sulaiman yang terletak di Kampung Baru merupakan kelab orang Melayu tertua di Malaysia dan semenjak penubuhannya pada 1909, ia telah menyaksikan pelbagai catatan dan peristiwa penting negara. Pada peringkat awalnya penduduk Kampung Baru sering mengadakan perjumpaan di sebuah pondok di sini yang dibina secara gotong-royong. Bangunan baru yang dinamakan Dewan Sultan Sulaiman kemudian didirikan dengan kerja sama antara Kerajaan Persekutuan dan Kerajaan Negeri Selangor. Ia dirasmikan oleh Timbalan Perdana Menteri Tun Abdul Razak pada 30 April 1969.

Bangunan ini telah menyaksikan pelbagai rakaman dan peristiwa bersejarah yang penting untuk orang antaranya Kongres Melayu Pertama pada 1 hingga 4 Mac 1946 yang membawa kepada penubuhan Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Bersatu (UMNO) yang akhirnya telah mencetuskan gerakan menuntut kemerdekaan. Walaupun sesak dengan pelbagai kepesatan dan bangunan pencakar langit serta lebih dikenali sebagai syurga pusat makanan berbanding keunikannya sebagai sebuah perkampungan Melayu, namun ini tidak menghalang penduduk Kampung Baru dari terus ditenggelami pembangunan.

Secara umumnya penduduk Kampung Baru tidak menolak pembangunan kerana mereka menyedari pembanguan itu adalah sesuatu yang perlu pada era moden sekarang. Namun apa yang dikesali mereka dalam keghairahan mengejar pemodenan, mereka terasa dipinggirkan dan teraniaya dengan tindakan beberapa pihak yang dilihat tamak dalam mengusai kekayaan di sini.

Apatah lagi dengan beberapa insiden penipuan yang pernah berlaku sehingga menganiaya kehidupan mereka telah mengakibatkan mereka berasa serik dengan semua ini. Memang benar terdapat banyak jalan dan kaedah penyelesaian dalam menguruskan tanah yang bernilai lebih RM4 bilion ini namun yang ditakuti mereka ialah adakah semua kaedah ikhlas dan benar-benar menguntungkan mereka? Atau apakah ia akhirnya akan menjadi seperti kampung-kampung Melayu lain di Kuala Lumpur yang akhirnya tergadai hanya atas nama pembangunan.

Apa yang perlu ialah kesungguhan dan keikhlasan dalam membantu penduduk Kampung Baru ini sebagai pemilik asal tanah di tengah kota metropolitan. Jika tidak mungkin lebih baik ia dikekalkan sahaja seperti sekarang sekurang-kurangnya sebagai satu penanda sejarah bahawa satu ketika dahulu nenek moyang kita merupakan pemilik asal semua tanah di ibu kota ini.

Buku dan 'Ilmu

Baru kembali dari Pesta Buku Antarabangsa. Gembira yang teramat sangat. Kerna banyak buku ‘ilmiah yang aku cari ada di sana. Kesudahannya aku yang merana. Kerna melayang wang membeli buku-buku tersebut :D

Are We Human?

Before we can speak of human responsibilities or rights, one must answer the basic religious and philosophical question, “What does it mean to be human?” In today’s world everyone speaks of human rights and the sacred character of human life, and many secularists even claim that they are the true champions of human rights as against those who accept various religious worldviews. But strangely enough, often those same champions of humanity believe that human beings are nothing more than evolved apes, who in turn evolved from lower life forms and ultimately from various compounds of molecules. If the human being is nothing but the result of ‘blind forces’ acting upon the original cosmic soup of molecules, then is not the very statement of the sacredness of human life intellectually meaningless and nothing but a hollow sentimental expression? Is not human dignity nothing more than a conveniently contrived notion without basis in reality? And if we are nothing but highly organized inanimate particles, what is the basis for claims to “human rights?” These basic questions know no geographic boundaries and are asked by thinking people everywhere.

Christianity in the West has sought to answer them on the firm theological basis that “human beings were created in the image of God” and it is the immortal soul and the spark of the Spirit within men and women that constitutes the basis for human dignity, the sacredness of human life, and ultimately human rights. In fact, many Christian thinkers, both Catholic and Protestant, as well as Jewish thinkers insist that human dignity is based on the Divine Imprint upon the human soul and that historically in the West the idea of human rights, even in its secularized version, is derived from the religious conception of the human state.

For Islam, likewise, human beings are defined in their relation to God, and both their responsibilities and rights derive from that relationship. As we all know, Islam believes that God breathed His Spirit into Adam and according to the famous hadith, “God created Adam in His form.” The word ‘form’ means the reflection of God’s Names and Qualities. Human being, therefore, reflect the Divine Attributes like a mirror, which reflect the light of the Sun. By the virtue of being created as this central being in the terrestrial realm, the human being was chosen by God as His vicegerent (khalīfat Allāh) as well as His servant (‘abd Allāh). As servants human beings must remain in total obedience to God and in perfect receptivity before what their Creator wills for them. As vicegerent they must be active in the world to do God’s Will here on earth.

The Islamic conception of insān, or man, as the anthropos encompassing both male and female sates, can be summed up as the wedding of these two qualities in him. But God has also given human beings free will, in which it means that they can rebel against their own primordial nature and become active against Heaven and passive to their own lower nature and the world of senses, so that not all human beings remain God’s servants and vicegerents. In fact, the perfection of these passive and active modes belongs to the prophets and saints alone. Nevertheless all human beings possess dignity, and their lives are sacred because of that primordial nature, which all the progeny of Adam and Eve carry deep within themselves.

Throughout Islamic history many philosophical, theological and mystical discussions have taken place about this issue, but one basic element with which all schools of Islamic thought and ordinary believers agree is the truth that God is our Creator, or, philosophically speaking, the ontological cause of our existence. It is therefore we who owe everything to Him and our rights derive from fulfilling our responsibilities towards Him and obeying His Will.

To understand our relation to God, we must first ask what God wants of us. The Quran makes this demand clear when it states, “I have not created the jinn and humanity except to worship Me” (51: 56); also “Verily I, I am God. There is no God save Me. So worship Me and establish prayers for My remembrance” (20: 14). The word “worship” (‘ibādah) in Arabic also means ‘service.’ To worship God is also to serve Him. Many interpretations have been given of the term ‘ibādah by commentators; its meaning ranges from ordinary acts of worship to loving and knowing God. The purpose of human existence is considered by Islam to be the worship and service of God, and only in carrying out the aim and purpose of our existence are we fully human. Otherwise, although we carry the human reality within ourselves, we fall short of it and live beneath the fully human state.

Taking Back My Love

Go ahead

Just leave

Can’t hold you, you’re free

You take all these things

If they mean so much to you

I gave you your dreams

Cause you meant the world

So did I deserve to be left in hurt

So you think I don’t know

You’re out of control

And then I find all this from my boys

Girl you said I’m cold

You saving souls

You’re already know

I’m not a touching material

I give it all up, but I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’ve giving you too much

But I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love, my love, my love, my love, my love

What did I do?

But give up to you

I’m just confused

As I stand here look at you

From head to feet

Always about me

Go ahead keep your keys

Its not what I need from you

You think that’s enough

You made your self cold

How could you believe

Your more then me

I'm your girl

You’re out of control

How could you let go

Don’t you know I'm not touching material

I give it all up, but I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’ve giving you too much

But I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love, my love, my love, my

So all this love, I gave you take it away

You think material is the reason I came

If I have nothing what do u want me to say?

You take your money you take it all away

I give it all up, but I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love

I’ve giving you too much

But I’m taking back my love

I’m taking back my love, my love, my love, my

Buat Mereka Yang Amat Ku Sayangi.......

To my dearly beloved father – late Haji Md. Yassin bin Basar – for his never ending love and affection and to my much-loved nephew – Luqman Harith bin Jamshid – who will grow up in the new millennium, the age where knowledge triumph……..


Note: I have completed my M.A. dissertation and the result is……… :D

Ucapan Tahniah.....

Jutaan tahniah diucapkan kepada YB Datuk Razali Haji Ibrahim, Naib Ketua Pemuda UMNO Malaysia, merangkap ahli parlimen Barisan Nasional Muar, diatas pelantikan baliau selaku Timbalan Menteri Belia dan Sukan. Semoga amanah yang tergalas di bahu YB Datuk Razali dapat dilaksanakan dengan penuh rasa kebertanggungjawaban dan tawaddu’ kepada Allah s.w.t.

The Meaning and Concept of Philosophy in Islam

In the light of the Qur’an and Hadith in both of which the term hikmah has been used, Muslim authorities belonging to different schools of thought have sought over the ages to define the meaning of hikmah as well as falsafah, a term which entered Arabic through the Greek translations of the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries. On the one hand what is called philosophy in English must be sought in the context of Islamic civilization not only in the various schools of Islamic philosophy but also in schools bearing other names, especially kalam, ma’rifah, usul al-fiqh as well as the awa’il sciences, not to speak of such subjects as grammar and history which developed particular branches of philosophy. On the other hand each school of thought sought to define what is meant by hikmah or falsafah according to its own perspective and this question has remained an important concern of various schools of Islamic thought especially as far as the schools of Islamic philosophy are concerned.

During Islamic history, the terms used for Islamic philosophy as well as the debates between the philosophers, the theologians and sometimes the Sufis as to the meaning of these terms varied to some extent from one period to another but not completely. Hikmah and falsafah continued to be used while such terms as al-hikmat al-ilahiyyah and al-hikmat al-muta’aliyah gained new meaning and usage in later centuries of Islamic history, especially in the school of Mulla Sadra. The term over which there was the greatest debate was hikmah, which was claimed by the Sufis and mutakallimun as well as the philosophers, all appealing to such Hadith as “The acquisition of hikmah is incumbent upon you and the good resides in hikmah.” Some Sufis such as Tirmidhi were called hakim and Ibn Arabi refers to the wisdom which has been unveiled through each manifestation of the logos as hikmah as seen in the very title of his masterpiece Fusus al-hikam, while many mutakallimun such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi claimed that kalam and not falsafah was hikmah, Ibn Khaldun confirming this view in calling the later kalam (kalam al-muta’akhkhirin) philosophy or hikmah.

Our discussion in this chapter is concerned, however, primarily with the Islamic philosophers’ understanding of the definition and meaning of the concept of philosophy and the terms hikmah and falsafah. This understanding includes of course what the Greeks had comprehended by the term philosophia and many of the definitions from Greek sources which were to find their way into Arabic sometimes with only slight modifications. Some of the definitions of Greek origin most common among Islamic philosophers are as follows:

1. Philosophy (al falsafah) is the knowledge of all existing things qua existents (ashya’ al-maujudah bi ma hiya maujudah).

2. Philosophy is knowledge of divine and human matters.

3. Philosophy is taking refuge in death, that is, love of death.

4. Philosophy is becoming God-like to the extent of human ability.

5. It [philosophy] is the art (sind’ah) of arts and the science (ilm) of sciences.

6. Philosophy is predilection for hikmah.

The Islamic philosophers meditated upon these definitions of falsafah which they inherited from ancient sources and which they identified with the Qur’anic term hikmah believing the origin of hikmah to be divine. The first of the Islamic philosophers, Abu Ya’qub al-Kindi wrote in his On First Philosophy, “Philosophy is the knowledge of the reality of things within people’s possibility, because the philosopher’s end in theoretical knowledge is to gain truth and in practical knowledge to behave in accordance with truth.” Al-Farabi, while accepting this definition, added the distinction between philosophy based on certainty (al-yaqiniyyah) hence demonstration and philosophy based on opinion (al-maznunah), hence dialectic and sophistry, and insisted that philosophy was the mother of the sciences and dealt with everything that exists.

Ibn Sina again accepted these earlier definitions while making certain precisions of his own. In his ‘Uyun al-hikmah he says “Al-hikmah [which he uses as being the same as philosophy] is the perfection of the human soul through conceptualization [tasawwur] of things and judgment [tasdiq] of theoretical and practical realities to the measure of human ability.” But, he went further in later life to distinguish between Peripatetic philosophy and what he called “Oriental philosophy” (al-hikmat almashriqi’yah) which was not based on ratiocination alone but included realized knowledge and which set the stage for the hikmat al-ishraq of Suhrawardi. Ibn Sina’s foremost student Bahmanyar meanwhile identified falsafah closely with the study of existents as Ibn Sina had done in his Peripatetic works such as the Shifa’ repeating the Aristotelian dictum that philosophy is the study of existents qua existents. Bahmanyar wrote in the introduction to his Tahlil, “The aim of the philosophical sciences is knowledge of existents.”

Isma’ili and Hermetico-Pythagorean thought, which paralleled in development the better-known Peripatetic philosophy but with a different philosophical perspective, nevertheless gave definitions of philosophy not far removed from those of the Peripatetics, emphasizing perhaps even more the relation between the theoretical aspect of philosophy and its practical dimension, between thinking philosophically and leading a virtuous life. This nexus, which is to be seen in all schools of earlier Islamic philosophy, became even more evident from Suhrawardi onward and the hakim came to be seen throughout Islamic society not as someone who could only discuss mental concepts in a clever manner but as one who also lived according to the wisdom which he knew theoretically. The modern Western idea of the philosopher never developed in the Islamic world and the ideal stated by the Ikhwan al-Safa’ who lived in the fourth/tenth century and who were contemporary with Ibn Sina was to echo ever more loudly over the ages wherever Islamic philosophy was cultivated. The Ikhwan wrote, “The beginning of philosophy (falsafah) is the love of the sciences, its middle knowledge of the realities of existents to the measure of human ability and its end words and deeds in accordance with knowledge.”

With Suhrawardi we enter not only a new period but also another realm of Islamic philosophy. The founder of a new intellectual perspective in Islam, Suhrawardi used the term hikmat al-ishraq rather than falsafat al-ishraq for both the title of his philosophical masterpiece and the school which he inaugurated. The ardent student of Suhrawardi and the translator of Hikmat al-ishraq into French, Henry Corbin, employed the term theosophie rather than philosophy to translate into French the term hikmah as understood by Suhrawardi and later sages such as Mulla Sadra, and we have also rendered al-hikmat al-muta aliyah of Mulla Sadra into English as “transcendent theosophy” and have sympathy for Corbin’s translation of the term. There is of course the partly justified argument that in recent times the term “theosophy” has gained pejorative connotations in European languages, especially English, and has become associated with occultism and pseudo-esoterism.

Philosophy also suffers from limitations imposed upon it by those who have practised it during the past few centuries. If Hobbes, Hume and Ayer are philosophers, then those whom Suhrawardi calls hukama’ are not philosophers and vice versa. The narrowing of the meaning of philosophy, the divorce between philosophy and spiritual practice in the West and especially the reduction of philosophy to either rationalism or empiricism necessitate making a distinction between the meaning given to hikmah by a Suhrawardi or Mulla Sadra and the purely mental activity called philosophy in certain circles in the West today. The use of the term theosophy to render this later understanding of the term hikmah is based on the older and time-honoured meaning of this term in European intellectual history as associated with such figures as Jakob Bohme and not as the term became used in the late thirteenth/nineteenth century by some British occultists. Be that as it may, it is important to emphasize the understanding that Suhrawardi and all later Islamic philosophers have of hikmah as primarily al-hikmat al-ildhiyyah (literally divine wisdom or theosophia) which must be realized within one’s whole being and not only mentally. Suhrawardi saw this hikmah as being present also in ancient Greece before the advent of Aristotelian rationalism and identifies hikmah with coming out of one’s body and ascending to the world of lights, as did Plato. Similar ideas are to be found throughout his works, and he insisted that the highest level of hikmah requires both the perfection of the theoretical faculty and the purification of the soul.

With Mulla Sadra, one finds not only a synthesis of various earlier schools of Islamic thought but also a synthesis of the earlier views concerning the meaning of the term and concept philosophy. At the beginning of the Asfar he writes, repeating verbatim and summarizing some of the earlier definitions, “falsafah is the perfecting of the human soul to the extent of human ability through the knowledge of the essential reality of things as they are in themselves and through judgment concerning their existence established upon demonstration and not derived from opinion or through imitation.” And in al-Shawdhid al-rububiyyah he adds, “[through hikmah] man becomes an intelligible world resembling the objective world and similar to the order of universal existence.”

In the first book of the Air dealing with being, Mulla Sadra discusses extensively the various definitions of hikmah, emphasizing not only theoretical knowledge and “becoming an intelligible world reflecting the objective intelligible world” but also detachment from passions and purification of the soul from its material defilements or what the Islamic philosophers call tajarrud or catharsis. Mulla Sadra accepts the meaning of hikmah as understood by Suhrawardi and then expands the meaning of falsafah to include the dimension of illumination and realization implied by the Sufi understanding of the term. For him as for his contemporaries, as well as most of his successors, falsafah or philosophy was seen as the supreme science of ultimately divine origin, derived from “the niche of prophecy” and the hukama’ as the most perfect of human beings standing in rank only below the prophets and Imams.

This conception of philosophy as dealing with the discovering of the truth concerning the nature of things and combining mental knowledge with the purification and perfection of one’s being has lasted to this day wherever the tradition of Islamic philosophy has continued and is in fact embodied in the very being of the most eminent representatives of the Islamic philosophical tradition to this day. Such fourteenth/twentieth century masters as Mirth Ahmad Ashtiyani, the author of Ndmayi rahbardn-i dmuzish-i kitdb-i takwin (Treatise of the Guides to the Teaching of the Book of Creation); Sayyid Muhammad Kazim ‘Ansar, author of many treatises including Wahdat al-wujud (The Transcendent Unity of Being); Mahdi Ilahi Qumsha’i, author of Hikmat-i ildhi khwdss wa amm (Philosophy/Theosophy - General and Particular) and Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i, author of numerous treatises especially Usul-i falsafa-yi ri dliym (Principles of the Philosophy of Realism) all wrote of the definition of philosophy along lines mentioned above and lived accordingly. Both their works and their lives were testimony not only to over a millennium of concern by Islamic philosophers as to the meaning of the concept and the term philosophy but also to the significance of the Islamic definition of philosophy as that reality which transforms both the mind and the soul and which is ultimately never separated from spiritual purity and ultimately sanctity that the very term hikmah implies in the Islamic context.

Jiwaku Kabut.....

Mungkin betul kata orang, kalau kita gembira jangan gembira keterlaluan. Nanti ada padahnya. Dan inilah yang sedang aku alami…

Aku amat gembira dua hari yang lalu kerna beberapa perkara, samada yang telah pasti ataupun belum pasti lagi. Namun perkara yang berlaku kelmarin benar-benar menguji diriku. Menghentak aku ke tepi, menekan aku dari seluruh arah sudut. Dan akhirnya aku terpana. Terkesima. Kelu seribu bahasa. Tiada jawapan yang dapat aku berikan…..

Baru sebentar tadi aku mendodoikan Harith tidur. Setelah merengek kepenatan bermain kereta kesukaannya. Dan sekarang aku sedang menikmati angin pantai berpuput bayu. Menerpa wajahku. Bermain-main dengan anak rambutku. Berusaha mencari jawapan bagi apa yang telah berlaku……


Nota:
Buat abang Hisham & kak Nadia, abang Syahrul & kak Nurul dan abang Zarul & kak Ika, terima kasih untuk nasihat-nasihat anda. Akan saya pertimbangkan semuanya.

Buat Ken & Eve, Vincent & ‘Aisyah, Simon & Lily, Jerry dan Kelvin, korang toksah risau ahh. Aku okay kat sini. Cuma perlu masa untuk bersendirian. Nanti apa-apa aku sms korang.