Let me start by underscoring that Islam is Islam, complete and all-encompassing. It does not need to be qualified by a prefix or a postfix. Islam describes itself. When a prefix or a postfix is added it only reduces the horizon of Islam.

What it does is to segment Islam, the very opposite to what it is supposed to achieve. The postfix qualification only further denigrates Islam.

Islam already implores that every Muslim view the religion in a progressive, expansive and inclusive way i.e. in totality, a holism.

Holism emphasises the organic or functional relation between its constituents that make up the whole. That is how Islam should be practised.

Islam commits man to an ethic of action, therefore to progress, advance, and an uplifting life, total and comprehensive. Its totality and comprehensiveness does not segment the world into the sacred and profane, nor does it divide life into religious and secular.

If there is an Islam Hadhari, by implication there is an opposite counterpart, an Islam that is non-Hadhari. Islam is Islam. And there is certainly no Islam 2.0 or an Islam XP.

Qualifying Islam with Hadhari is just like describing Malaysia, as Malaysia XI or Malaysia A, Such variations are not Malaysia, but a lower-ranking Malaysia. Hence, in the same vein, Islam Hadhari is inadvertently a lower-ranking adulterated Islam.

Isn't Hadhari a label? Islam Hadhari has been translated to mean Islamic civilisation, but doesn't that restrict one to only look at Islam only as a civilisation? Islam is a civilisation, yes. Islam is progressive, yes. Islam is modern, yes. Islam is for all eras, yes. They all describe Islam. But they are not equivalent to Islam. They only characterise Islam.

You don't need the Hadhari to re-orientate the way Muslims look at themselves. Why, Islam has never been an impediment to Muslims to move forward. The shift (or shove) needed, is not in the Hadhari.

It is in the rendering, translating and interpreting Islam, but not in the manner the traditional ulama would have us understand it, as rituals and form only. Islam is substantive and holistic, a complete way of life.

Living Islam is not living the segmented constituent parts of Islam, but all in one, as a connected web of life. This is living the dimension of Islam as a holism, and to the Muslim the one and only true Islam. Islam comprehends the whole of life its pattern of thought right through to its behaviour, living within the Islamic dimensions of Iman, Islam, and Ihsan.

Even though we are in the 21st century, there should not be a contemporary Islam, because Islam is always contemporary. For me, Islam is, has always been, and will always be perfect and without qualification.