As I have argued in Part I of this article, the use of the term kafir/s in Malaysia has to be understood against the backdrop of a society where sectarian politics has become the norm and where racial divisions have become deeply entrenched in the Malaysian mindset.

This is a land that is already 'blessed' by the flagrant use of racist terms and epithets such as

'Malayu Kampung'

, 'Cina Babi' , 'Keling Pariah' , 'Bayee' , 'Celup' , 'Mamak' and other such colourful phrases that underlie what a diverse and multi-racist society we are.

Now on top of that we have the 'kafir-Muslim' divide, to add more confusion and antipathy to our over-filled plate of common woes.

Now the concept of kafir/s is and has always been a culturally and historically determined concept that has evolved over time and according to circumstances.

While the early Muslim community was undoubtedly the target of numerous campaigns to slander and demonise them, efforts were made by the early Muslims to establish cordial relations between themselves and the Other.

Early Muslim scholarship particularly in the field of tassawuf argued for an understanding of identity and difference that did not necessarily frame the Other in negative oppositional terms.

So when and how did this hostile view of the non-Muslim Other arise and more importantly, why does it endure? Here again a step back in history would prove useful for our enquiry.

The Other's contribution

It should be noted that in the first centuries of Islam Muslim-Other relations were quite good: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others moved into the orbit of Islamic civilisation as Muslim power was projected beyond the narrow confines of the Arab lands and well into Europe, Africa and Asia.

Another factor that Muslims today tend to forget is the fact that the non-Muslim contribution to Islamic civilisation was more than significant: While the early Arab Muslims were keen to learn, develop and innovate the ideas that they received from other societies, it remains a fact that those societies had contributed significantly to the rich intellectual and cultural tapestry of Muslim culture as well.

Where would Islamic civilisation be had it not been for the contribution of the Indians, Persians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Africans and Europeans?

It was this openness and exposure to other civilisational traditions that helped to bolster the pluralist culture that was inherent in Muslim society itself. It does not come as a surprise if the early Muslims could deal with other societies in a meaningful way then, because they were equally relaxed about the internal differences within their community itself.

Contemporary Islamist activists and intellectuals often quote the example of the 'golden age' of Islam, but it should be remembered that this was also the golden age of pluralism and diversity within Islam as well: Muslim society was heterodox, plural and diverse, with a plethora of different schools of thought, intellectual traditions and a relatively healthy climate for tolerance of diverse opinions.

The Pharisees were, of course, already there and this narrow tradition could be traced back to the early Khwarajites who claimed that they and only they were the good and proper 'authentic' Muslims while the rest were hypocrites and deviants. But this group was mainly ignored or treated like the quacks and bigots they deserved to be.

However Islamic civilisation, like all other civilisations, was not immune to the vicissitudes of politics. By the 12-13th century, the Muslim world was faced with a new challenge that eventually overcame them and paved the way for their eventual decline: the Mongol invasions.

The Mongols pillaged and burned their way across Central Asia and they left little in their wake.

When Hulagu Khan and his troops sacked the city of Baghdad in 1258, thousands of books were burnt, scholars were put to the sword and the intellectual patrimony of an entire civilisation was laid to waste.

The kafirs had breached the gates of Dar'ul Islam, and with this came the closing of the Muslim mind.

In the face of the Mongol onslaught the Muslim world reacted to the crisis by producing some of the most reactionary, conservative, and ultimately xenophobic thinkers of its intellectual tradition.

Fearing the Other

Chief among them then was the Hanbalite scholar Taqial-din ibn Taymiyya who lived between the years 1263 to 1328. Living as he did at a time when the Muslim lands were under threat from Mongol and Christian invaders, ibn Taymiyya's views on law, politics, society and relations with other non-Muslim communities reflected a deep sense of fear and insecurity about the Other.

Till today he is still regarded as one of the most defensive and reactionary scholars in the history of classical Sunni Muslim thought.(1)

Ibn Taymiyya was constantly fearful of external threats to Islam and Muslims. Much of his writings concentrated on the need for Muslims to defend themselves and their faith at whatever cost. He once stated that if the kafir enemy hides behind a Muslim and uses the Muslim as a shield it becomes the duty of other Muslims to kill the kafir, even if it means killing the Muslim human shield in the process.(2)

He advocated the separation of Muslims from non-Muslims, and called on Muslims to withdraw from contact with others lest they be contaminated by their influence. This exclusive and defensive attitude led to a culture of paranoia and over-protectiveness among his followers and adherents, and ibn Taymiyya's constant calls for the 'purification' of Islam and Muslim practices contributed to the practice of takfir (accusing other Muslims of being kafirs) among his followers.

Fazlur Rahman (1979) has noted that ibn Taymiyya did not have a large following during his own lifetime and his influence did not lead to the creation of a specific movement. But in the centuries that followed other Islamist groups from the Hanbalite tradition would take up his ideas and put them to work, the most notable being the Wahabbis of the Arabian Peninsula.

Many other conservative and radical Islamist movements like the Ahl-i Hadith and Ikhwan'ul Muslimun also trace this intellectual lineage back to him and his ideas were later put to use by radical Islamist activists like Sayyid Qutb, who formulated a revolutionary Islamist ideology of resistance which did not balk at the use of violence when it became necessary.

The more pluralist and open tradition of Islamic thought and praxis managed to survive elsewhere, notably in the non-Arab Muslim kingdoms such as Ottoman Turkey and Moghul India.

For centuries the Turks and Moghuls tried to maintain a fragile consensus between Muslims and other communities, though in time and thanks to their own military, political and economic decline they too succumbed to the lure of chauvinist communitarian politics and religious self-righteousness.

The 'evil Kafir'

The political manipulation and deployment of the trope of the 'evil kafir' therefore has a long history to it: it dates back to the period of the decline of Muslim power and since then has been a constant feature of scores of conspiracy theories trying to explain the decline of Muslim communities the world over.

The trope of the 'evil Jew' is but one manifestation of this phenomenon, but the problem goes deeper: as long as Muslims cannot get to grips with the question of identity and difference, and as long as Muslim identity is predicated on a dialectical understanding of 'Us' against 'them', 'in-group' versus 'out-group', these violent borders and hierarchies will remain.

We who live in wonderful, colourful, fascinating Malaysia that is 'truly Asia' as the tourism ads remind us should be familiar with this phenomenon by now.

Our leaders, particularly those from the Malay-Muslim parties Umno and PAS have dished out some gems for us to chew on over the years. Thus far we have been warned about the 'hook-nosed jews' who are out to swindle us, the ' towkay Cina ' who come to the country to grab its wealth, and the evil kafirs who are bent on destroying Muslims wherever they find them.

Just recently (on Oct 29) there was an uproar in the Dewan Rakyat (Lower House) when the parliamentary secretary of the Prime Minister's Department Noh Omar claimed that opposition party DAP could be seen as 'kafir harbi', while MCA Umno's stalwart ally was described in marginally less offensive terms as 'kafir zimmi' whom Umno could work with.(3)

This led to an immediate protest by DAP MPs, who probably did not take too kindly to being referred to as kafirs be it of the harbi or zimmi variety. (For some the distinction may not seem so important as in the end it is the designation of the Other as kafir that matters.

One is reminded of the not-too-clear distinction between 'good niggers' and 'bad niggers' so often used by slave owners in the American south up to the 19th century.)

Not to be outdone, PAS leaders like Mahfuz Omar, Mohamad Sabu, Syed Azman and Abdul Fatah Harun took to the floor to defend their DAP counterparts.

While this author for one applauds the actions of the PAS leaders indeed, they did what was morally necessary and expected of them one also hopes that they will practice what they preach and show the same courage and moral rectitude when dealing with the kafir-bashers in their midst.

They need not look any further than their own spiritual leader, Nik Aziz, who once said: ' Semua orang kafir di muka dunia ini jahat belaka - tidak ada seorang kafir yang baik. Maksiat yang berlaku di dunia ini sama ada oleh orang kafir ataupun fasik. '

(All the kafirs in this world are evil - there is no such thing as a good kafir. And all the vice that is committed in the world is due to them, the kafir or the fasiq.) (4)

The leaders of Islamic parties and movements may speak the language of democracy and human rights today (especially when they have to confront liberal KL-ites in that den of liberal tolerance, Bangsar), but in private and during their in-house meetings and ceramah before their rural Malay constituencies, they continue to scare the living daylights out of their poor Malay-Muslim followers by ranting on about the perfidious Christians and others who are trying to secretly convert the Muslims by the thousands.

A dangerous trend

It should be clear by now that the political deployment and instrumental usage of the term kafir is sadly pervasive in Malaysia. What is more as Islam becomes more and more politicised the use of such terms will be on the increase, as the signifiers 'Islam' and 'Muslim' are used as sectarian markers in a politics of communitarianism designed to protect, uphold and project the interests of a specific religious community above and beyond all else.

Thanks to the artificial linkage between Malay identity and Muslim identity that was introduced in the Federal Constitution, the use of the term 'Muslim' cannot be disassociated from the category 'Malay'; and likewise the term 'kafir' is invariably conflated with the other racial communities in the country. (In the end, therefore, calling someone a 'kafir' is basically another way of calling him/her a 'Cina Apek' or 'Keling' except this time the clearly racist overtone is given a cloak of holier-than-thou religious respectability)

The net result of this dangerous trend is obvious for all to see: In the context of a plural society like ours that is already suffering under the yoke of racial/ethnic communitarianism, the rise of a politics of exclusive and confrontational religiosity threatens to destroy the very democratic culture we are trying to promote and defend.

We are, in a way, all kafirs that is in the sense that by having a specific religious identity we are immediately members of one faith community and therefore an outsider to others. Muslims, like everyone else, tend to forget this and by doing so they make the mistake of falling into a narrow cultural solipsism that privileges and normalises their own point of view while marginalizing the world-views, mental universes and faith experiences of others.

One way out of this is to try to re-interpret our understanding of what constitutes being a Muslim in such a way that it does not exclude or foreclose the possibility of dialogue with others or to deny the validity of their own beliefs.

We need, in short, to stop thinking in clannish terms or seeing ourselves as members of the Muslim 'tribe' so to speak. This argument was most eloquently conveyed by the Indonesian Islamist intellectual and activist Nurcholish Madjid, who argued thus:

"For me the way out of such a crisis lies in emphasising the universality of Islam, which is not only compatible with, but also works well within the democratic political system. Muslims need to remember that Islam is fundamentally universal in its outlook. This universality lies at the heart of Islam as a religion and a system of values.

"Here the figure of Nabi Ibrahim (Abraham) is important for us Abraham is an example of the universal humanism that is inherent in Islam. He was neither a Jew nor a Christian, and certainly not a Muslim. But he is regarded as a Prophet by all of us. Why? He is regarded as a Muslim prophet because he submitted to God. 'Islam' therefore means submission to God in the most universal sense.

"This is the submission to God that is found in all religions. The universalism of Islam comes into being whenever there is this submission to God per se. We should stop thinking of 'Islam' in terms of a name or a label for a particular group of believers only. To be a 'Muslim' should not be like belonging to a tribe or a clan of some sort: Instead we should think of it as being a certain spiritual disposition or state of mind; a mode of Being.'(5)

'God will decide'

Indeed, there is ample theological evidence to back up this claim. The Quran clearly states that religious pluralism is normal, and in fact part of the divine plan itself. The Quran is clear about the need for Muslims to respect the rites, rituals and normative religious practices of those of other religions. In fact the Quran states that the rites and rituals of other communities have also been bestowed upon them by God, and not merely 'invented'.

As it states in the Surah Al-Hajj: "Unto each nation have We given sacred rites which they are to perform; so let them not dispute with thee of the matter, but summon thou unto thy Lord. Lo! Thou indeed followest right guidance." (Surah Al-Hajj, 22: 67.)

Furthermore the Quran also warns Muslims against religious pride and contempt for others, and reminds Muslims that in the final calculation it is God not them who chooses whom he guides and whose hearts he opens.

There are numerous verses in the Quran that show that the faith and belief of others is not a matter for Muslims to decide, but rather in the hands of God.

Take, for example, the following line from the Surah Al-An'am: "And if their aversion is grievous unto thee, then, if thou canst, seek a way down into the earth or a ladder unto the sky that thou mayst bring unto them a portent (to convince them all)! - If Allah willed, He could have brought them all together to the guidance - So be not thou among the foolish ones." (Surah Al-An'am, 6:35.)

Later in the same Surah the will and agency of God as the one who decides the faith and belief of others is referred to again: "Such is the guidance of Allah wherewith He guideth whom He will of His bondmen." (Surah Al-An'am, 6:88.)

Indeed the Quran is clear on the question of guidance and the invitation to Islam (da'wah). In the Surah Al-Noor it is clearly stated that the da'wah mission of the Prophet was 'only to preach the message' and that even the Prophet could not determine the faith of others: "Say: 'Obey God, and obey the Apostle: but if ye turn away, he is only responsible for the duty placed on him and ye for that placed on you. If ye obey him, ye shall be on right guidance. The Apostle's duty is only to preach the clear (Message)." (Surah Al-Noor, 24: 54.)

In the end, it is God who guides the subjects of his creation, as it is stated in the Surah Al-Qisas: "God guides those whom He will and He knows best those who receive guidance." (Surah Al-Qisas, 28: 56.)

Finally, Muslims ought to bear in mind that whatever prejudice, fears and misunderstandings they may have about others is contradictory to the fundamental moral tenets of Islam itself. Islam does not condone any form of racism, prejudice and discrimination more so when it happens to be discrimination against minorities who are already vulnerable and often made the scapegoats for anything that goes wrong in the body politic.

Time and again we Muslims conjure the name of God in vain, uttering the names 'ya-Rahman', 'ya-Rahim' (The Compassionate, The Merciful). But it is clear that the Compassion and Mercy that is God's far exceeds the limited parochialism and narrow racism that Muslims themselves have fallen prey to.

For the sake of Islam, and for the sake of a healthy democracy that we are fighting to build here in Malaysia, we need to discard the use of the derogatory term Kafir before it does more damage to others and ourselves.

Racism and prejudice be it of the racial or religious variety should never find a safe harbour in the heart of the Muslim.

(The author would like to acknowledge the help of Sumit Mandal and Suriya Osman in writing this article.)

Endnotes:

1) Fazlur Rahman (1979) has noted that Ibn Taymiyya's programme fundamentally consists of a restatement of the Shariah and a vindication of religious values. Ibn Taymiyya's underlying concern was the need to unite and protect Muslims from both internal and external threats and divisions. But his concern for the preservation of order and unity at all costs led him to taking up an equally extreme position in the end: In his work 'as-Siyasa as-Shar'iya' he wrote that 'to live for sixty days under an unjust ruler is better than living even one day in a state of chaos.' (Rahman, 1979. pg. 268. n. 10). Such a conservative attitude endeared him to later generations of Muslim rulers who were more despotic, making him sound like an apologist for authoritarian forms of government. (Fazlur Rahman, Islam. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1979 (2nd edition)

2) Saodah Abdul Rahman, The Concept of Takfir (Accusing of Disbelief) Among Some Contemporary Islamic Movements with Special Reference to Egypt. Department of Theology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham. May 1994.p. 298.

3) Harakah, Oct 29, Noh Omar tarik balik kenyataan DAP sebagai kafir harbi.

4) Nik Aziz Nik Mat, Tafsir Surah Yunus, Nilam Puri: Ma'ahad ad-Dakwah wal-Imamah, 1998, p. 217. It is interesting to note that Nik Aziz's own definition of what constitutes a kafir or fasiq is broad enough to include 'bad' Muslims. For he goes on to argue that even Muslims who commit acts of vice should be regarded as kafir or fasiq.

5) Farish A. Noor, Interview with Nurcholish Madjid, Democracy and the Universalism of Islam, in Farish A. Noor, New Voices of Islam, Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), Leiden, 2002. pg. 39.