Allow me elaborate my views on Islam from another angle. Islam is the ' din wad dawlah' , the complete way of life. It is the path, the ' syariah ', manifesting the 'road signs'. Allah has provided for Muslims for their 'travels' from the day the Muslim is born to the day when the Muslim dies.

This path that the Muslim traverses, from birth, right through to adolescence and then to adulthood is the ' ibadah '. It does not distinguish the religious and secular, the sacred and profane.

It is not limited to the commonly understood physical path in space and time, but encompasses the mind and spirit too. Hence when the Muslim goes through the ' hijrah ' the Muslim does so in mind, spirit and the physical domain.

In a similar manner, this ' din wad dawlah' is also the 'physical law' that governs the evolutionary development of the universe from the time of its creation (Big Bang) to its obliteration (Big Crunch).

This is why Islam has placed so much emphasis on knowledge acquisition as an obligation to the Muslim, so that Islam's 'open book', the physical universe, would be understood, and from there the Muslim would be able to discern the majesty of Allah.

Within that ' din wad dawlah' are the characteristics that define Islam. Hence Islam is holistic, total and all encompassing. The West cannot, or simply refuse to fathom this.

So do some Muslim scholars and political leaders. Because Islam has been defined as a religion, it became convenient to reference Islam to Christianity and Judaism. Here lies the problem.

The West formalises Islam as segmented. They transport wholesale their understanding of Christianity/Judaism to Islam. Along the way they created secular Islam. But secularism is alien to Islam.

To 'remedy' this perception, the ulama and scholars alike had to resort to 'explain' Islam by adding prefix and postfix, e.g. Islamic finance, Islamic economics, political Islam, etc. These are symptomatic efforts. The main cause is still not addressed.

The latest in the 'rectification' process of Islam is Islam Hadhari. The originators of Islam Hadhari may not realise that this symptomatic approach carries with it many drawbacks.

It will be subservient to the Western worldview, hence a disservice to Islam. Political leaders, the ulama and scholars must break away from this referencing to the Western worldview if it is to restore dignity to Islam.

Since early this century, science has moved away from the mindset of segmentation, fragmentation and reductionist views in its approach to nature and physical reality.

Science phenomena are now being described in the form of relationship, process, systems theory, interconnectedness, an undivided wholeness, non-locality and oneness. To put it in another way, even science is embracing ' tawhid '.

The fundamental epistemology of Islam is founded on ' tawhid '. The step now taken to introduce Islam Hadhari can only be described as a step backward, an act of regression. This effectively brings about the opposite to what the originators of Islam Hadhari had in mind.