We can be the best if we refer back to our Aqeedah

I've been feeling pretty positive for the past few weeks.
I've noticed little things in my kids that made me believe that I've made the right choice inshaAllah in relocating back to Malaysia. The older kids are taking responsibility for the younger ones and my 8-year-old son is especially good at taking care of the babies during shopping trips. They are becoming more independent. They have certainly developed better attitudes in their manners and conduct especially towards people older than themselves.

Last Sunday, I had a rare opportunity to sit down and chat with my dad. He gave me a complete history of his life and our ancestors. I sort of knew that my grand father was a descendent of the Java royal family from Jogjakarta but never realised that he was a descendent of Diponegoro, the prince who fought against the Dutch. My dad also related to me his experiences, life of hardship and his service in the military. My dad was such a dedicated military cadet during his time in Raffles school, Singapore that he was offered by the British to attend Sandhurst Royal Military College but my grandmother refused to allow him to venture overseas. Instead he furthered his studies at Universiti Malaya Singapore and continued his military service as a volunteer. I related these stories to my son in the hope that it would inspire him to be diligent, dedicated and disciplined.

My 17 years living in the UK has definitely influenced my behaviour and thinking but to me, what really changed and influenced my thinking was my contact with the Muslims in UK, specifically studying the works of Sheikh Nabhani. When I was in UK, Islam became real to me not just a something to do with spirituality and ibaadah but it filled all the voids in my life, spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally and politically. When I say politically, I'm not saying in terms of voting or campaigning but in terms of the ruling system, economic system, social system, education system, judicial system and the whole issue of international relations and dealing with life affairs.

When you live in a so called 'developing' country, the only access you have to the Western world is through the television programmes, possibly news channel (if you watch international news), magazines, internet and the few western people that you might come across at work or in shopping malls. If your only source of knowledge of the west is American TV programmes, you're definitely not getting the full and correct picture.

However, when you lived somewhere for 17 years, worked and mingled with the people, you see the whole of the society, the good and the bad. To me, there is nothing special or great about the west and sometimes I feel that the inferiority complex portrayed by some people is truly unnecessary. The only thing that makes the west advance and progressive is the fact that they are an ideological nation. Ideological meaning that they have a firm belief i.e. secularism and they refer to their belief to solve their problems. They implement the system of Capitalism and they truly believe in it, almost as if it is a religion.

The problem we have in this country and indeed any other 'developing' country is the lack of ideology. There is no firm believe in any particular creed. Despite being Muslim, this country have not truly embraced the creed of Islam to solve all of their problems. This is evident in the fact that there is no implementation of the Islamic ruling system and judicial system. In fact, implementation is just a tip of the iceberg, many people don't even have confidence in the islamic system, believing that it is old fashioned, applicable for 1000 years ago, not applicable towards non-Muslims etc...etc... this is a sign that Muslims have no confidence in their own belief and systems. They prefer to implement a secular system, a system imposed upon them by their colonial masters. They hope that this form of system would lead them to become 'developed' and 'progressive' as their colonial masters.

What they do not realized is that:
1. When their colonial masters left them, these 'masters' ensured that these countries will never be able to progress to the same level as the West. This is done to protect the interest of the West.
2. The Western system is created by the West and for that reason, they set the rules. They form institutions like the IMF, World Bank, United Nations and others in order to protect their interest and to consolidate their control over the world.
3. The Western nations are ideological nations and by that very nature, they will want to protect their interest and propagate their belief and systems to the world; they wish to propagate the ideas of democracy and capitalism not for the betterment of human life but to colonise other nations either physically, economically or psychologically.

These big nations are playing a game of chess with the earth spread as the chess board and we are the pawns. We can never be free from their control until we remove ourselves from this game and devise our own game, according to our own rules. We can only do that with an ideology. We cannot embrace the Capitalist/secular ideology because it is in contradiction with our Islamic Aqeedah. Surely we cannot believe that God only exist during our times of prayer and Ramadhan or when we do Hajj in Makkah but the rest of the time, He cease to exist!!!

If we believe that God exist and He is All Powerful, All Knowing then, surely He exists at ALL TIMES. So, secularism is in contradiction with our complete belief in Allah. So, we need an ideology but  it is the islamic ideology. All that means is that we will refer to our Aqeedah, our belief in Allah and that Qur'an is the word of Allah in everything that we do, whether it is for our ibaadah actions or for our daily life, economics, education, social, judicial and political. Again when I say political I am referring to Siyasah which is the looking after of affairs of mankind.

So, I don't believe we need to feel nferior towards the west at all, after all we have Islam and Allah swt says in the Qur'an  61:9 "He it is who has sent the Messenger with guidance and the Deen of Truth to make it prevail over all the other Deens even if the Mushrikun detest it."

However, we should do things properly and not take short cuts, not because we need to prove ourselves but because we should take pride in our work, to do something proficiently is prescribed in Islam. We can take the example of the Japanese who take the effort to be precise as part of their work ethics. However, we should never feel that we need to prove ourselves to anyone but Allah. After all, it is the Jannah of Allah that we strive to achieve, not the recognition of the Western nations.