The fall from grace

“Everything declines after reaching perfection, therefore let no man be beguiled by the sweetness of a pleasant life...........

.........Where is Cordoba, the home of the sciences, and many a scholar whose rank was once lofty in it?

Where is Seville and the pleasures it contains, as well as its sweet river overflowing and brimming full?

[They are] capitals which were the pillars of the land, yet when the pillars are gone, it may no longer endure!

The tap of the white ablution fount weeps in despair, like a passionate lover weeping at the departure of the beloved,

Over dwellings emptied of Islam that were first vacated and are now inhabited by unbelief;

In which the mosques have become churches wherein only bells and crosses may be found.

Even the mihrabs weep though they are solid; even the pulpits mourn though they are wooden!

0 you who remain heedless though you have a warning in Fate: if you are asleep, Fate is always awake!.....???

For half a millennium after the passing of the Prophet (peace be upon him), Islamic history was a story of military, political and cultural dominance. The first four Caliphs worked towards the unity of the “ummah??? (the Muslim community) and later embarked on expansionism programs which were then deemed necessary to consolidate the position of Islam (although the expansionism moves were necessitated more by political rather than religious reasons). The later Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates continued in the same vein. At the peak of the Islamic expansionism programs, the Abbasid ruled part of North Africa, stretching its rule to the East, over Damascus, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia and Khurasan in the Near East. At the same time, the remnant of the Umayyad Caliphate continued to rule Spain (the Muslim Andalus region), with Cordoba as the centre of its rule.

By the end of the 11th century however, the Abbasid Caliphate in the Near East and the Umayyad’s rule in Spain slowly descended into decay and chaos. While the various clashes between the Muslims and the Byzantine armies were only to be expected, though did nothing to weaken the Muslim rules, the fighting between and among the Muslims themselves did much to weaken the Muslim rules and did in fact precipitate the demise of the Muslim rules. With each passing century, the animosity between the Shi’ite Fatimid empire in Egypt and the Sunni majority of the near east worsen. The Fatimid forged an alliance with the North African tribe and swept across Tunisia and into power in Egypt. Its leader proclaimed himself as the Caliph, resulting in no less than the Muslim world having at least 3 Caliphs at the same time! Hakim, the Fatimid caliph of the 11th century even proclaimed himself as the messiah and persecuted those who did not treat him as such. Later, the Muslims also saw the rise of the Turkish Seljuk dynasty in the near east giving rose to more infighting. Unity, which was the bedrock of the Muslim’s expansionism success, became a thing of the past.

With all these divisiveness, it was only a matter of time that the Muslim rules were to be decimated and almost obliterated. It started in 1095 with Pope Urban’s call for a crusade. In 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Christian. The Muslim rules and what was then known as the Muslim world would never ever be the same again. Though the rise of Salah-ad-Din ensured the return of Jerusalem to the Muslims in 1187 and managed to restore a semblance of normalcy to the Muslim reign, a reprieve from the Christian’s assault was only temporary. The end of Muslim dominance was written on the wall. However, nothing, except for some small measures of unity achieved during the reign of Sala-ad-Din, was accomplished by the Muslims to permanently repel the Christian’s assault and restore the former glory of Islamic rule.

The disintegration of the Muslim rules was finally completed with the fall of Muslim Spain in the 13th century. This coincided with the rise of the Christian kings of Castille, Aragon and Portugal. By 1236, King Fernando III had taken over Cordoba, the administrative centre of the Muslim’s Andalus rule. Valencia, which earlier saw the Muslims and Christians fighting together in an army, fell in 1238. In November 1248, Seville fell. That left the small enclave of Granada to be the one and only Muslim state left in the Andalus. Two hundred years later and after the completion of the Alhambra, Granada too was taken by Christian rule. The Muslim rule over Persia and Khurasan was, by then, also diminishing. Finally, the Mongolians walked into Khurasan and Persia and chipped away Muslim rule over the two vast near east states. Further to the west Tamerlane wreaked havoc with his conquest. Muslim dominance, by this time, was consigned to mere memories, finding its way into vast archives as historical facts and nothing more. Why, the Muslim world can’t even deal with a belligerent little dot on the world map called Israel now!

The above is an excerpt from a poem, Lament for the Fall of Saville, written by Abu al-Baqa' al-Rundi in 1267, after the fall of Cordoba, Valencia and Saville, in the hope of gaining help from Muslims in North Africa as several cities were surrendered to Alfonso X.

“Everything declines after reaching perfection, therefore let no man be beguiled by the sweetness of a pleasant life???

If we let ourselves be beguiled by the sweetness of a pleasant life after what we perceive as perfection, declines would of course set in. With the sweetness of a pleasant life, we lose all perspective. Our initial aims and motivations are forgotten. Complacency sets in. With that we become arrogant. We drown in our pride thinking only of our achievements and strengths. Our surrounding has become irrelevant. We however need to maintain what we have achieved. And so we set out to obtain more, without giving more. We would perfect the art of maximising our takings with the minimum of giving. We then become greedy. And our methodology of taking more than we give would result in corruption. Material corruption is one thing. But corruption of the mind is more insidious and long lasting. It leaves marks everywhere within our soul. With that, we would slowly decay into oblivion.

If 1957 could be regarded as UMNO’s greatest victory and the beginning of a great political dynasty in Malaysia, March 8 2008 must have been UMNO’s version of the fall of Jerusalem to the motley crew of crusaders in 1099. If UMNO was the Abbasid of Malaysia for 50 years since independence, then in 2008 the majority of Malaysians were the Frankish knights who rose to claim what they believed belonged and were owed to them. And that was democracy, the right to be heard, to be treated as equals, to ask question and to be provided answers, to demand accountability and responsibility. Last but not least, the right to be treated as a part of a civilised society where the government’s sole purpose was to serve the society for its betterment as a whole and not in part and parcel as deemed fit by the government. In March 2008, the Malaysian crusaders laid siege at UMNO’s wall of perceived perfection and rendered blow after blow of democratic assaults, tearing it apart and bringing it down. The Permatang Pauh and Kuala Terengganu by-elections were the destruction of the remnant of that wall. The three by-elections in Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang and Batang Ai later would, in the normal course of history, be the fall of some isolated enclaves of rebels and splinter groups. The Cordoba, Valencia and Saville of UMNO would soon come. That if UMNO does not change. And change fast.

Within UMNO, the Lament for the Fall of UMNO has been composed and recited by many. Mahathir Mohammad himself has lamented. Muhyiddin Yassin said UMNO has to change. Najib Razak agreed too. But the true poetic Lament for the Fall of UMNO has been written by Zaid Ibrahim and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. They are UMNO’s version of Abu al-Baqa’ al-Rundi. They lamented. They coaxed. They appealed. But to no avail. Nobody listened. Nobody seemed to care.

UMNO has in fact been drowned in self-importance and perceived perfection. Its leaders then got carried away. They let themselves to be beguiled by the sweetness of a pleasant life. Slowly but surely they were more concerned with the preservation of all that was sweet. They forgot what they were there for. In their pursuit of a pleasant life, they decayed into corruption and greed.

Change is the only option. Because, "0 you who remain heedless though you have a warning in Fate: if you are asleep, Fate is always awake!."