KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and delegates from 56 other Muslim nations at the Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 today performed their Friday prayers at
a makeshift prayer hall at the KL Convention Centre.
Members of the congregation also listened to the Friday prayer khutbah (sermon) presented by Federal Territory Mufti Datuk Dr Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri titled “Our fall: What’s the Cause?”
Zulkifli said the Muslim world had the numbers to prove that it was a large and continually growing ummah.
However, he said, it was meaningless if the ummah was not united.
“A study conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2015 revealed that Islam was the most rapidly growing religion in the world today.
“Our numbers will continue to increase and if the trends are consistent, Islam will become the religion with the world’s largest number of followers by 2075.
“A big number will not guarantee anything, if we are not united.
“Unity is the key for the ummah to rise again,” he said.
The research centre had estimated that the world’s Muslim population stood at 1.6 billion in 2010.
He said a hadith (teachings from the life of Prophet Muhammad) explained how the Prophet had warned about when there would be a large number of Muslims in the world.
He said the hadith compared the large number of Muslims to the number of “bubbles in a flood”, but said they would still face great challenges from Islam’s enemies, as many of them would have a condition known as al-wahan, which is “love for worldly things and fear of death”.
Zulkifli compared this condition with what was mentioned by scientist and mathematician Harry R. Lewis in his book “Excellence without a Soul”, which explained how students at top universities lacked human values.
“We in the Muslim world share the same worry towards the current generation of Muslims.”
Zulkifli warned members of the congregation on the dangers of internal conflict among Muslims.
He said division and conflict among Muslims would cause them to be at a loss, and weaken the brotherhood that existed now.
“An ummah’s civilisation will not fall unless it is affected by internal problems.
“These issues need to be resolved, in line with our holistic approach to bring about change.”
He explained that said civilisations in the past had fallen not abruptly, but through a gradual process.
“Among the internal factors that caused civilisations to fall were the diminishing of spirit, rampant tyranny, and social injustice which had led to abolished religious awareness, political instability and weak governments.
“These were mentioned by Ibn Khaldun in ‘al-Muqaddimah’.
“That is why we support the decree by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah Sultan Ahmad Shah Al-Musta’in Billah (on Thursday) on the need for the Islamic civilisation to rise again to face the future.”
Zulkifli admitted that there was a tendency to look at problems in a superficial manner, even though the problem required the ummah to look inward to resolve internal conflict.
“These internal problems are due to unity issues among Muslims,” said Zulkifli.