This is a great book by an eminent Malay scholar. It was written in 1974 and becoming more relevant even after 50 years.
First he defines what is Islamization.
“Islamization is the liberation of man first from magical, mythological, animistic, national-cultural tradition opposed to Islam, and then from secular control over his reason and his language.”
Then he describes the crisis of loss of adab and the rise of false leaders as part of the Muslim dilemma.
“As to the internal causes of the dilemma in which we find ourselves, the basic problems can — it seems to me — be reduced to a single evident crisis which I would simply call the loss of adab. I am here referring to the loss of discipline - the discipline of body, mind, and soul; the discipline that assures the recognition and acknowledgement of one's proper place in relation to one's self, society and Community; the recognition and acknowledgement of one's proper place in relation to one's physical, intellectual, and spiritual capacities and potentials; the recognition and acknowledgement of the fact that knowledge and being are ordered hierarchically. Since adab refers to recognition and acknowledgement of the right and proper place, station, and condition in life and to self discipline in positive and willing participation in enacting one's role in accordance with that recognition and acknowledgement, its occurrence in one and in society as a whole reflects the condition of justice. Loss of adab implies loss of justice, which in turn betrays confusion in knowledge. In respect of the society and community, the confusion in knowledge of Islam and the Islamic worldview creates the condition which enables false leaders to emerge and to thrive, causing the condition of injustice.”
“Thus to put it briefly in their proper order, our present general dilemma is caused by:
1. Confusion and error in knowledge, creating the condition for:
2. The loss of adab within the Community. The condition arising out of (1) and (2) is:
3. The rise of leaders who are not qualified for valid leadership of the Muslim Community, who do not possess the high moral, intellectual and spiritual standards required for Islamic leadership, who perpetuate the condition in (1) above and ensure the continued control of the affairs of the Community by leaders ike them who dominate in all fields.”
Finally, he said acquiring wisdom should be the aims of education:
“Wisdom is a God-given knowledge enabling the one in whom the knowledge subsists to apply the knowledge in such wise that it (i. e. the application or judgement) causes the occurrence of justice.
Justice is then the existential condition of wisdom manifested in the sensibilia and intelligibilia and in the spiritual realm in respect of the two souls of man. The external manifestation of justice in life and society is none other than the occurrence within it of adab.”
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