(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Top Malaysian scholar and PAS president Tuan Guru Abdul Hadi Awang has urged Muslims to avoid sectarian polemics especially in the issue of differences between Islam's two major schools of thought represented by Sunnis and Shi'ites.
Describing the Sunni-Shi'a debate as archaic, Hadi said it was being deliberately resurrected by the enemies of Muslims in order to disunite them.
He reiterated his stand that the issue of differences within Islam is the realm of those knowledgeable in Islamic sciences "and not those who are stupid and ignorant".
“Problems of sects should be discussed among the scholars, so let's not be ignorant.
"There are stupid Sunnis and stupid Shi'ites, and this is the disease which has stricken us today," said Hadi, while reminding that Shi'a presence among the Malay Muslim community were a historical reality dating back to centuries.
Hadi lamented that Muslims had been bogged down by sectarian fightings while ignoring their common enemies such as Israel and certain Western powers that had been undermining political awakening in Muslim countries.
“We are in the era of Islamic awakening. Muslim groups are emerging victorious everywhere.
"But it is sheer stupidity that these outdated issues [on Sunni-Shia differences] are being re-lived, to the extent that Muslims are unaware of the Islamic awakening which they should focus on...
"They are just busy with problems of mazhab (school of thought)," he told a dialogue session during a Hari Raya gathering in Terengganu recently.
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Describing the Sunni-Shi'a debate as archaic, Hadi said it was being deliberately resurrected by the enemies of Muslims in order to disunite them.
He reiterated his stand that the issue of differences within Islam is the realm of those knowledgeable in Islamic sciences "and not those who are stupid and ignorant".
“Problems of sects should be discussed among the scholars, so let's not be ignorant.
"There are stupid Sunnis and stupid Shi'ites, and this is the disease which has stricken us today," said Hadi, while reminding that Shi'a presence among the Malay Muslim community were a historical reality dating back to centuries.
Hadi lamented that Muslims had been bogged down by sectarian fightings while ignoring their common enemies such as Israel and certain Western powers that had been undermining political awakening in Muslim countries.“We are in the era of Islamic awakening. Muslim groups are emerging victorious everywhere.
"But it is sheer stupidity that these outdated issues [on Sunni-Shia differences] are being re-lived, to the extent that Muslims are unaware of the Islamic awakening which they should focus on...
"They are just busy with problems of mazhab (school of thought)," he told a dialogue session during a Hari Raya gathering in Terengganu recently.
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