::SALAM EID MUBARAK::

Like the famous scholar Ibn Khaldun a long time ago, there are thousands wholanguish today in the prisons of the Muslim world as political prisoners whoare deemed a danger to the prevailing order of power. Though history andhindsight may offer little consolation for those who are languishing inprison, it is important to remember that the pen is mightier than the swordand that the labours of the just will always prevail over the injustice oftyrants. History will see to it that they will be remembered, long after thenames of the tyrants and dictators who abused them have been forgotten, saysAliran member Farish Noor.This week marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan and the celebrationof Eid'ul Fitri the world over. For more than a billion Muslims all over theplanet the month of Ramadhan has been a time of personal reflection,contemplation and deliberation over their deeds and achievements over theyear; a time of restraint and introspection; a time of reckoning. One onlyhopes that the leaders of the Muslim world have also taken this time off todo some serious soul-searching as well, and in particular to reflect ontheir deeds and misdeeds in the course of running the respective countriesthey have been elected to govern. (That is assuming that they were electedin the first place, for the quaint peculiarity of the Muslim world today isthat quite a number of Muslim leaders have never been elected, and many ofthem regard the position of high office as if it was a God-given right tothem and their families.)During this month of Ramadhan quite a number of peculiar events have takenplace all over the Muslim world. In Malaysia, the fasting month began with aright-wing leader of the conservative Umno party making some ratherrepugnant remarks about the Chinese Malaysian community, referring to themas foreigners who can go back to China if they dont like things as they arein the country. Odd that such a remark could mark the start of the month ofRamadhan, when Muslims are meant to be controlling their emotions ratherthan letting them run riot in public. Odder still that an Umno leader caneven make such a historically inaccurate and unqualified remark, obliviousto the simple fact that not only have the Chinese in Malaysia - and the restof Southeast Asia - been in the region for more than five hundred years, itwas also thanks to the missionary efforts of Chinese Muslim scholars thatIslam came to some parts of the region like Java for instance.The month of Ramadhan also witnessed a string of rather uncharitable actionsbeing performed in the glare of the public eye: Teresa Kok, a member ofParliament and one of the leaders of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) ofMalaysia, was arrested and detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) onthe grounds that she had made some inflammatory remarks concerning thevolume of the azan, or call to prayer, emanating from the mosques in herconstituency. The member of Parliament was then detained under the ISA onthe grounds that her own remarks were 'provocative', despite the fact thatmuch of the hoo-ha that led to her arrest came from the pro-Umno vernacularMalay media. During the course of her detention Teresa Kok maintained thatshe had never made any of the remarks or statements she was accused of, andthat she was the victim of an orchestrated media campaign aimed at defamingher character instead.Indicative of the lack of direction that prevails in the corridors of powerin Malaysia today, the political leadership at the top of the Badawiadministration was not even consistent in its stand on Teresa's case, andthe MP has been released from detention without trial.But the sordid spectacle of a media campaign used to whip up public angerand hatred against an individual is indicative of the culture of pogroms andblack-listing that dates back to the Emergency era when laws such as the ISAwere first created, designed to help bolster a (then) colonial Britishgovernment on the brink of collapse. Since the 1950s hundreds of Malaysianshave been the victims of the ISA (or other forms of detention without trial)and other colonial-era laws such as the Sedition Act, all in the name ofnational security and the stability of the country.Malaysia's use of such colonial laws is neither new nor unique: Similar lawswere once used in countries like India, Pakistan and South Africa, and ifthe issue at hand is detention without trial then one can only conclude thatthis has been the norm in many Muslim societies dating well back into thepre-colonial era.But it is during the time of Ramadhan that our thoughts go to those who areunfortunate enough to become the prey of such laws. Muslim history isreplete with cases of such arbitrary modes of (in)justice at work, wherecountless Muslim scholars and intellectuals fell prey to the whims andfancies of despotic rulers and tyrants who ruled with an iron fist, andalways in the name of God, needless to say.One needs only to look to the case of one of the most famous scholars ofMuslim history, Ibn Khaldun. During his lifetime Ibn Khaldun was imprisonedtime and again by a succession of despotic rulers who found his criticalideas and deconstructive reading of official history somewhat trying. Onmore than one occasion he was framed, defamed and scandalised by his rivalsand enemies who sought to discredit the scholar and to erase hiscontribution to scholarship for good. Time and again the unfortunate Khaldunfound himself languishing in gaols and dungeons, to be kept thereindefinitely according to the whims of the ruler of the day.Yet despite the hardships he endured, including having to spend many a monthof Ramadhan in isolation in his cell and away from his family, Khaldunpersevered in his critical scholarship against the odds. At a time whenofficial history was nothing more than courtly hagiography written tobenefit and inflate the egos of rulers and noblemen, his humanist reading ofhistory placed the ordinary individual at the centre of the process ofhistory; insisting on the rational agency - and by extension power andresponsibility - of the individual as the master of his own destiny. For thecourtiers who grovelled at the feet of their rulers, this form of popularhistory was destructive and threatening to the order of things.Centuries later, the rulers and kings who imprisoned Khaldun are all butforgotten. Nobody remembers their names despite the grand monuments theybuilt to their own egos. Ibn Khaldun, on the other hand, has beenimmortalised as the founder of modern political sociology, a discipline thatremains crucial in the political education of millions the world over. Hisimprint can be read in the works of Franz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci, and thehumanist, materialist approach he took to the writing of history changed therules of that discipline forever. It is thanks to the efforts of scholarslike Ibn Khaldun that history today is and remains a political andpoliticised discipline, and not just a collection of happy fables to placatethe demands of demagogues and dictators.Like Khaldun, there are thousands who languish today in the prisons of theMuslim world as political prisoners who are deemed a danger to theprevailing order of power. Though history and hindsight may offer littleconsolation for those who are languishing in prison, it is important toremember that the pen is mightier than the sword and that the labours of thejust will always prevail over the injustice of tyrants. History will see toit that they will be remembered, long after the names of the tyrants anddictators who abused them have been forgotten.