Malaysia and The Club of Doom by Syed Akhbar Ali

Syed Akhbar Ali was a banker for 10 years and now he runs his family-owned jewelry business in Kuala Lumpur. A no-nonsense author who is pro-BN and anti-opposition, especially Anwar Ibrahim, he also served as a consultant for the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) for a while.

Syed Akhbar Ali says it as he sees it and he labels almost all the Islamic countries in the world, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. as doomed states. Hence, the title of this book, "Malaysia and The Club of Doom." Just a minute, I did not include Malaysia into the list of doomed states? Well, the author says Malaysia is saved because of the high proportion of non-Muslims who have embraced a progressive way of life using science and technology while the Muslims have too much religion and hence, are hindered in their efforts by the various religious bodies coming out with fatwas that prohibit them from doing this and that.

Consequently, Muslims dwell too much on the form and not the substance. They concern themselves too much with issues like making the tudung compulsory, spying on others to catch khalwat cases, making sure Muslims do not celebrate the Valentine's Day, etc. that are not economically productive. Islam, according to the author, is a deen, a way of life and not just a religion.

Even among the Muslims, there are so many schools of thought that one school considers another a deviant sect and would bomb the others, if not throw them into jail. This is what is happening in Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq and a number of other Muslim countries where the Muslims are killing themselves. They are automatic members of the Club of Doom.

I mentioned that author used to be a banker. He insists that there is no such thing as Islamic banking and that some of these banks (especially the Middle East ones) employ methods of computation that could end up much more expensive than conventional banking.

This book is available at the MPH. I could not find a copy and wrote to the author who kindly pointed me to its availability. You can order it via the internet on the MPH web site and get a 10% discount and have it courier-delivered to you free of charge. The catch is, each order must be at least RM100.00. Use your children's name to order so that they can use the receipt for tax deduction.

Happy reading!