sensitivity to religion should be two-way traffic, my dear mufti

"haul up those who mock other religions."

who said this? none other than the perak mufti, harussani.

let’s see what he had to say….

PUTRAJAYA: Mufti yesterday called on the police to act quickly against those who ridiculed or criticised other religions.

oh really. then i think the police ought to act on some bloggers online too who had been ridiculing some religions… some even do it so openly… of course giving the justification of ‘it’s my blog, i’ll say what i like’ or ‘it’s my own personal opinion’.

Perak Mufti Datuk Seri Harussani Zakaria said he came to know the activities of the so-called missionaries who had gone about mocking other religions some time ago.

yakah? got proof or not?

"I had been informed of the SMSes and leaflets left behind by members of this group. I know they have been doing this for some time," Harussani said.

sms again? we still remember the sms rumour on the mass baptism of muslim children that YOU spread. why then no police action on you?

"I did not lodge any police report. I do not know if those who brought the complaints to me had also lodged reports."

well if you are very sure and you have proof, then you should lodge a police report… why don’t you? not sure eh. similiarly with the sms you received about the mass baptism, why didn’t you lodge a police report straight away instead of spreading it around like wildfire and nearly caused a riot. and i’m going to repeat again and again, after the whole thing settled down, it was found that the rumour was not true at all, and you having caused a mob to gather in front of a church, disturbing the peace of the church (and frightening some people), why didn’t you apologise to the church or ask the leaders of the mob to apologise? doesn’t islam teach you to be humble, to apologise?

"In Islam, it is sinful to ridicule or mock other people’s religions. It is also sinful for Muslims to ridicule other Muslims and non-Muslims."

what about ‘in islam, one must admit it when he was wrong’? no, islam didn’t teach you that? oops. i’m so sorry. this would sound to you like i am ridiculing you, therefore i sinned?

Harussani said all the religions practised in the country should be respected. The Federal Constitution clearly states that other religions, apart from Islam, cannot be propagated in the country.

fine thing for him to say that… but does he practise it? does he respect other religions?

ahh… propagation. so that’s it. that’s the fear. ok like me like to repeat about him asking for his apology over the sms mass baptism thingy, this i am repeating myself again and again – if your faith is strong (not shaky!), why you fear other religions propagating their faith to you? just a Q to ponder on while i would like to stress i respect the constitution that stated islam cannot be propagated.

"If they still want to propagate their religion, they can do so within the confines of their respective religious set-ups like in the temples, churches and other places of worship. They cannot do it openly."

that wouldn’t be known as propagation then but more as evengelisation. how can one propagate one’s own faith to others who have the same faith?

"Insensitivity shown to other religions may lead to conflicts."

ahem!! *cough* *splutter* *choke* ahem! look, who’s talking!!

while you call for other religions to show sensitivity to yours, sit back and ponder a little…. shouldn’t you (or the likes of you) too show sensitivity to other religions?
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a related topic… not to what the mufti said here but to the mufti himself (and also touch on the sultan’s speech), i found this article in malaysiakini to be very well written indeed so i’m going to share it with everyone. since not all of you subsribe to malaysiakini, you can go to beritamalaysia to read…. or better still, i’ll append the whole article here for your reading pleasure (since i found it to be an excellent piece).

—

The Sultan, Mufti and MP
AB Sulaiman Apr 19, 07 12:59pm

In the recent fortnight the array of unfolding news had the usual trepidations. One set put my hair on ends.

It’s the unlikely linkage between the Regent of Perak Raja Nazrin Shah, his state mufti Harusani Zakaria, and the unlikely Federal Territory Gerakan chairman and member of Parliament for Segambut Dr Tan Kee Kwong.

The Regent has been one whose sense of civil enlightenment is exemplary. He may be an ivory tower constitutional monarchial head of a state, but his royal feet are on the ground. He knows the score: that in the difficult process of nation building the people in the modern democratic (albeit monarchial) system of government should be guaranteed all of the civil liberties spelt out clearly in the constitution.

What more, the constitution is the primary source of law and authority in the land. There can be no other above it.

Enter the mufti Harussani. It may be a matter of coincidence or is it more of an accident, but this mufti has made many public remarks that are of obvious detriment to the principles of civil liberties and sowing discord to the general population.

Harussani’s actions and deeds are contrary to the spirit of the enlightening teachings and expectations of the Regent and future Sultan of his own state.

To recap, he was against the Kongsiraya celebration, and he was instrumental in sending SMS messages that led to a confrontation between Muslim fundamentalists and Christian groups.

Derhaka

To all intent and purposes Harussani has committed ‘derhaka’ to the royalty and he certainly has committed ‘derhaka’ to the spirit of the Malaysian constitution.

I have argued that this social sin is sensitive to the Malay psychology and in the great Malay folklore Hang Tuah had to kill his bosom friend Hang Jebat when the latter committed derhaka to his Sultan.

With all these happenings, it appeared understandable for Dr Tan to state that Harussani should be removed from office.

There was rumour that FT Gerakan passed a resolution to this effect.

With this development all hell broke loose. Tan was chastened for meddling into the affairs of the Muslim who as a non-Muslim he is deemed having no right to. He was called immediately to retract his words which he did.

He also stated that there has been no resolution passes, and that whatever he  has uttered about the Sultan and his mufti were all said in his personal capacity. He had to apologise.

This storm should have stayed in the Malay cultural teacup. But I find it rather distasteful. By his words and deeds Harussani has shown his own anti-constitutional traits, of derhaka to his own Sultan (and therefore to his own culture) and its all part of a day’s work.

Probably his sins are all about intra-Malay issues. It does not cross the
ethnic border. So for this he is forgiven.

But when the same things are raised into the Malaysian public domain by Tan then they are no longer intra-Malay, they become an extra-Malay issue.

Only losers

Tan has been chastised because he is at the other side of the ethnicity line. The Malay culture may find it easy to forgive and forget if he crossed swords with his fellow brother Malay. But he is less forgiving if non-Malays are inserted into the equation.

What therefore is the moral of the story?

I see the three-person act as the way the country is run, in microcosm of course.

The Sultan is symbolic of the well-meaning secular establishment, trying to make sense of the cruel world and maintain law and order in a fragile and fractious environment.

The mufti is symbolic of the spoilt-brat bad boy who wants to get his way
all the time and every time. Right or wrong does not matter, for to him he
is right and always right and others are wrong and always wrong.

And the MP is symbolic of the suffering general population who fights to
make sense of the cruel country, and try to maintain a decent and peaceful
life also in this fragile and fractious environment.

At the end of the day who is the winner? No one does for all end up as
losers.

The Sultan’s message and wisdom gets muted. The mufti gets away with the act of hijacking the supremacy of constitutional laws by the religious laws anddrags the country a step closer to a steep precipice, and the MP becomes
despondent, dispirited and disillusioned.

As if on cue comes the case of the banning of an exhibition ghosts, ghouls,
and supernatural beings at a museum near Seremban.

The National Fatwa Council chairman Prof Dr Abdul Shukor Husin felt that
spirits and supernatural beings were beyond the comprehension of the human
mind as they involved in the invisible world.

Arbitrary religious terms

This apparently raised a conflict of interest among certain quarters and this is not healthy for Muslims. The exhibition was then hitherto banned.

What do we make of this new twist? It is analogous to Harussani’s anti-constitutional and irresponsible acts in support of some perceived religious tenets.

Only this time it involves the efforts of the government to encourage creativity and spread of knowledge to the population.

The apparent winner of course the religious establishment for it shows again that it has clout to dictate its arbitrary religious terms.

Harussani and Abdul Shukor are the champions of the slow but sure process Islamisation of the country.

Whether this is good or bad, I am not so sure. But when this involves the commitment and propagation of anti-constitutional acts, and thwarting the creativity and learning process of the population, then I’d say it is very bad.

==
AB SULAIMAN is an observer of human traits and foibles, especially within the context of religion and culture. As a liberal, he marvels at the way orthodoxy fights to maintain its credibility in a devilishly fast-changingworld. In his free time, he loves to read, travel and play golf (although his game could be better).