Cahaya’s Rants

I find it amusing to read the emotional responses of some Malaysian Muslims to the syariah court’s decision to allow Siti Fatimah Tan, a Chinese convert, to renounce Islam. (re Malaysiakini news) Siti Fatimah converted to Islam when she married an Iranian because in Malaysia a non-Muslim marrying a Muslim has to convert to Islam. But Siti Fatimah converted to Islam not out of conviction but out of necessity. She remained a Buddhist after the conversion and never practised Islam.

One blogger even compared the Syariah Court’s decision to legalizing apostasy! If only that was true! People like Lina Joy will no longer have to go into hiding. This particular blogger went on to quote a fatwa that called on the apostate to be executed if he/she does not repent in three days after being brought in front of a Qadi. This blogger also blamed the Malay Muslim political parties and Muslim politicians for failing to speak out against this apostasy case.

Another blogger is frustrated and blamed everyone especially Penang’s Islamic Council and Siti Fatimah’s ex-husband for failing to ground her in the Islamic faith. One blogger even called the decision a dark and tragic day for Islam.

Others wonder if this decision will bring a deluge of such cases. What if indeed it resulted in a deluge? The non-Malay who is longer practicing Islam should be able to leave Islam without being forced to “rehabilitate” or even punished for apostatizing.

Datuk Ahmad Zahid, minister in charge of religious affairs in the Prime Minister’s Department said “there was no law at the federal level to bar a convert from renouncing Islam”. Since that is the case presently, one hopes that it will stay that way.

I don’t think there is anyone who might see this case as a light at the end of the tunnel, as one blogger puts it, for cases involving Malay Muslims who have left Islam. That is , however, not to say that there have not been cases of Malay Muslims who have successfully renounced Islam in the past. But then again, those cases were before the requirement to state one’s religious status in one’s identity card. Nobody had to go to that unnecessary hurdle.

Nowadays people like Lina Joy have to either live a double life or in hiding for fear of some zealot taking it upon himself to execute them for apostasy.

Good luck to Tan Ean Huang on her new life free of the burden of being called a Muslim when she has never been one.

I was browsing Daniel Pipe’s blog when I came across this reader’s response to one of Daniel Pipes’ posting called Dhimmitude in Practice. I wished there were more Muslims like Tawfik Hamid around.

*******

Submitted by Tawfik Hamid, Dec 30, 2005 19:35

It is time to admit it
Dr.Tawfik Hamid

www.thamid.com

I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.

After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations.

I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims. We Muslims are the ones who need to change.

Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions.

We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called Jizia.

We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the Mosques.

What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews “Descendants of the pigs and monkeys”…. Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate?

I have been into churches and synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time we curse them, and teach our generations to call them infidels, and to hate them.

We immediately jump in a ‘knee jerk reflex’ to defend Prophet Mohammed when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books, that he married a young girl seven years old (Aisha) when he was above 50 years old.

I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks.

Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Till now our ‘reputable’ top religious authorities have never issued a Fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Shariia law just for writing a book criticizing Islam.

Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the Hejab (Head Scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders.

It is our absolute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts.

We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East.

We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them “Jews-Free countries” while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have its nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel, women can not be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of ‘Apostasy,’ while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights.

I agree that the ‘Palestinians’ suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel.

It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel, its ‘enemy’. If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening.

We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind.

Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam. Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion.

The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: ‘We Muslims have to Change’.
Tawfik Hamid
www.thamid.com

Hundreds of protesters chanting “Kill, kill” set fire Monday to an Indonesian mosque belonging to a Muslim sect they claim is heretical, police said.

A policeman was wounded in the head when the crowd stoned the mosque in West Java province before setting it ablaze, said police spokesman Col. Dade Ahmad. Several suspects were taken in for questioning.

The attack was the latest targeting the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Most mainstream Muslims consider Ahmadiyah heretical because it does not consider Muhammad to be the final prophet. The sect was founded at the end of the 19th century in Pakistan.

Last week, a team of prosecutors, religious scholars and government officials said the sect “had deviated from Islamic principles” and recommended it be outlawed. There have been several acts of vandalism targeting Ahmadiyah since then.

About 300 people torched the mosque and destroyed an Islamic school building inside the Ahmadiyah compound in Sukabumi town just after midnight. Many sect members have since fled the area, seeking refuge with friends and relatives.

“We heard the attackers chanting ‘Burn, burn’ and ‘Kill, kill,’” said Zaki Firdaus, one of the sect’s members. “It was horrifying.”

Around 200 people living on the mosque’s compound got away before the crowd arrived. The police were called, “but the attackers came faster,” Firdaus said.

Read the rest of the story here.

“Mainstream Muslims” do not consider the Ahmadiyah sect Muslim. Shias do not consider Sunnis Muslims and vice versa. So who is the real Muslim?

Muslims have been fighting each other since Muhammad’s death, and they will continue to do so long into the future.

So much for Islam being a monolithic religion! So much for Islam being the religion of peace!

KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 (Bernama) — The Islamic Missionary Foundation (Yadim) has called on the media to be more active in correcting the perception of Islam among non-Muslims.

Its head Datuk Mohd Nakhaie Ahmad said the lack of articles on Islam in most newspapers had resulted in the manipulation of information on Islam and Muslims by certain quarters.

“When the reports are not clear or inaccurate, various issues would emerge such as Muslims being labelled as terrorists, giving the feeling that the negative image created by these irresponsible quarters was to cover up their own injustice or cruelty,” he told reporters in conjunction with the pre-launching of a tabloid, “The Criteria”, which is in English, here today.

It is jointly published by Yadim and Saba Islamic Media Sdn Bhd.

The tabloid aims to educate Muslims and non-Muslims on Islam, to help preserve understanding and harmony among the people

Source: Bernama

Datuk Mohd Nakhaie is most certainly right. And wrong. Right about the negative image non-Muslims have of Islam. And wrong that the negative image is created by “irresponsible quarters was to cover up their own injustice or cruelty”.

Who would not have a negative image of Islam when you hear reports such as the following?

BAGHDAD (AP) - An Assyrian Orthodox priest was killed in a drive-by shooting Saturday in Baghdad, police and an assistant said, the latest attack against Iraq’s Christian minority.

The priest, Youssef Adel, was shot by gunmen who drove up in a car and opened fire as he was opening the gate of his house near the St. Peter and Paul church where he presided, an assistant said.

Christians have frequently been caught up in the violence or been targeted in this predominantly Muslim country.

The body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, one of Iraq’s most senior Chaldean Catholic clerics, was found on March 13, about two weeks after he was seized by gunmen in the volatile northwestern city of Mosul. (re AP news)

When even Islamic clerics indulge in paranoia and racism?

TEHRAN (AFP) — Israel and unidentified “oppressive powers” are behind the production of an anti-Islamic film by right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders, a prominent conservative Iranian cleric claimed on Friday.

“Behind these satanic acts can be found the oppressive powers and the Zionist regime,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said during a Friday prayer sermon in the capital broadcast by state radio.

“This poor Dutch deputy has made 40 trips to Israel over the past 25 years,” Khatami said. “He has himself said he is close to (Israeli President) Shimon Peres and (Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert.

“We see the hand of the Zionist regime behind these satanic acts and we cry ‘death to Israel,’” he added. (re AFP)

Are the discrimination and violence against churches by Muslims in Indonesia also caused by “irresponsible quarters”?

JAKARTA, April 2 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremist groups and local governments in Indonesia closed 110 churches from 2004 to 2007, according to religious and human rights organizations.

The Wahid Institute, a moderate Muslim non-governmental organization, along with the Communion of Churches of Indonesia (Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja di Indonesia), the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia (Konferensi Waligereja Indonesia) and the Indonesian Human Rights Commission reported that discrimination and violence against churches was most common in the provinces of West Java, Banten, Central Java, South Sulawesi and Bengkulu.

Radical Muslim groups attacking churches included the Islamic Defender Front (Front Pembela Islam, or FPI), the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, Hizbullah Front, Muslim Clergy Members Forum (Forum Ulama Umat Islam) and the Muslim Safety Forum (Dewan Keamanan Masjid). (re Compass Direct)

How can non-Muslims not have a negative image on Islam when there is, among other things, visceral hatred for the Jews?

SANAA, April 6 (Reuters) - Yemen’s Shi’ite rebels destroyed the vacant house of the mainly Muslim Arab state’s top rabbi, a security official said on Sunday.

Residents said the assailants from a group opposed to the U.S.-allied government destroyed the house of Yehia Youssuf in Saada, a northern province. The security official said it was not immediately known what weapons were used in the attack.

“They turned to the houses of other Jews after,” one resident said.

About 200 Yemeni Jews who lived in Saada, including Youssef, have been living in the capital Sanaa due to sporadic fighting between government forces and the rebel group, known as the Houthis. (re Reuters)

When non-Muslims are daily faced with these kinds of news and images of paranoia, discrimination and violence perpetrated by Muslims in the name of their religion, is it any wonder that the non-Muslims associate terrorism and violence with Islam?

Good luck trying to rehabilitate the image of Islam as a religion of peace.

In a Malaysiakini report entitled Religious scholar dismisses khalwat proposal for non-Muslims, Syed Ali Tawfik Al-Attas, the head of the Malaysian Institute of Islamic Understanding, is quoted as saying “In Islam it says to you yours to us ours in terms of religion.” On the face of it, Syed Ali Tawfik Al-Attas, sounds like a very progressive and tolerant Muslim, but the reality of the matter is that in Malaysia there is no such freedom for the Muslim who has chosen to live Islam.

No person who was born into a Muslim family has the legal right to leave Islam. The case of Lina Joy, Kamariah Ali, and most recently that of Revathi Masoosai are just a few examples where there is no freedom of conscience and the right to practise one’s religion of choice for the Malays.

In Revathi Masoosai’s case her marriage to a Hindu man is not recognized because she was born a Muslim and her husband never converted to Islam. The law in Malaysia does not recognize the marriage between a Muslim and a non-Muslim.

Apostasy is viewed as a serious matter in Malaysia because racial identity and religion for the Malays are one and the same. To be a Malay means to be a Muslim. Hence, the fear among the Malays is that if apostasy is allowed, that means eventually there will no longer be Malays.
Malays who have left Islam and converted to Christianity for example, have to live a double life, and their new found religion kept a secret. If they are found to have left Islam they would be sent to a rehabilitation center like what happened to Kamariah Ali and Revathi Massoosai.

In Malaysia the Sharia law is meant to be applied to Muslims, but where does that leave the non-Muslim who has left Islam? Lina Joy insisted that the Sharia law was not applicable to her because she had left Islam, but that did not help her case at all. The Sharia Court is still the one to determine whether or not people like Lina Joy and Revathi Masoosai are Muslims or not.

As a Malaysian who values freedom of religion, I feel that the Constitution of Malaysia needs to be amended so that people can have the right, a real right, to practise the religion of their choice without fearing threats of detention, rehabilitation and threats of death hanging over their heads. And words like “You can’t at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another,” from a Federal Court Judge, a thing of the past.

Religion should be a personal matter between an individual and his/her God.  And as such no apostasy law is ever going to stop a person from exercising his or her right to freedom of conscience.

In an article called Fire on the roof of the World published on Malaysiakini, Sim Kwang Yang said that despite “fast emerging as the third largest economy of the world, with military strength to match its economic prowess, and with obvious aspiration to become a top-notch superpower of the world”, China “has not yet stepped over the threshold of a Third World nation” judging by its handling of the crisis in Tibet.

I totally agree with Sim Kwang Yang’s analysis of the situation in Tibet and China’s handling of the situation. The Chinese is one country that I do not put a lot of trust in. How can I, when basic human rights are constantly trampled on in that country?

Not too long ago at a coffeeshop in my hometown in Malaysia, I had a discussion with a friend about the economic growth in China. He was working in China and was very impressed by the development taking place there. He was adamant about the fact that China was going to overtake the United States as the biggest economic power in the world. I was, however, very skeptical of that notion. Nobody knows how much longer The People’s Republic of China is going to remain a whole entity. If that falls apart, that would be the end of China’s ambition as the next great economic power.

News coming out of Tibet and the harsh treatment of the Chinese government on the anti-China demonstrations are scant and what little does come out, looks very bleak indeed for the Tibetans. News videos on the anti-China demonstrations uploaded on YouTube are countered by pro-China videos calling events and news reporting on Tibet as lies and propaganda of the Western media against the Chinese.

You have to wonder how much the Chinese government is willing to go through to protect its image in the eyes of the world, especially now with the Summer Olympics in Beijing just around the corner. I was among the people who objected to rewarding China by awarding it the right to host the Summer Olympics for 2008. I do not believe in depriving athletes of their chance to participate in the Olympics by boycotting the games but there has to be greater pressure put on China by the world’s community over its treatment of the Tibetans.

Here’s a March 18 video clip of the demonstrations in Tibet.