Islam tidak ajar ganggu tempat ibadat agama lain, kata bekas Mufti

Bekas Mufti Perlis Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin (gambar) menegaskan agama Islam tidak mengajar penganutnya untuk mengganggu tempat ibadat penganut agama lain.
Dr Mohd Asri, 42, yang dihubungi The Malaysian Insider bagi memberikan komen mengenai kontroversi serbuan Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais) serta rancangan berdemo di gereja Selangor, berkata walaupun semasa perang pun agama Islam melarang umatnya daripada menyentuh rumah ibadat.
“Dalam agama Islam, hatta dalam masa perang pun, orang yang sedang beribadat pun tidak boleh diganggu… inikan masa aman kenapa pula perlu diganggu?” kata Dr Mohd Asri.
Tengahari semalam, Jais menyerbu pejabat Persatuan Bible Malaysia (BSM) di Damansara Kim dan merampas kira-kira 320 Bible berbahasa Melayu dan Iban.
Dua pegawai BSM iaitu pengerusinya Lee Min Choon dan Sinclair Wong diarahkan ke Balai Polis Damansara untuk diambil keterangan mereka dan hanya dilepaskan dua jam kemudian.
Dalam pada itu, Umno Selangor juga telah mendesak Pengarang Herald, Paderi Lawrence Andrew, menarik balik kenyataannya yang tetap mahu menggunakan kalimah Allah di semua gereja di Selangor.
Umno Selangor juga merancang untuk mengadakan demonstrasi di hadapan pejabat Lawrence di Klang pada Ahad ini sekiranya tidak tunduk kepada desakan mereka.
Ketua Umno Shah Alam, Azhari Shaari berkata kenyataan paderi itu bertentangan dengan enakmen syariah negeri malah ia juga melanggar titah Sultan Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, yang melarang penggunaan kalimah Allah oleh orang bukan Islam di negeri itu.
Dr Mohd Asri menyifatkan rancangan tersebut bukanlah berlandaskan ajaran Islam bahkan tidak mengajar penganutnya menyentuh mana-mana rumah ibadat bukan Islam.
“Agama Islam tidak pernah ajar penganutnya berbuat perkara-perkara begini, tempat-tempat ibadat Islam ajar supaya tidak sentuh.
“Apa yang mereka lakukan tersebut bukan berlandaskan ajaran Islam,” tambah Dr Mohd Asri lagi.
“Jangan sentuh tempat ibadat bukan Islam.”
Dalam pada itu, Ahli Jawatankuasa PAS Pusat Datuk Mujahid Yusof Rawa juga menggesa Putrajaya halang badan Islam keruhkan hubungan antara agama susulan kontroversi terbaru yang tercetus di Selangor baru-baru ini.
Beliau menyeru kerajaan merujuk Majlis Perundingan Perpaduan Kebangsaan yang ditubuhkan Kabinet baru-baru ini, yang dijangka mengadakan mesyuarat mengenai kontroversi penggunaan kalimah Allah pada Isnin depan.
Mujahid, yang turut dilantik Putrajaya sebagai ahli panel majlis tersebut, berkata insiden hari ini perlu dibincang pada mesyuarat itu.
Jelas beliau, badan agama Islam tidak harus bertindak oleh kerana isu penggunaan kalimah Allah masih dibicarakan di mahkamah.

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2014/01/04/islam-tidak-ajar-ganggu-tempat-ibadat-agama-lain-kata-bekas-mufti/

Pendapat Anda

How the Muslim Deals with People

From A'ishah RA who said that a man sought permission to enter upon the Prophet PBUH, so he said: Give permission to him and what a bad son of his people (or, what a bad man of his people). Then when he entered he spoke politely to him. "A'ishah said: so I said: O Messenger of Allah, you said about him what you said and then you spoke politely to him? He said: O A'ishah the worst people in station before Allah on the Day of Resurrection are those whom the people desert, or abandon, in order to save themselves from their evil speech. [Hadith reported by Bukhari and Muslim]

So he treats a close friend in the manner befitting one for whom he has love...and he treats the clear enemy with caution and remains on his guard...and he treats the worst of people in a manner which does not make apparent to him what he thinks of him in his heart, and so on, each one is treated in the appropriate manner. This is from the knowledge necessary for giving dakwah, that he treats everyone in the manner befitting their varying inclinations and manners !  It will also not be hidden that one of the best ways of cementing ties and improving relations is Visiting Brothers.

Word ‘Allah’ is not exclusive to Islam

Like the history of most religions, the history of Islam is complex and much debated. But there are a few elements that are not in dispute, chief among them that the God of the Quran is the same as the God of the Bible and of the Torah before it. The mission of Islam, as expressed in the Quran, is not to bring a new faith, but to update the messages of the monotheistic faiths before it.

It is therefore surprising to see, as The National reports today, that a Malaysian court has ruled that a Christian newspaper may not use the word “Allah” to refer to God. The court overturned a previous decision by a lower court, ruling that “Allah” as a term is not exclusive to Islam. This causes a problem for the country’s substantial Christian minority, who have used the word “Allah” to refer to God for decades.

In a fellow Muslim country with substantial Christian and Hindu populations, this feels like the wrong decision. The UAE is rightly proud of its society that allows people from all over the world to practise their faiths openly and without discrimination. Indeed, that inclusiveness is inherent in Islam. One of the reasons Islam was able to spread so far, so rapidly, was the inclusive nature of the faith: for at least two centuries after the coming of Islam, the Arabs ruled vast regions where the majority were not Muslims. The word “Allah” is never exclusive to Islam – indeed, both Christians and Jews used the word “Allah” to refer to God even before the coming of Islam.

That remains the case today. When Christians across the Middle East pray to God, they use the term “Allah”. Walk into a church in Cairo, Baghdad or Beirut this coming Sunday and you will hear the name of “Allah” invoked. That also applies to the Jews of the Arab world, who for centuries have prayed to “Allah”. The Quran itself is explicit on this subject, declaring, in Surah Al Ankabut, that Muslims should tell People of the Book (Christians and Jews) that “our God and your God is one”.

The Malaysian decision overlooks not merely the theology, but also the etymology of the word. The word “Allah” is derived from the Arabic “al-ilah”, the god. It’s found its way across the world and entered Malay from Arabic.

Arabic as a language is a vehicle for faith, be that Christianity, Judaism or Islam. The God of the three monotheistic religions is the same god. It is unsurprising, therefore, that all three faiths in the Arabic-speaking world (and beyond) refer to God as “Allah”. And if they have the same God, they should have the right to call their deity by the same name.

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2013/10/15/word-allah-is-not-exclusive-to-islam/

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/word-allah-is-not-exclusive-to-islam

Chomsky: No one can alienate the Muslim Brotherhood

Noam Chomsky has insisted that nobody can alienate the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He criticised the military coup which ousted Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi in July, accusing its supporters of making a major mistake.

The American professor of linguistics was speaking at a seminar organised by the Egyptian Students Association in New York when he made his comments. He said that a military regime cannot build a state and pointed out that it is inaccurate to refer to “Egyptians” as if everyone in Egypt is thinking the same way; they’re not, and it is misleading to suggest otherwise, he claimed. Professor Chomsky urged the army leaders to avoid using the term “the people” to give credibility to the action that they took in July.

He acknowledged that a large crowd took to the streets on June 30th to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood, but what happened thereafter was definitely a military coup. He told the audience that he feels that the people of Egypt have been divided by the belief that the military leadership is committed to defending them against the Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood’s political decisions could be criticised, said Chomsky, but one cannot ignore the movement because “it is part of the people”. That’s yet another reason, he added, for the coup leaders not to claim that they are acting on behalf of “the people” of Egypt.

“It would be wrong for the supporters of the coup to believe that the generals will build a secular, democratic state,” Chomsky insisted. “They will act as army officers usually act and seek to control the system and economy while crushing their opponents and human rights.” Those who welcome the coup will turn out to be its victims, he warned his secular, liberal and leftist friends.

The 85 year old is a renowned linguist, philosopher, political activist and sociologist. He is known for his opposition to US foreign policy as well as for his criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/americas/7834-chomsky-no-one-can-alienate-the-muslim-brotherhood

The Egyptian coup and the lessons of Turkey

Some are calling it a fitting end to political Islam, others ‘difficult moments’ and yet others equivocated about ‘military intervention’. So, why are the supposed flagship democracies like the US and the EU unable or unwilling to call a coup a coup? Germany did slightly better by describing what happened in Egypt as “a major setback for democracy in Egypt,” even as the rest of the West attempted to mask its diabolical positions by merely calling for restraint and the avoiding of violence.  But the failure to refer to it as a coup, let alone condemn it, bespeaks the double standards of these democracies.

Tunisia condemned the overthrow as a “flagrant coup”, which undermined democracy and would feed radicalism. In a speech in Istanbul on July 5th, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan condemned it: “No matter where or against whom, coups are damaging, inhuman and against the people, national will and democracy.”

In this impassioned denunciation, Erdogan is not just giving a knee-jerk response but articulating Turkey’s lessons of history. It is in this shared past that Egypt may yet be able to find new hope for a destiny akin to Turkey’s, undoubtedly a thriving democracy with a painful and bitter history of military interventions.

Thus, in one fell swoop, the fragile edifice of Egypt’s newly minted constitutional democracy came tumbling down. No amount of window dressing – such as appointing a Supreme Court chief judge to head an ‘interim government’ – will change the fact that the iron hand of the military has turned back the clock of the Arab world’s most populous country.

Some have justified the June 30 military coup on the grounds that the January 25th Revolution of 2011 that ousted Mubarak was itself backed by the Egyptian army. But that analogy is false. While the Revolution saw the overthrow of a dictator who had ruled by force for close to three decades, this was the ouster of a president who had been democratically elected through free and fair elections. The contrast could not be more glaring: one had been in power because of the military. The other came to power with the people’s mandate but is forced out by the military.

Western silence

By remaining silent when the military issued its ultimatum to President Morsi, the West became complicit. The failure to condemn the coup after the fact sealed its culpability, reigniting the debate about inconsistencies in Western foreign policy when it concerns countries governed by democratically elected parties oriented towards political Islam.

Some commentators have talked about a clash between Islamists and liberals as being the main cause for the fall of Morsi. Egyptians, it is contended, do not want a Taliban-style government. Apart from the fact that there is little substance to that argument, it is also framed in a false context. Morsi did not fall – he was cut down by the military in a blatant coup. Furthermore, though there might have been some autocratic exuberance in passing that ill-fated presidential decree, equating Muslim Brotherhood with the Taliban betrays sheer ignorance or worse Islamophobia.

Closer to the truth perhaps is that remnants of the Mubarak regime have seized the day to take back the power that was being whittled down, not immediately in the aftermath of the revolution, but after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Indeed, it may be no exaggeration to say that a counter-revolution has been set in place by those forces bent on reasserting their lost glory.

All major appointments to office after the coup have been made by the military. Their names resonate with those who are not averse to seeing a return of Egypt’s praetorian past but send chills to those who had believed that Mubarak’s minions had been given a decent burial. The lessons of history are writ large here.

Turkey’s recent past reminds us of the unceasing attempts by the military to stage one coup after another in its bid to seize back power and privileges. The Turkish people were never handed democracy on a silver platter. Just as what we are witnessing now in Egypt, the Turkish people had to fight hard for it and even harder to keep it. It was fought with the blood, sweat and tears of those united by the love for freedom and democracy and the conviction that the role of the military must remain that of defending the nation’s realm, not determining the government of the day. That can only be done through the ballot box.

It was a heavy price to pay but the hardship and suffering under military rule was even heavier. As Prime Minister Erdogan puts it, “each military coup paralysed the economy of Turkey, wasted Turkey’s assets and caused the country, the nation, and especially the youth, to pay a heavy price.” Egyptians too paid their price for the revolution and now is being burdened once more to pay the price for defending it. This is exacted on the Egyptian people culminating tragically in the massacre of more than 100 pro-Morsi supporters and members of the Brotherhood around the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo.

Army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the leaders of the illegitimate interim government have blood on their hands and must be held to account. This slaughter of innocent people must be condemned. Attempts to justify the coup on ‘peculiar circumstances’ such as the incompetence of Morsi’s administration, its exclusivist nature, and the protests by millions of Egyptians, are facile and highly subjective.

Furthermore, reliable evidence has emerged indicating that many of the purported spontaneous street demonstrations demanding Morsi’s ouster were funded by foreign aid and regional state run bodies. In any event, since when could mass protests be a vindication of a military take over? In a democracy, pressure can always be brought to bear on a ruling government through street demonstrations so that it may be kept in check but a democratically elected government cannot be justifiably overthrown either by street protests or military cannons.

What’s next for Egypt? 

Talk of reconciliation is futile in as much as it is empty rhetoric. Calling for unity and reconciliation is one thing but when it emanates from the side that’s been the usurper it rings hollow. Reconciliation cannot proceed from a foundation of illegitimacy. Nor can it take place with a gun pointed against one’s head.

With the rest of justice minded and democracy loving advocates, I add my voice to the call on the West, particularly the United States to do the right thing. The billions in military and economic aid to Egypt should also be aid in the name of democracy and human rights, not in support of military coups. They must demand for the immediate release of President Morsi and his supporters. President Morsi must be reinstated to his rightful office and he in turn must immediately initiate a national dialogue that includes all sides.

This is not a failure of the revolution. This is a military coup in the borrowed garb of a people’s revolt, turning the Arab spring into its winter of discontent. The course of true democracy never did run smooth. What more a nascent democracy such as Egypt’s. Those democratically elected must be allowed to complete the tasks they were elected to do, or at very least where there is overwhelming demand from the people for a fresh mandate, be allowed to call for fresh elections. As long as they stay true to the constitutional process and uphold the rule of law, there is neither moral nor legal justification to remove them.

The people of Egypt stood united and fought tooth and nail in ending six decades of military dictatorship so that they could taste real freedom and democracy. Let us not be complicit to this unconstitutional and immoral coup but instead be among those on the right side of history. Let us do our part to see the people of Egypt regain the glory of their great January 25 Revolution.

ANWAR IBRAHIM

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201381310934937401.html

Malala's message to Malaysia

Malaysiakini

Given the system of universal education it inherited from its former British colonial masters, Malaysia could and should be a model of learning and enlightenment for the Muslim-majority countries of the world.

God knows there’s a crying need for such a model, considering how disgracefully most of them perform in global repression, corruption and social-justice rankings.

But thanks to 55 years of misrule by a regime that employs race and religion to perpetuate its power to plunder the nation’s natural resources and other riches, Malaysia’s formerly enviable educational system is far from a paragon of excellence, and appears to be getting progressively worse.

And no wonder. Teachers are routinely required to support and vote for the BN regime or else. Languages of instruction are confusingly changed at the will or whim of the powers that be. Public higher education places and scholarships are allocated according to ethnic quotas, not academic achievement. Universities are run by political appointees, and their students routinely penalised or outright expelled for supporting opposition parties.

And in its latest plot to appear sincere as the alleged ‘protector’ of Malaysia’s majority race and religion, this robber-regime has elected to make the study of Islamic and Asian Civilisation studies (Titas), long compulsory in public universities, mandatory in private institutions as well.

Not that there’s anything remotely wrong with the study of Islamic and Asian Civilisation per se. In fact I wish my own unfortunately Eurocentric, Christianity-biased education had been counterbalanced with much more Islamic and Asian content.

After all, Asian philosophers like Lao Tzu, Siddharta Gautama and Confucius have been as influential in human history as many of their ancient Greek contemporaries. And we have the then-tolerant and open-minded Muslim world to thank for preserving pre-Christian European thought from destruction at the hands of the Churchmen through the thousand or so years of Europe’s ‘Dark Ages’.

But nowadays Muslims are threatened with a dark age of their own by governments and fundamentalist groups dedicated to keeping theummah as poor, ignorant and powerless as possible and thus perverting the very religion they so hypocritically pretend to protect in their pursuit of power and plunder.

Demonising non-Muslims

And as “moderate” as it may be thus far compared with its counterparts in Taliban-infested Afghanistan, Pakistan and sundry other such Horrorstans, Malaysia’s BN regime is similarly dedicated to demonising non-Muslims, through government-funded pressure groups like Perkasa, ‘newspapers’ like Utusan Malaysia and indoctrination posing as education as in this latest Islamic and Asian Civilisation studies initiative.

The fact of the matter is that the BN regime’s influence on Malaysia and its every institution is not so much civilising as drivelising, as evidenced by the stupid, lying statements its spokespersons invariably make, the miserable state of its mendacious so-called “mainstream” media, and of course its lamentable efforts to “improve” the education system.

In any event, if this larcenous, low-brow regime had an even remotely sincere intention of making Malaysian higher education a more civilizing experience it would hardly be justified in limiting its efforts to imparting information about Islam and Asia.

As Malaysiakini quoted Catholic Bishop of Malacca-Johore Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing as commenting, this is an “unwarrantedly narrowed engagement with the best that has been said, thought and done in this world”.

Granting that “Islamic and Asian civilisations have given much that is of value” to humankind, he said that additionally exposing students to Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian thought would go a long way toward giving graduates some familiarity with “the good, the true and the beautiful”.

Making the point that “universities ought to be citadels for the disinterested contemplation of truth,” he added that “there’s no freedom like that conferred by knowledge of the truth, and there’s no bondage more enslaving than the truth’s suppression in the interests of politics”.

The good bishop knows what he’s talking about here, as it was the church he represents that spent the interminable centuries of the aforementioned dark ages systematically suppressing every scientific and other truth that could possibly threaten its spiritual, political and economic stranglehold over the faithful.

And it was only relatively recently in historical terms that the sorely-needed Reformation and the philosophical and political Enlightenment finally forced the Catholic and other Christian religions to at least partially clean up their acts and devote themselves to the pursuit of truth somewhat more sincerely than hitherto.

The fact of the matter is that, unlike training or, God forbid, indoctrination, education should be about teaching us not what some religion or government wants us to think, but how to think for ourselves. Or as the great Immanuel Kant expressed the spirit of the enlightenment, to dare to think for ourselves.

Personification of such daring

And if there’s one contemporary symbol and personification of such daring, it is Malala Yousafzai, the young Muslim girl who was shot by the Taliban last October for the “crime” of attending school.

In her recent address to the United Nations General Assembly on the occasion of her 16th birthday, Malala put the advocates and supporters of warring sectarian “truths” to shame by speaking of “the compassion I have learned from Muhammad, the prophet ofmercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha… the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela (right) and Mohammad Ali Jinnah… (and) the philosophy of non-violence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Theresa.”

Later in her eloquent and intelligent address, she criticised those who misuse Islam, “a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood”, for their own personal benefit, before closing with the clarion call for the world to use education “to wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism.”

And also, of course, against BN-style errorism, in which education is used as a weapon to divide rather than unite the people of Malaysia, and education departments are used as milk-cows for corruption on a massive scale, the latest of countless scandalous instances of which being the contract recently awarded to crony company YTL Corp for overpriced Chromebook laptop computers.

But unfortunately, as well all know only too well, the criminals who so cretinously misgovern and mislead Malaysia are extremely unlikely to hear, let alone heed, such enlightened and educational messages as Malela’s. In fact, if their past practices are any indication, they’re more likely to figuratively, if not yet like the Taliban literally, shoot the messenger.

http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2013/07/18/malalas-message-to-malaysia/

KAU INI BAGAIMANA ATAU AKU HARUS BAGAIMANA

 

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau bilang aku merdeka, kau pilihkan untukku segalanya

Kau suruh aku berpikir, aku berpikir kau tuduh aku kapir

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau bilang bergeraklah, aku bergerak kau curigai

Kau bilang jangan banyak tingkah, aku diam saja kau waspadai

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku pegang prinsip, aku memegang prinsip kau tuduh aku kaku

Kau suruh aku toleran, aku toleran kau bilang aku plin-plan

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku maju, aku maju kau srimpung kakiku

Kau suruh aku bekerja, aku bekerja kau ganggu aku

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku taqwa, khutbah keagamaanmu membuat aku sakit jiwa

Kau suruh aku mengikutimu, langkahmu tak jelas arahnya

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku menghormati hukum, kebijaksanaanmu menyepelekannya

Kau suruh aku berdisiplin, kau menyontohkan yang lain

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau bilang Tuhan sangat dekat, kau sendiri memanggilnya dengan pengeras suara tiap saat

Kau bilang kau suka damai, kau ajak aku setiap hari bertikai

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku membangun, aku membangun kau merusaknya

kau suruh aku menabung, aku menabung kau menghabiskannya

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku menggarap sawah, sawahku kau tanami rumah-rumah

Kau bilang aku harus punya rumah, aku punya rumah kau meratakannya dengan tanah

Kau ini bagaimana?

Aku kau larang berjudi, permainan spekulasimu menjadi-jadi

Aku kau suruh bertanggungjawab, kau sendiri terus berucap wallahu a`lam bissawab

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku jujur, aku jujur kau tipu aku

Kau suruh aku sabar, aku sabar kau injak tengkukku

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau suruh aku memilihmu sebagai wakilku, sudah kupilih kau bertindak semaumu

Kau bilang kau selalu memikirkanku, aku sapa saja kau merasa terganggu

Kau ini bagaimana?

Kau bilang bicaralah, aku bicara kau bilang aku ceriwis

Kau bilang jangan banyak bicara, aku bungkam kau tuduh aku apatis

Aku harus bagaimana?

Kau bilang kritiklah, aku kritik kau marah

Kau bilang cari alternatifnya, aku kasih alternatif kau bilang jangan mendikte saja

Kau ini bagaimana?

Aku bilang terserah kau, kau tidak mahu

Aku bilang terserah kita, kau tak suka

Aku bilang terserah aku, kau memakiku

Kau ini bagaimana?

(K.H.A.Mustofa Bisri, 1987)