The Silent Room

Nobody was willing to give me any answers, so I had to find some on my own.

After today’s turn of events (attacks on churches, windows of cars owned by Christians getting smashed, etc.) I figured I’d do a bit more reading on the issue and read arguments from the proponents of the ‘Allah’ ban. I discovered a couple of interesting things that I feel compelled to share with you.

There’s this group of sock-puppets who actively support UMNO on their Forum Tempur Politik Maya (I’m not going to bother translating that, simply because it sounds funnier in Bahasa). In their discussion thread, they argued that the Christians are out to convert Muslims to Christianity, supposedly in their ever-lasting crusade against Islam.

Read that last line again, out loud. I couldn’t, because I laughed too hard.

Anyway.

Basically their point is that there are other alternative translations for Christians to use in the BM translations of their publications instead of using the word ‘Allah’. Like ‘Tuhan’, for example – so there’s no need for the Christians to be so persistent to use the word ‘Allah’.

They argued that using the term ‘Allah’ in Christian doctrine has an underlying evil intention of creating confusion among Muslims. For example, an idiot Malay Muslim would be so easily tricked by these:

I’ll be honest and admit that I was a little taken aback by these scans. I’ve only known one way the term ‘Allah’ is used and seeing it used in a non-Islamic publication took me a bit by surprise (I’m not from East Malaysia, you see). Fortunately, I have a strong faith in the words of the Quran, and not the Bible. I keep a translated copy of the Quran within arms reach because I like to clear any confusions I may have by going straight to the source.

Before I proceed, let me first say that I am not the most religious Muslim in practice, but my faith is strong enough to not be shaken by a mere newsletter. Then again, I am inquisitive by nature and I don’t draw my own religious conclusions just from such a small sample. I like to go deep into the matter and learn as much as I can – because there is simply too much to learn, and my pathetic little brain can only process so much at any given time.

Back to the issue at hand, it appears that the biggest argument here is not really about exclusivity, but of insecurity. The bulk of Malay Muslims who oppose the court ruling is generally afraid that the mentally challenged and largely incompetent bulk of Malays who would have their pathetically weak ‘iman‘ and ‘akidah‘ getting severely ‘goncang‘-ed just by reading a Catholic newsletter.

A fair enough reason to be afraid, I guess. When you’re stupid, you tend to be scared of everything.
Like, being scared of exams when you didn’t study (lol).

So now comes a question.

Is The Herald (the Catholic paper in question) distributed to Muslims (Malay Muslims, in particular)? I don’t know the answer to this, but I honestly think the answer is ‘No‘. The law clearly states that any attempt at spreading non-Islamic teachings to Muslims is illegal (someone clarify this, please?). I mean, let’s look at this from a logical perspective.

An official, government-recognized, public church, I think, wouldn’t be so stupid to break that law by disseminating its clearly Catholic newsletter to Muslims. Sure, a few copies might accidentally end up in the hands of a (bengap, bebal, tolol) Malay Muslim. The first thing I think a stereotypical Malay Muslim would do to a Christian newsletter is to get rid of it.

“Uish, risalah Kristian ni! Haram,… haram… nak kena samak ni!”

You get what I mean. Even the sight of a Bible on a bookshelf is enough to terrify Malay children from walking down a bookstore aisle. Of course, this doesn’t happen all the time, and naturally there would be a few inquisitive souls among these Malays. Let’s imagine what goes on in their grey noodle upon seeing this:

“Ohh… orang Kristian pun sembah Allah rupanya. Tapi orang Kristian buleh minum arak, makan babi, tak payah puasa. Kalau gitu, baik convert. Hidup senang, takde dosa sangat, lepas tu masih sembah Allah jugak, kan?”

This.

This is the root of all the rage.

Not sacrilege. Not exclusivity.
Not sinister plots hatched by evil Christian priests and their mischievous flock of sheep.

It is this religious confusion and misunderstanding among the feeble minds of the Malays that caused such uproar and madness. Which brings me to another question: Are the Malays really so mentally weak, so spiritually ignorant and so intellectually incompetent?

Evidently, a huge chunk of Malays believe the answer to that question is ‘yes’, judging by their recent actions.

“The issue here is about the insistence of the church to use the word Allah in their publication. If for them it’s just a language matter then why not change it to a less controversial one. In fact the correct translation is ‘Tuhan’. We are trying to correct the same mistake repeated again and again for the past 150 years.

Their insistence raise questions about their true motives. And we suspect this as a soft way to entice those less-confident-muslim compared to confident-muslims to take your classification.

Of course those who protest the decision are not the one who will simply change their faith just because of this setback (Allah willing as hidayah is His). Those so called idiots you said really are thinking about those less fortunate one who in their own environment(poor, displaced, no parents, liberal,etc) might not be able to gain enough knowledge about Islam as compared to others*** like you who Praise be to Allah gives you a very good environment to grew up and know Allah (Do you??).”

***(Silencers’ note: Isn’t this what the government is supposed to be taking care of?)

- Nuh Rahmat Alam

Long story short, using the word ‘Allah’ in Christian publications creates a risk that might convert the spiritually weak Muslims to Christianity. Okay, at least now I understand what they are so angry about.

They’re angry at the fact that it’s so easy for a Malay Muslim to convert out of Islam.

They’re angry at the fact that the common Malay Muslim isn’t smart enough to distinguish which teachings they should believe in.

They’re angry at the fact that the common Malay Muslim are too stupid to make their own decisions.

They’re angry at the fact that they have to mentally better themselves.

They’re angry at the realisation of how weak Islam is in the hearts of Malays.

All this fury about exclusivity and blasphemy is just a smokescreen to shield their true fears. Their true fears, I believe, is that Muslims are too weak to stand on their own. That they cannot feel superior about themselves without knocking people of other faiths down a few rungs.

Spiritually weak Muslims are afraid that mere newsletters would lead them astray.

This is the initial conclusion that I have come to. Is there anyone who would like to question this and overturn my judgment? I’m very curious to know what you think – especially if you think I am wrong.

PS: I bet the first thing they’d say is “Eleh, macam la kau tu kuat sangat agama!”

PPS: There’s a FB group ‘We support the use of the name Allah by all Malaysians‘. I will not join this group, simply because I disagree with its seemingly innocent and harmonious claim. I might write about it (if I feel like it), but feel free to talk to me about it if you’re interested to know more.

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Yet another fantastic read, echoing my sentiments exactly: Have Faith

If you actually sit down and think about it, you’re unlikely to encounter the word Allah used by Christians outside of the usual places you might normally find it used in — like churches that use Bahasa Malaysia during mass or in Christian magazines or newspapers. Let’s face it, would the average Muslim Malaysian even go to a church anyway? Would he or she even buy Christian magazines or newspapers? I think not, because why would they?

And another one: Confident People Do Not Get Confused

In 2007, the Majlis Agama Negeri Perlis, which is a large majlis filled with people very learned in Islamic religious knowledge, discussed the question of the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims. Their unanimous decision? They issued a fatwa to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with non-Muslims using the word at all.

The keyword here, ladies and gentlemen, is logic.

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Small Talk:
I think I should find a way to encapsulate Logic into a supplementary pill.
I’m sure I’d make millions of bucks from that.

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