Category: Agama

  • Hukum Hijab Bagi Wanita Islam

    Hukum Hijab Bagi Wanita Islam

    Hijab, atau bertudung, merupakan satu amalan yang diterima sebagai sesuatu yang fardhu oleh kebanyakkan kita di Malaysia dan negara-negara Muslim lain.

    Anjuran untuk berhijab ini disokong oleh dalil-dalil daripada Al-Quran dan Hadith yang menurut saya tidak perlu dihuraikan dengan panjang lebar lagi.

    Namun saya tertarik untuk membawa perhatian kita kepada perbahasan alternatif seputar isu Hijab yang jarang sekali diketengahkan dalam wacana keislaman di Malaysia.

    Hijab dalam Al-Quran

    Anjuran untuk memakai Hijab dapat kita temui di dalam Surah Al-Nuur ayat 31 yang menyatakan:

    “Katakanlah kepada wanita-wanita mukminah hendaklah mereka menahan pandangan mereka dan memelihara kemaluan mereka dan janganlah mereka memperlihatkan perhiasan tubuh mereka kecuali yang zahir daripadanya; dan hendaklah mereka menutup belahan leher bajunya dengan tudung kepala mereka; dan janganlah mereka memperlihatkan perhiasan tubuh mereka melainkan kepada suami mereka, atau bapa mereka atau bapa mertua mereka atau anak-anak mereka, atau anak-anak tiri mereka, atau saudara-saudara mereka, atau anak bagi saudara-saudara mereka yang lelaki, atau anak bagi saudara-saudara mereka yang perempuan, atau perempuan-perempuan Islam, atau kepada lelaki yang tidak berkeinginan kepada perempuan, atau kanak-kanak yang belum mengerti lagi tentang aurat perempuan; dan janganlah mereka menghentakkan kaki untuk diketahui orang akan apa yang tersembunyi dari perhiasan mereka; dan bertaubatlah kamu sekalian kepada Allah, wahai orang-orang yang beriman, supaya kamu berjaya”

    Dan di dalam Surah Al-Ahzab ayat 59, Allah memerintahkan:

    “Wahai Nabi, suruhlah isteri-isterimu dan anak-anak perempuanmu serta perempuan-perempuan yang beriman, supaya melabuhkan pakaiannya bagi menutup seluruh tubuhnya (semasa mereka keluar); cara yang demikian lebih sesuai untuk mereka dikenal maka dengan itu mereka tidak diganggu. Dan (ingatlah) Allah adalah Maha Pengampun, lagi Maha Mengasihani.”

    Inilah dasar pijakan hukum yang menjadi asas kepada perintah agar perempuan-perempuan Muslimah untuk menutup rambutnya dan melabuhkan tudungnya sehingga menutupi dada.

    Aurat berdasarkan fiqh klasik

    Aurat ditakrifkan sebagai kekurangan atau sesuatu yang memalukan dan mengaibkan dari anggota tubuh badan sekiranya di dedahkan untuk tatapan umum.

    Menurut Imam Al-Nawawi di dalam Al-Majmu’ Syarh Al-Muhazzab, aurat diertikan sebagai anggota tubuh manusia yang menurut pandangan umum buruk atau mengaibkan sekiranya diperlihatkan kepada umum dan sekiranya dibiarkan terbuka akan menimbulkan fitnah.

    Fitnah yang dimaksudkan oleh Al-Nawawi adalah fitnah seksual, oleh yang demikian majoriti ulama’ berpendapat bahawa aurat wajib ditutup.

    Sekiranya kita meneliti perbahasan fiqh tentang aurat, terutamanya aurat perempuan. Kita akan menemui perbezaan di antara batas aurat perempuan merdeka (Al-Hurrah) dan batas aurat hamba (Al-Amah).

    Di dalam Mazhab Syafie, batas aurat perempuan merdeka adalah keseluruhan tubuh mereka kecuali muka dan tapak tangan.

    Bahkan Al-Muzani menambah bahawa tapak kaki perempuan juga bukan termasuk dalam batas aurat yang harus ditutup.

    Begitu juga pendapat tentang batas aurat perempuan merdeka menurut Mazhab Maliki, walaubagaimanapun menurut Muhammad Bin Abdullah Al-Maghribi sekiranya perempuan merdeka tersebut merasa bimbang terhadap fitnah, maka ia harus menutup muka dan tapak tangannya.

    Manakala menurut Ibnu Qudamah batas aurat perempuan menurut Mazhab Hanbali adalah keseluruhan tubuh badannya bahkan menurut Abu Bakr Al-Harits, keseluruhan tubuh perempuan adalah aurat termasuklah kukunya.

    Batas aurat perempuan merdeka dan perempuan hamba

    Manakala batasan aurat bagi perempuan hamba menurut Imam Al Nawawi boleh dibahagikan kepada tiga pendapat.

    Pertama, majoriti ulama’ Syafieyah menyatakan bahawa batas aurat bagi perempuan hamba adalah sama seperti batasan aurat lelaki merdeka, iaitu di antara pusat sehingga lutut.

    Kedua, menurut Al-Thabari batas aurat perempuan hamba sama seperti batas aurat perempuan merdeka kecuali kepala tidak wajib ditutupi.

    Ketiga, aurat perempuan hamba adalah sama dengan perempuan merdeka kecuali bahagian tubuh badan yang diperlukan untuk membuat kerja seperti kepala, leher dan lengan.

    Al-Marghinani dalam kitabnya Al-Hidayah Syarh Al-Bidayah menyatakan bahawa batas aurat lelaki adalah sama dengan batas aurat perempuan hamba, perut dan punggung perempuan hamba dan lelaki adalah aurat.

    Selain dari itu seluruh tubuhnya adalah bukan aurat. Kesimpulan ini dibuat berdasarkan kisah Umar Al Khatab yang telah memerintahkan agar Daffar (seorang hamba perempuan) untuk membuka tudung kepalanya. Umar bertanya kepada Daffar – “Adakah engkau ingin menyerupai perempuan merdeka?”

    Menurut Al-Marghinani lagi, aurat perempuan hamba tidak sama dengan perempuan merdeka kerana pada kebiasaannya hamba perempuan ini harus keluar dari rumah untuk melunaskan pekerjaan sebagaimana yang diarahkan oleh tuannya.

    Muhammad Ali Al-Shobuni di dalam Rawa’i Al-Bayan Tafsir Ayat Al Ahkam Min Al Quran senada dengan Al-Marghinani dalam hal aurat perempuan hamba.

    Menurut beliau perempuan hamba akan terbeban dengan urusan-urusan pekerjaan sehingga terpaksa keluar dari rumah, pergi ke pasar dan memenuhi segala keperluan tuannya. Sekiranya diperintahkan untuk berpakaian seperti perempuan Muslimah merdeka, sudah pasti ia akan menyusahkan dan membebankan hamba perempuan tersebut menyelesaikan urusan pekerjaannya.

    Sementara itu, Ibnu Hazm di dalam Al-Muhalla’ berpendapat bahawa batas aurat bagi perempuan merdeka dan perempuan hamba adalah sama dalam apa keadaan sekalipun kerana tidak ada dalil dari Al-Quran mahupun Hadith yang menyatakan perbezaan di antara batas aurat perempuan merdeka dan perempuan hamba.

    Makna aurat berbeza berdasar tafsiran

    Secara umumnya, sekiranya kita meneliti teks-teks klasik fiqh yang membahaskan tentang persoalan aurat kita pasti akan berjumpa dengan perbahasan-perbahasan tentang perbezaan aurat di antara perempuan merdeka dengan perempuan hamba.

    Dan perbezaan ini sangat ketara kerana para ulama menyatakan bahawa alasan perbezaan tersebut rata-ratanya adalah untuk memudahkan, keperluan dan mengelakkan kesulitan bagi perempuan hamba tersebut melakukan urusan kerja yang diarahkan oleh tuannya.

    Ibnu Hajar Al-Asqalani di dalam Fath-Al Bari menyatakan bahawa pakaian (Al-Malabis) adalah berbeza-beza di setiap negeri.

    Sekiranya kita meneliti dari sudut sejarah dan latar sosial masyarakat arab pada masa tersebut pakaian-pakaian seperti khimar dan jalabib sebagaimana yang disebutkan di dalam Surah Al Nuur ayat 31 merupakan pakaian kebudayaan bagi masyarakat Arab pada ketika itu.

    Muhammad Tahir Ibn Ashoor di dalam bukunya Maqasid Syariah Al Islamiyah menyatakan bahawa adat kebiasaan sesuatu kaum tidak boleh dipaksakan ke atas kaum lain atas nama agama.

    Beliau sewaktu menghuraikan Surah Al-Ahzab ayat 59 yang memerintahkan agar isteri-isteri Nabi dan perempuan beriman untuk melabuhkan jilbab mereka sehingga menutupi dada menyatakan – “Ini adalah ajaran yang mempertimbangkan adat orang-orang Arab sehingga bangsa-bangsa lain yang tidak menggunakan jilbab tidak diwajibkan atas syariat ini”.

    Makna “aurat” bergantung kepada budaya masyarakat dan zaman

    Tafsiran aurat sendiri begitu subjektif dan berbeza-beza di antara ulama’ walaupun objektif utama penutupan aurat adalah untuk mengelakkan berlakunya fitnah seksual (Khauf Al-Fitnah) terhadap perempuan.

    Pemahaman terhadap batas anggota tubuh yang membawa keaiban juga berbeza dari setiap tempat dan banyak dipengaruhi oleh keadaan budaya masyarakat setempat.

    Perempuan, sebagaimana lelaki, mempunyai hak yang sama ke atas tubuh badannya dan berhak diberikan kebebasan untuk memilih pakaian yang menurut pandangannya adalah sesuai dan mampu mengelakkan fitnah.

    Sekiranya dia memilih untuk bertudung, itu baik untuknya dan sekiranya dia memilih untuk tidak bertudung itu juga baik untuknya. Yang lebih penting ialah mereka memakai pakaian yang terhormat.

     

    Source: www.projekdialog.com

  • Reality TV Show Brings Convicted Terrorists Face To Face With Victims

    Reality TV Show Brings Convicted Terrorists Face To Face With Victims

    BAGHDAD — Haider Ali Motar was convicted of terrorism charges about a month ago for helping to carry out a string of Baghdad car bombings on behalf of the Islamic State extremist group. Now, the 21-year old is a reluctant cast member in a popular reality TV show.

    In the Grip of the Law brings convicted terrorists face-to-face with victims in surreal encounters and celebrates the country’s beleaguered security forces. The show, produced by state-run Iraqiyya TV, is among dozens of programmes, cartoons and musical public service announcements aimed at shoring up support for the troops after their humiliating defeat last summer at the hands of the Islamic State group, which now controls about a third of the country.

    On a chilly, overcast day last week, the crew arrived at the scene of one of the attacks for which Motar was convicted, with a heavily armed escort in eight military pick-up trucks and Humvees. Passing cars clogged the road to watch the drama unfold, but were quickly shooed away by soldiers.

    After being pulled from an armoured vehicle, a shackled Motar found himself face-to-face with the seething relatives of the victims of the attack. “Give him to me — I’ll tear him to pieces,” one of the relatives roared from behind a barbed wire barrier.

    A cameraman pinned a microphone on Motar’s bright yellow prison jumpsuit as he stood alongside a busy Baghdad highway looking bewildered by his surroundings.

    “Say something,” the cameraman said to him.

    “What am I supposed to say?” a visibly panicked Motar asked.

    “It’s a mic check! Just count: 1,2,3,4…”

    Once the cameras were rolling, the show’s host Ahmed Hassan quizzed the still-shackled prisoner. When Motar was confronted by one of the victims, a young man in a wheelchair who lost his father in one of the attacks, the convict began weeping, as the cameras rolled.

    Iraq has seen near-daily car bombs and other attacks for more than a decade, both before and after the withdrawal of United States-led troops at the end of 2011. But the central message of the show, the filming of which began last year, is that the security forces will bring perpetrators to justice.

    “We wanted to produce a program that offers clear and conclusive evidence, with the complete story, presented and shown to Iraqi audiences,” Mr Hassan told The Associated Press. “Through surveillance videos, we show how the accused parked the car, how he blew it up, how he carries out an assassination.”

    The episodes often detail the trail of evidence that led security forces to make the arrest. Police allow the camera crew to film the evidence — explosive belts, bomb-making equipment or fingerprints and other DNA samples.

    “We show our audiences the pictures, along with hard evidence, to leave no doubts that this person is a criminal and paying for his crimes,” Mr Hassan said.

    All of the alleged terrorists are shown confessing to their crimes in one-on-one interviews. Hassan said the episodes are only filmed after the men have confessed to a judge, insisting it is “impossible” that any of them are innocent.

    “The court first takes a preliminary testimony and then they require a legal confession in front of a judge,” Mr Hassan explained. “After obtaining the security and legal permission, we are then allowed to film those terrorists.”

    Human rights groups have long expressed concern over the airing of confessions by prisoners, many of whom have been held incommunicado in secret facilities.

    “The justice system is so flawed and the rights of detainees, especially those accused of terrorism (but not only) are so routinely violated that it is virtually impossible to be confident that they would be able to speak freely,” Ms Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International said in an email.

    “In recent months, which I have spent in Iraq, virtually every family I have met who has a relative detained has complained that they do not have access to them, and the same is true for lawyers.”

    In a September statement, Amnesty International cited longstanding concerns about the Iraqi justice system, “where many accused of terrorism have been convicted and sentenced to long prison terms and even to death on the basis of ‘confessions’ extracted under torture”.

    Such concerns are rarely if ever aired on Iraqi TV, where wall-to-wall programming exalts the security forces. Singers embedded with the troops sing nationalist songs during commercial breaks. In another popular programme, called The Quick Response, a travelling correspondent interviews soldiers, aiming to put a human face on the struggle against the extremists.

    Iraqi forces backed by Shiite and Kurdish militias, as well as US-led coalition airstrikes, have clawed back some territory following the army’s route last summer, when commanders disappeared, calls for reinforcements went unanswered and many soldiers stripped off their uniforms and fled. But around a third of the country — including its second largest city, Mosul — remains under the firm control of militants, and nearly every day brings new bombings in and around the capital.

    Back at the makeshift barricade set up for In the Grip of the Law, security officials insist they are nevertheless sending a message of deterrence.

    “Many of these terrorists feel a lot of remorse when they see the victims,” said the senior intelligence officer overseeing the shoot, who declined to be named since he often works undercover. “When people see that, it makes them think twice about crossing the law.” AP

     

    Source: www.todayonline,com

  • IS Beset By Factionalism, Desertion And Flagging Morale

    IS Beset By Factionalism, Desertion And Flagging Morale

    BEIRUT — Flagging morale, desertion and factionalism are starting to affect the Islamic State, testing the cohesion of the jihadi force as its military momentum slows.

    Activists and fighters in parts of eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State said as military progress slows and focus shifts to governing the area, frustration has grown among militants who had been seen as the most disciplined and effective fighting force in the country’s civil war.

    The group hurtled across western Iraq and eastern Syria over the summer in a sudden offensive that shocked the world. The Islamic State remains a formidable force: It controls swathes of territory and continues to make progress in western Iraq. But its fighters have reached the limit of discontented Sunni Muslim areas that they can easily capture and United States-led coalition air strikes partnered with offensives by local ground forces have begun to halt their progress.

    The US military announced last week that air strikes had killed two senior Islamic State leaders — although there has been no confirmation of the claim by the group — and on Friday, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters broke the jihadis’ five-month siege of Mount Sinjar in Iraq.

    “Morale isn’t falling — it’s hit the ground,” said an opposition activist from Islamic State-controlled areas of Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province. “Local fighters are frustrated — they feel they’re doing most of the work and the dying … foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted.”

    An activist opposed to both the Syrian regime and Islamic State, and well known to the Financial Times, said he had verified 100 executions of foreign Islamic State fighters trying to flee the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital. Like most people interviewed or described in this article, he asked for his name to be withheld for security reasons.

    “After the fall of Mosul in June, the Islamic State was presenting itself as unstoppable and it was selling a sense of adventure,” a US official said. He added that the dynamics have changed since the US launched air strikes in August and helped break the momentum of the Islamic State advance, which has helped stem the flow of foreign recruits — although he warned that the change of mood “doesn’t affect the hard-core people of the Islamic State”.

    Analyst Torbjorn Soltvedt of Verisk Maplecroft, a United Kingdom-based risk analysis group, said morale may be taking a hit as militants grapple with the shift from mobile army to governing force.

    “Before they were seizing territory, forcing armies in Iraq and Syria to retreat,” he said. “Now they’re basically an occupying force trying to govern.”

    After flocking to Syria and Iraq during the Islamic State’s heady days of quick victories, some foreigners may also be questioning the long, gruelling fight ahead.

    Mr Soltvedt said his organisation has had many reports of foreign fighters, including Britons, contacting family members and state authorities seeking ways to return home.

    Islamic State members in Raqqa said the organisation has created a military police to crack down on fighters who fail to report for duty. Activists say dozens of fighters’ homes have been raided and many have been arrested. Militants told a local journalist that they must now carry a document identifying them as a fighter and showing whether they are assigned to a mission.

    An opposition activist in close contact with Islamic State fighters in Raqqa showed the Financial Times a document listing new regulations restricting jihadis’ behaviour. The paper, which could not be verified and which did not appear to have been issued in other Islamic State-held areas, warned that those who did not report to their offices within 48 hours of receiving the regulations would be punished.

    “In Raqqa, they have arrested 400 members so far and printed IDs for the others,” the activist said.

    The identification document for one fighter from the Gulf consisted of a printed form stating name, location, section and mission assignment, with his details filled in by hand.

    “The situation is not good,” he grumbled, adding that fighters have become increasingly discontented with their leaders. He refused to give more details, saying only: “We aren’t able to speak the truth and we are forced to do useless things.”

    Activists in Islamic State-held parts of Syria said many fighters in Raqqa were angry about being sent to Kobani, a small Kurdish town near the Syrian border with Turkey that has become a focal point for coalition strikes. The fighters argued that the town was not strategically important enough to justify the losses they were incurring.

    Based on a Dec 7 report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group with a network of activists across Syria, the Islamic State lost about 1,400 fighters in 80 days of fighting. The US official said many Islamic State fighters have been killed in the town.

    Foreign militants have often been the most active in major battles, but opposition activists said as fighting intensifies, more demands are being made on local fighters who do not have deep-rooted loyalties to the Islamic State.

    “They pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, so they could keep fighting the (Assad) regime and not have to go against the Islamic State,” the Deir Ezzor activist said. “They feel they are the ones going to die in big numbers on the battlefield, but they don’t enjoy any of the foreigners’ benefits — high salaries, a comfortable life, female slaves.”

    Another problem, locals said, may be a rise in tensions among ethnic groups. Many fighters apparently group themselves by ethnicity or nationality — a practice that undermines the Islamic State’s claim to be ridding Muslims of national borders.

    A widely publicised example was a clash between Uzbek and Chechen fighters in Raqqa last month over control of some villas near the captured Tabqa air base.

    “Just like the Uzbek and Chechen issues in Tabqa, we are having similar issues in Manbij with the Tunisians,” said an activist in Syria’s northern city of Manbij. “They won’t let some of the highest-level security members (of other nationalities) onto their bases.”

    Residents in Raqqa also said they have seen growing signs of discontent. One man recalled a speech at the Fardous mosque last Friday by a Tunisian cleric, who often appears in Islamic State videos.

    “He urged the brothers to put aside their disputes and said all brothers should stay together as one hand,” the man said. “Now I realise why the preacher was saying this … Something is wrong.” THE FINANCIAL TIMES

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Former Malaysian DPM Tun Musa Hitam Is Liberal And Proud Of It

    Former Malaysian DPM Tun Musa Hitam Is Liberal And Proud Of It

    KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 22 — Former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Musa Hitam has declared that he is a liberal and proud of it, joining a small but growing band of Malay Muslims speaking up in the face of Islamic fundamentalism that has crept into the country.

    In an interview with The Star daily published today, Musa, the first of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s four deputies, also pointed out that Umno was founded on the principles of moderation and liberalism because the Malay nationalist party wanted Malaysia to be one.

    “Only moderation and liberalism will allow us to survive,” Musa was quoted saying.

    “First let me say this emphatically and very firmly – I have always been a liberal and a moderate and am proud of it. My family, my parents, my elders brought me up that way, and in my more grown up days since I entered politics, my political party Umno adopted the stance of moderation from the early days that we gained independence. But I don’t know what’s happening there now,” he added.

    Musa’s declaration of his liberal beliefs comes after a group of 25 retired senior civil servants called for open debate of Islamic legislation in Malaysia and urged Putrajaya to assert the supremacy of the Federal Constitution over Shariah state laws.

    Malaysia’s religious authorities have long derided liberalism and pluralism, with Friday sermons nationwide claiming a conspiracy by “enemies of Islam” to manipulate Muslims through such philosophies and other ideologies like secularism, socialism, feminism and positivism.

    This has been repeated by Prime Minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who in April said that Islam was being tested by new threats under the guise of humanism, secularism, liberalism and human rights.

    Musa told The Star that he was very happy to see the statement made by the 25 prominent Malays.

    “To me personally, that was a very good symbolic statement made by them in that they triggered thinking, arguments and conversations. Then there were the responses, which I compliment also because they are not calling names. They are not arguing based on irrationality but arguing on an almost point-by-point basis. This was absent before,” he said.

    The 80-year-old also noted that “many Malay leaders” were attempting to instil fear and a siege mentality among the Malays, but did not name anyone.

    “As a result, they are also instilling a very serious inferiority complex among the Malays. This is misplaced. So many Malays are capable, yet every day these groups are saying ‘You are inferior, you need protection’ and ‘Those superior people are attacking or threatening us’,” said Musa.

    He said Malays had no reason to fear as they were well-equipped to face such challenges and to be competitive.

    The former deputy prime minister and home minister, who served from 1981 to 1986, stressed that a democracy must have a high tolerance of criticism, amid a spate of investigations and prosecutions under the Sedition Act 1948 targeting mostly dissidents against the government.

    “So, what I am trying to do is appeal to both sides, don’t just arrest them and hassle them. Use rationale and reasoning,” he said.

    Musa also expressed concern about the use of racial and religious issues to gain political mileage, which he said hearkened back to the time leading up to the bloody May 13 race riots in 1969.

    “Very early on in my political career, I saw so many attempts for popular support using racial and religious issues. I hate to use this example but I have to – the May 13 incident was the result of it all.

    “But we were supposed to have learnt and corrected ourselves after that. Yet now, after so many years, we seem to be back to the old days. The basic ingredients are the same, the approach is the same, even the statements are the same in many respects. In the historical perspective, it brings a very eerie reminder of the bad old days,” he said.

     

    Source: www.themalaymailonline.com

  • Reverend Kang Ho Soon Preaches Inclusivity

    Reverend Kang Ho Soon Preaches Inclusivity

    For more than 40 years, Reverend Kang Ho Soon has preached the message of inclusiveness.

    He has welcomed homosexuals to his services, invited religious leaders from various faiths to speak to his Christian flock and reached out to prostitutes and migrant workers.

    The Methodist preacher, who retired this month at the age of 65, said: “I’ve been open to friendship with anyone in any station or walk of life, from all religions.”

    His retirement service at Paya Lebar Methodist Church on Nov 22 was testament to this.

    Among the 1,000-strong crowd were Catholic nuns, a Taoist priest, imams, Sikhs and a representative from atheist group the Humanist Society Singapore.

    Rev Kang, a 30-year member of the Inter-Religious Organisation Singapore (IRO), said he does not set out to change people but to “accept them for who they are and to be their friend”.

    At 23, in his first role serving the Methodist Church as chaplain of Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) and pastor of the Barker Road Methodist Church, he gave his “full blessings” to a Muslim caretaker – known to him only as Madam Saminah – to hold Islamic classes in her living quarters at the church.

    Their friendship blossomed and he would visit her and her family every Hari Raya. Her grown-up daughters were present at his retirement service.

    Instead of pursuing an engineering degree, Rev Kang studied theology at Singapore Bible College and Trinity Theological College.

    He spent a decade at Paya Lebar Methodist Church, five years at Wesley Church and 17 years at Kampong Kapor in Little India – his longest term. There he reached out to prostitutes and migrant workers in the community.

    He said: “Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, sex trade workers and migrant workers were welcome to attend our services at Kampong Kapor. If we don’t reach out to them, we end up neglecting them.”

    He credits his openness to having spent his youth growing up in a kampung on the southern isle of Pulau Bukom.

    There, he learnt Jawi, an Arabic alphabet for writing Malay. It was something his late father, a labourer from China, encouraged him to pick up so he could interact with his Malay peers.

    Rev Kang is married to former St Andrew’s Junior College teacher Kang Yeok Lung, 65, and brought up his three children in the same way.

    His elder son, 35, a deputy public prosecutor, has four children of his own. Rev Kang also has a 29-year-old son who works in the communications field and a 26-year-old daughter who is an officer at the Economic Development Board.

    Another friend, Imam Habib Hassan of the Ba-Alwie Mosque, an IRO member, said Singapore needs more open-minded leaders like Rev Kang.

    “One time he wasn’t well in hospital, I went to see him. He asked me to pray for him,” said Imam Habib. “We pray for each other… This is the spirit of inter-faith relations that he has been building up.”

    Bishop Wee Boon Hup of the Methodist Church Singapore said Rev Kang’s approach to reach out to those who might have a “less favourable view of the Church” has been well received.

    “It is difficult to move forward in inter-faith relations unless someone first starts to reach out to another,” he said.

    “Ho Soon is one of those who reach out… He makes friends with people from all walks of life, engages in conversation with them and, in the process of hearing them share their faith journey, he is also able to let them hear of his faith.”

    Rev Kang, who admitted that his approach has not been “fully accepted” in some Christian circles, believes it is time for the Church “to speak more words of love, hope and peace to marginalised communities, instead of words of condemnation and judgment”.

    While he has retired from the Methodist Church, Rev Kang said he will be a pastor till the day he dies.

    He said he will devote his time to people, rather than institutional or organisational concerns.

    He aims to be a “listening ear” and counsellor to people from all walks of life, including pastors, people of all faiths or no faith, and people of all sexual orientations.

    “We’re a conservative society, but everyone can have a place and equal standing,” he said. “We look to try to understand and accept one another, with no agenda to convert.”


    Source: www.straitstimes.com