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Tag: Singapore

  • UMNO now plays ‘Muslim Card’, Focus on Religious Divide

    allahbanned

    A former US ambassador to Malaysia sounds the alarm

    Like other friends of Malaysia overseas, I have followed the controversy over the use of the word ‘Allah’ with interest, but also with great concern. For I believe that this issue, if left unchecked, has the potential to tear Malaysia and the dream of ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ apart.

    While there are racial and religious issues in every society, what makes the situation in Malaysia different is that it is the government that has condoned and even provoked these tensions for its own political purposes.

    For years, UMNO justified its existence by saying that the Malays are under threat, and that only UMNO could defend “the Malay race”.

    After the 13th general election, in which UMNO candidates received only 30 percent of the national vote – and in which BN as a whole got only 47 percent – it had two choices. It could broaden its appeal or it could narrow it by trying to appeal to the PAS voter base, for whom religion rather than race is a more important concern.

    Unfortunately, UMNO chose the latter course and started to play the ‘Muslim’ card. Now, according to the government and UMNO, it is not just Malays, it is also Islam that is under threat. As for the ‘Malay’ card, UMNO increasingly has gone to the extreme, pandering to extreme racist elements, starting with PERKASA.

    The irony of the “Malays/Islam under threat” claim, of course, is that in Malaysia, both Malays and Muslims are the majority. And UMNO controls the government. So how can the Malay race and the Muslim religion in Malaysia be under threat?

    To UMNO’s leadership, it doesn’t matter. There is no need to explain. They just speak and offer no evidence, and use their propaganda instruments – Bernama, RTM, Utusan Malaysia, the New Straits Times, etc – to spread the word.

    From an international perspective, they also make assertions that are totally out of line with Islamic thinking and practice in the rest of the world.

    Think about it – Malaysia is the only country in the world that ignores history and linguistics and dares to ban non-Muslims from uttering the word ‘Allah’. Like Humpty Dumpty, the Malaysian government stands alone – and claims for itself the right to decide what words mean and what words people may read, write, think, and speak.

    How can Prime Minister Najib Razak, his government, and its supporters justify their actions, when no one else in the Islamic world agrees with them? When Islamic scholars like Reza Aslan say, “We are laughing at you,” how do they respond?

    They don’t. Because they don’t know what to say. They seem to be living on their own planet.

    Actions, not just words

    But it is not just what Najib and his government say, it also is what they have done.

    • It is the government that seized more than 20,000 Bibles in 2009.

    • It is the government that banned the use of the word ‘Allah’ in Catholic weekly The Herald.

    • It is the government’s Police Force that joined the recent raid on the Bible Society of Malaysia, confiscating over 300 bibles without a search warrant.

    • It is the government’s religious affairs department, JAKIM, that directed mosques throughout Malaysia to say, without citing any evidence, that Islam is “under threat,” that Christians and Jews are “enemies of Islam,” and that Christians are responsible for turning Muslims against each other and tricking them into losing their rights.

    • It is Najib’s cabinet that stood silently by and decided not to enforce its 10-point plan to restore religious peace and harmony in the nation.

    • It is the government that refused to take any action after the leader of PERKASA called for the burning bibles.

    There is no greater example of uniformed assertions than former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s recent claim that Christians have “no right” to use the word ‘Allah’. Because he is Mahathir, he just says it, and he expects everyone to agree.

    As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. In this case, history and the facts are not on Mahathir’s side. Mahathir is totally, 100 percent, wrong.

    The word ‘Allah’ was used by Arabic-speaking Christians for centuries before the birth of the Prophet and the rise of Islam. Indeed, archaeologists have found an Arabic-language Christian Bible (the Mt Sinai Arabic Codex 151), that is nearly 1,300 years old, in which God is called ‘Allah’.

    Indeed, someone might ask what right Muslims have to say the word ‘Allah’, when it was used first by Christians? Who is violating whose rights?

    The answer is simple – even though Jews and Christians used it first, they would never deny Muslims the right to say the word ‘Allah’. Because while over the years, men and women have practiced and interpreted our religions in different ways, in the end we all worship the same God – the God of Abraham, the Creator of the Universe.

    So here is the question. In the entire Islamic world, why is it only in Malaysia that people claim that uttering or writing the word ‘Allah’ is the exclusive right of Muslims? Why is it only in Malaysia, and nowhere elsewhere in the world, that some Muslims say they will be “confused” if other people – Christians – use the word ‘Allah’ when they worship inside their own churches, or when they read the Bible in the privacy of their own homes?

    What makes Muslim Malaysians different from the other 1.5 billion Muslims in the rest of the world? I would like Malaysian advocates of the ‘Allah’ ban to explain this, not to me (a Christian), but to explain it to the rest of the Islamic world.

    Dangers of ‘quick research’

    The senior judge in the Allah appeal, Mohamed Apandi Ali, wrote in his opinion that through his “quick research” on the history of the language of the Bible, “it is clear that the word ‘Allah’ does not appear even once as the name of God or even of a man in the Hebrew scriptures. The name ‘Allah’ does not appear even once in either the Old or New Testament.

    “There is no such word at all in the Greek New Testament. In the Bible world, God has always been known as ‘Yahweh’, or by the contraction ‘Yah’. That being the historical fact, it can be concluded that the word or name ‘Allah’ is not an integral part of the faith and practice of Christianity.”

    Justice Apandi’s judgment clearly shows the dangers of “quick research.” He should have spent a little more time on the web. But because he refers to how the word ‘God’ is expressed in Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic, he has raised the important issue of language and the words that we use in different languages to refer to God.

    How many languages are there in the world? The Christian Bible has been translated in whole or part into an astonishing 2,817 languages, according to the Wycliffe Bible Translator, a UK organisation. The complete Bible is available in 513 languages, including Arabic and Malay.

    Both the Arabic and Malay Bibles use the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God. In the case of Arabic, it has been so for at least 1,300 years, and in the case of Malay, which “borrowed” the word ‘Allah’ from Arabic, for at least 300.

    Even so, Justice Apandi ignored both history and language when he claimed that the Arabic and Malay language word for God – Allah – belongs exclusively to Muslims. That is because Jews and Christians used the word ‘Allah’ before the Prophet was even born.

    Judge Apandi also was wrong when he said that the Jews have always referred to God as ‘Yahweh’. My own “quick research” on Wikipedia, which must have lasted 15 seconds longer than the learned judge’s, shows that the Hebrew Bible uses many names for God.

    While Yahweh is indeed the most common expression, two others are ‘Elah’ and ‘Eloah’. They both sound very similar to ‘Allah’ and there is a reason for that. Just as Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe in the God of Abraham, the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arab languages are all related to each other.

    Most scholars say that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew. And when Jesus spoke of God, he said, “Ellah.” That sounds remarkably very similar to the Arabic ‘Allah’. And it should, because Aramaic and Arab are what linguists call “cognates.”

    As word of Judaism and Christianity spread into the Arabian Peninsula, ‘Allah’ became the Arabic language name for the God of Abraham. The word ‘Allah’ was used first by Arab Christians and Mizrahi Jews, and only later by the Prophet and Muslims.

    UMNO

    Sorry, Justice Apandi. Sorry, Mahathir. Sorry, Najib and UMNO.

    If anyone owns the “trademark” on the word ‘Allah’, it is the Christians, who first spread the word of the God of Abraham into the Arabian peninsula, and who first used the word ‘Allah’. But here is the point – no Christian Malaysian insists and no Arabic-speaking Christian insists that the word ‘Allah’ belongs exclusively to them.

    So the burden of proof therefore is on any Malaysian who ignores history, language, and the facts – and who ignores what the rest of the Islamic world is doing – and simply asserts that only Muslim Malaysians may use the word ‘Allah’.

    John R. Malott served as US Ambassador to Malaysia from 1995 to 1998. He contributed this to the Malaysian website Malaysiakini.

    Source: MalaysiaKini

  • 11 Kebaikan Memakai Tudung Bagi Muslimah

    faisalhajari

    1) anda tidak perlu membuang masa set rambut, sikat2 dan dandan bagi lawa, pakai vidal sasoon ke mousse ke bagi rambut nampak lawa, berkilay dan beralun. Suami pun x merungut lama sgt menunggu korg mekap.

    2) korg tidak akan terasa membahang di kepala. Iklim malaysia yg panas dan membahang akan menyebabkan kepala cepat panas bila cahaya matahari yg berUV direct kena rambut n kepala. Menyebabkan kerosakan rambut dan tisu kulit kepala yg mengakibatkan kurap dan sopak.

    3) jika korg mempunyai rambut yg cantik beralun, korg ada segala hak utk x bagi org tgk. Biasanya org kalu nak beli henpon, dia akan beli yg dalam kotak dan bukannya display set. Korg ni mahal, bukannya bahan free show.

    4) tidak akan ada org yg menyalahkan korg kalau korg ni kena rogol ke atau kena raba ke disebabkan korg x memakai tudung serta x tutup aurat.

    5) penjimatan duit yg confirm banyak sbb nak set rambut kat salon bukannya murah. Satu sesi dah beratus. Sebulan at least kena pegi salon sekali utk basuh rambut. Belum masuk kos syampu, minyak rambut, mousse, conditioner.

    6) nak solat mmg senang, xyah susah2 carik telekung. Boleh solat terus dgn baju yg dipakai sekiranya xde najis. Jimat masa.

    7) tak perlu risau rambut kusut masai ditiup angin lemah gemalai

    8) jika anda ke amerika, org tempatan akan menghormati anda. Skang ni org amerika dan barat lebih memahami islam banding org timur.

    9) cakap telefon senang. X la sharp sgt bunyik suara kat speaker. Mengurangkan risiku kena barah akibat gelombang radio telefon.

    10) anda x payah nak set2 rambut atau dandan rambut. Save time, save money, mesra alam (kurang sampah dibuang).

    11) awek seksi bukak aurat naik motor dgn boifren? BOHSIA! Awek tudung menutup aurat naik motor dgn suami? SWEET!

    Sayangnya, hanya satu kekurangan (dr segi nafsu) kalau menutup aurat – dunia ni penjara bagi org mukmin dan syurga bagi org kafir.

    Sumber: Fais Al-Hajari

  • Aplikasi Blogging ‘Dayre’ Dapat Sambutan Dari Artis Malaysia

    noradanish

    Dayre (sebutannya adalah diary) ialah salah satu applikasi sosial seperti Instagram, Twitter dan Facebook. Apa yang membezakan Dayre ialah kesemua status, gambar dan kata-kata anda pada hari ini akan dimuatkan dalami  satu hari seperti anda menulis diari. Menariknya, selebriti-selebriti tempatan seperti Nora Danish, Zizan, Farid Kamil dan Tiz Zaqyah sudah pun mempunyai akaun Dayre mereka sendiri.

    tizzaqyahdayre

    Jumlah pengikut akaun Dayre Nora Danish sudah pun mencecah 5,600. Cepat sungguh. Kalau tak silap, baru semalam Nora Danish buat akaun ini. Akaun Dayre Tiz Zaqyah juga makin banyak pengikutnya. Nampak gayanya selepas ini akan lebih banyak pengguna Dayre untuk mengikuti perkembangan selebriti-selebriti kegemaran mereka.

    Untuk memuat turun applikasi ini, anda boleh ke laman web www.dayre.me. Applikasi Dayre boleh digunakan oleh pengguna Android dan iPhone.

    Source: BeautifulNara

  • Why Do Some Police Officers Appear Arrogant?

    SPFpolicemen

    Because they have different priorities than you do.

    Humans, like most everything else in the universe, seek to maintain a sense of equilibrium in things. This is true for not just matters of physiology, but for social interactions as well. Think about the interactions you have on a daily basis: In most all of them, you enter an interaction with at least a neutral mindset and perhaps even an assumption of goodwill. When a guy wakes up next to his partner, he doesn’t harbor an innate suspicion about the partner’s motives—he assumes that the partner is as goodwilled as she was when she fell asleep, and the couple’s interactions proceed on this assumption.

    Or think about your interactions at work. Absent narcissism or self-deprecation, when you go into a job, you default to considering your peers as more or less equal. Of course, as time wears on, you begin to categorize people, but those initial interactions will be civil and respectful, because that’s what’s expected—that is the silent understanding wrought by the norms of your workplace.

    Now, think about the workday of a police officer. Her job assignments consist, primarily, of being dispatched to successive 911 calls. When someone calls 911 for police service, there is a tacit admission by the caller that the situation at hand has deteriorated beyond the caller’s control and police are needed in order to bring the situation back under control. That is the unstated assumption that the officer has going into each situation—not that a social equilibrium needs to be maintained, but that a situation needs to be quickly and efficiently brought back under control.

    Further than this, when she gets to the scene of many to most of these 911 calls, she encounters people who seek to frustrate her endeavors. She talks to witnesses who lie in circles about not seeing anything. She talks to suspects who lie about where they’d just been or what they were just doing. She talks to drunk people who can’t coordinate themselves and won’t remember what she said in 10 minutes. She talks to addicts who try to conceal the fact that they’re high even though involuntary tics have consumed their body. She talks to grade school kids and teenagers who have been conditioned to mistrust or despise police. She talks to people who lie about their identity because they have warrants or because they just want to frustrate her. She talks to people who act nervous and take too long to answer simple questions, raising her suspicions. She talks to people who have drugs, guns, knives, and any manner of other contraband hidden in their residence, in their vehicle, or on their person.

    Now consider that the officer is doing this many times per shift—10, 20, maybe more—encounters every day. She will quickly learn that, in order to get anything accomplished with these liars and obstructionists, she is going to have to employ tactics that in any other field would be unacceptable. She is going to have to be blunt, brusque, and curt. She’s going to have to call bluffs and smokescreens and BS. She’s going to have to interrupt rambling, circular explanations. She’s going to have to look people in the eye and say, “We both know that you’re lying to me right now.”

    And through it all, she will begin to develop the opposite assumption from the freshly roused partner and the guy at the water cooler—work interactions are not among peers, and people are likely not worthy of implicit trust.

    Now, you, who I will assume is a normal, everyday citizen, comes into contact with this police officer. Even though she can probably surmise that you’re not a frequent flyer, she doesn’t know you and doesn’t enter into interpersonal contact with the same assumptions you do. Additionally, if she’s in uniform, it’s possible she has a task at hand she’s focused on. Until you are a known quantity, you may be treated coolly and humorlessly.

    Now, let’s take a step back. You, the partner and/or co-worker, interprets the response of this police officer through the lens of your expectations and judge her to be arrogant. I mean, after all, she’s acting all distant and aloof and snobby, right? However, your assessment is based on your interaction in a vacuum and likely doesn’t factor in much of anything I just said. That doesn’t mean either one of you is “wrong.” You’re coming from different places.

    In closing, I’d bid you to be forgiving. This officer cannot afford to give people the benefit of the doubt, because there are only so many people you can relax your guard around in her line of work before she gets herself or someone else hurt or killed. Be gracious to her, for her burden is great.

    This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self.                      —John Watson, c. 1903

     

    Source: http://slate.me/1hJFsr7

  • Silk Batik is Haram/Prohibited in Islam

    Asean_leaders_wear_batik_afp_840_523_100

    The Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia (PPIM) said many Muslims here are unaware of this fact, which it said is enshrined in several hadiths, also known as the collection of words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad.

    “Rasulullah SAW has said that Muslim men cannot wear silk and gold.

    “Hadiths also state that one of the tanda kiamat (signs of the apocalypse) is when pure silk is being worn, and that there is no awareness about this,” PPIM activist Sheikh Abd Kareem S Khadaied told reporters at a press conference here.

    Batik is a form of textile art often marketed as a national heritage in Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia.

    Government leaders and religious figures here commonly use batik, which comes in a variety of materials, including pure silk, rayon and cotton, for official functions.

    But Sheikh Abd Kareem said pure silk cannot be the way to go for Muslim men and suggested that alternatives to the material be used instead.

    He took aim at the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation, saying that it had not done anything to research on alternative materials besides pure silk to make batik, despite having enough funds to do so.

    “In the current industry most of the silk batik worn by Muslim men is pure  silk. Only about ten per cent is silk mixture,” he said.

    When asked to explain how PPIM might make non-Muslims understand the reasoning behind the banning of pure silk for Muslim men, Sheikh Abd Kareem said it was unnecessary.

    “When the Prophet says it is forbidden, that means it is forbidden, we listen and abide by it.

    “Logic is a (part of human) desire,” he added, saying that when it came to Islam one should not demand a reasoning or explanation on a matter.

    But Sheikh pointed out that PPIM had no problems with batik cloths which used silk mixed with other materials such as linen and cotton as there was no hadith which forbade this.

    He said he had brought the matter up with the National Fatwa Council and the Malaysian Islamic Department (Jakim) but they have yet to provide a solution on the matter.

    “There has to be labelling done on each batik cloth for that people will know it is pure silk and therefore haram,” Sheikh said.

    Source: The Malay Mail