Something I wrote for ‘Letters’ in Malaysiakini.com this week….It was published earlier today, but it seems to have gone from the site….

I wish I had known…

I refer to Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib’s letter, ‘Apostasy punishment quite clear in texts’ and particularly his claims that “…for apostasy is a punishment that a convert has willingly accepted at the time of his conversion. It is not a penalty imposed, rather it is penalty accepted willingly by all converts as part of the teachings of Islam...”

So what about those born Muslims? I wish I had known this before I was born, I may have just ‘opted’ for an agnostic family. But of course, no such choice was given, and if I were to exercise my right to ‘jump the Islamic ship’, people like Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib will drive me off the gangplank and into the jaws of death.

Regardless of the views of ulamaks and even fatwas (religious edicts), it’s rather difficult to accept the death penalty for apostasy in this century. It may well have been acceptable in Islam’s infancy, but it’s a matured religion now and such a martial nature has no place in the world of today – well, maybe in far flung Pakistani villages, Afghanistan, Somalia and in other places of strife, but not in a modern, globalised Malaysia.

What has been put forward by people like Abdul Rahman, presents a frightening face of Islam – death, mutilation, honour killings, an eye-for-an-eye – clearly designed to discourage people from embracing the religion and striking fear in Muslims to enforce compliance and acceptance. I can see sand dunes, flint-locks, scimitars waving, bows and arrows, lances, flags, and rows upon rows of warriors astride camels and horses.

I can imagine a time in our country when mobs would seek out apostates in housing estates, apartments, the parks, KLCC and put them up for public linching and beheading.

What century are we living in?

In Malaysiakini.com

Vox Populi: Mahathir spawned robber barons but...

May 26, 06 12:13pm

Malaysiakini’s interview with Dr Mahathir Mohamad continues to draw a panoply of reactions from readers. Here’s a selection.

Shufiyan Shukur: Many people have knocked Tun Dr Mahathir (TDM), me included. But not many can deny that despite all the negatives of his premiership, he has been a visionary, dragging a laggard country by the scruff of its neck towards development.

No doubt he has also created robber barons - intentionally or unintentionally only God and he knows - and these economic brigands have caused ‘leakages’ in the country’s coffers and enriched themselves beyond the imagination of the rest of us.

But through him, we have the North-South Highway, Penang bridge, KLCC, and the country transformed from an agriculture to a manufacturing-based economy, and the Internet. Now where would we be without the Internet? We certainly would be without Malaysiakini.com which has become the standard bearer of the country’s Internet usage and the epitome of item 7 of the MSC Bill of Guarantees – ensure no censorship of Internet.

And he has put us on the world map, and made quite plain that he and Malaysia will not kowtow to the white man. And can we not forget the currency peg, implemented to thwart servitude to the IMF - a strategy once condemned, but now acknowledged to be quite brilliant?

Not more than three months ago, I was at one of those direct marketing presentations (I’m always suckered into these things). The speaker, a self-made Malaysian in his early 50s who was proud that he had failed even his Form 3 exams told what seemed to be a joke: “Last time, ah, the Mercedes Benz – the white man built it, the Chinese owned it, the Malay drove it and the Indian washed it. But now, all can own it.”

This seems to have summarised the state of the economy pre- and post-Mahathir.

“In Islam, we don’t force people to convert but upon conversion Islamic principles do not allow them to leave....” - Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid, president of Teras.

(Malaysiakini.com: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/51136)

What a frightening view of Islam – visions of a life sentence in a penal colony! Was this how Allah swt envisaged His religion to be when he gave Islam to the Prophet Muhamad a.s to spread to mankind? Is this belief that “you can check in anytime you like but can never leave” (an altered verse from Hotel California by the Eagles) derived from a Hadith or decreed in the Quran? If it’s from a Hadith, what value is it really when Hadiths were compiled by human beings and thus soaked in biases and prejudices, misinterpretations of the Imams who compiled or wrote them at that time?

The writing and compiling of Hadiths were entirely human processes. There was no divine guidance in the process – not in the way that Allah swt guided the Prophet Muhamad a.s in spreading His religion. The Hadiths were not even delivered to these Imams by Jibrail or any of Allah’s angels. Hadiths in entirety were purely human, mortal constructs.

In religious classes we’ve been told that thousands of Hadiths were thrown out, and that was a human process; human beings chose what Hadiths were acceptable and what were not, or in their minds, of dubious origins.

Anyway, I plead ignorance to all this, but on a visceral level, I’d rather recognize the reversion of converts or the apostacy of Muslims than have them hide their conversion, die as kafirs in the eyes of Allah swt (for only He knows) and be buried in the company of the Ummah in a Muslim cemetery.

Carrying an anguish

This is a posting that has absolutely no interest to anyone. It’s just me letting go…It’s a habit I acquired since, gee, the 4^th or 5^th form. Whenever I have something bothering me, I doodle. I used to doodle everywhere…exercise books, pieces of paper, novels I was reading at the time, in between newspaper and magazine lines, columns and paragraphs.

In fact if I had been as dedicated to studying as I was at doodling, I’d be quite a corporate chappie at the moment looking towards a respectable retirement instead of facing total financial ruin – the result of a thoughtless past.

Not that I had a particularly disturbed youth. It was actually fantastic. Ah…so now I have discovered why I doodle – to escape serious work!

Of course now, with the age of technology, the PC and Microsoft Word have been the preferred doodling tools. And with my discovery of blogging, it’s become another means to let go steam. Soon it’ll be podcasting. Not bad for a 52 year old toad eh when those my age don’t even have a personal email account.

-----------

I again dreamt of June (not her real name of course). Once in a couple of months, I dream of her. It’s been happening for years.

It’s such an old story. It must be 26 years – from the time I came back for work in ’80, and a couple of years after I burnt her letters and mailed the ashes back to her. It was a stupid and juvenile thing to do, done out of frustration at not receiving any replies to my letters. We had been corresponding quite nicely…then she stopped replying my letters.

I still remember her last letter. She said that ‘kalau ada jodoh, we’ll be together”. That was the last.

So in May of ‘80, when I came back after 7 years, I visited her parents. Her mother was quite happy to see me, and told me that she will arrange for dinner and cook my favourite siput sedut mask chili padi and that she’ll tell June. She gave me June’s work number for me to call. I didn’t call June, and as the day approached, I called her Mum to cancel the dinner. It was out of shame.

Then in September ’80 I got married. Then she got married and that’s the end of that.

We did meet after I settled back here. Once at the funeral of her granny, another time we bumped into each other at The Pub, Shangrila Hotel, one time I went to her house to meet with she and her husband in PJ, but I can’t remember the purpose of the visit, once in 1994 at their office when I went to arrange for an interview with her brother for a story I was writing (I was in The Sun then), and the last time it was at a kenduri for her father who passed away while performing his pilgrimage in Mecca about 3 years ago.

Oh there was one time I saw her near the Bangkok Bank building in 1983 and I think she saw me too…but the coward that I was and still am, turned into a lane.

I don’t visit her mother anymore, even during Raya for fear of bumping into her. I used to, but it always gave me anxiety. So I’ve stopped.

My many attempts at avoidance is a because of great shame. The times when we did come across each other, filled me with unease.

Two marriages and three kids later, I’m still ‘hung up’ about her….if that’s the right word to describe my frequent dreams of her.

I suppose subconsciously it’s a nagging feeling of ‘what could have been’. We were childhood friends and distantly related through marriage rather than by DNA. Our families were once pretty close. My Mum adored her had always wished that I would be betrothed to her. Which I think just about every family member knew and certainly her family too.

In 1974, I left for England and in 1980, out of the blue we begun corresponding. But after 3 or 4 months she stopped without rhyme nor reason. So when a cousin was returning home for the holidays, I asked him that if he should meet her, to ask why she stopped replying my letters.

When he came back to London he told me June heard that my Mum had told someone she hoped whoever I ended up with would be much younger than I. So according to my cousin, June felt slighted as she was (and is) two months older.

If my Mum had indeed said such a thing, it would be in the context of comparing her age with my Dad’s; they’re 10 years apart. My Mum adored June. Loved her like an own daughter, so it wouldn’t have been aimed at June. She was probably speaking generally if indeed she had said it.

Anyway…it’s a long story. June and I are both 52 now. She’s probably wrinkled and as for me, I am fat and ugly as an old toad.

Just two days ago, she came into my dream again which became quite weird because the next day, I received a Skype message from her namesake, but who was a complete stranger and her husband appeared in a newspaper report.

I would like to have a chance to apologise for my juvenile behaviour in burning the letters and mailing the ashes back to her. But the tragedy would be if she does not remember what I did. And a bigger tragedy for me would be that if she had never received the ashes! And I would have been suffering this anguish and shame all this while for nothing!

It would also be comical and testimony to a life of major foul-ups.

And the other thing is, we’ve never gone out. We’ve never sat across from each other and talked. Never. So what is it that I’m uptight about?

from Malaysiakini's vox populi

Shufiyan Shukur:
I just want to commend Melaka Customs and Excise Office for doing their job and not bending to the Jasin MP. Most times, the good work of civil servants goes unnoticed.

I think also most Malaysians are quite disappointed with Pak Lah for his stand on Shahrir. Was there a 'party line' for Shahrir to toe?

You mean the party line is that it's okay for Barisan MPs to use their influence in the interest of their personal commercial enterprises, regardless that it may contravene the laws of the nation?

If it is so, wow! That's quite a revelation!

T'day

Gosh. I'm to do this copy for an advertorial, but my brain won't kick start.

I've been fooling around looking for a software to record skype conversations with the idea to conduct interviews using skype and upload to www.asia247.tv under its various categories. Two products are freeware, but they give you limited usability like allowing you to record only 2 minutes of a skype conversation. Not much good for interviews. But it's not that the softwares are expensive...US$19.99 or something like that. Could be worth it, but my credit card is kinda topped out at the moment.

I've also been browsing Malaysiakini -- reading up on what's happening with Dato Shahrir's resignation as leader of the Back Benchers Club. I suspect he acted a bit too hastily after his 'gang of men' did not support him when he echoed Lim Kit Siang's motion for investigation by Parliament's privileges committee into the actions of Jasin MP, Mohd Said Yusof .

If you remember, the Jasin MP had asked a customs officer to close one eye on an infringement on some imported timber.

Anyway the BBC want him back as leader even though deputy PM Najib accepted his resignation. Now the PM himself has come out instructing the BBC to tow the line. But, heck what line? Was there a decision by the government not to investigate Mohd Said Yusof already?

So looks like Shahrir will not be leading the BBC. A bit of a shame really because apart from his U-turn on the police commission thingy, he's been a good boy really.

Darn. I really have got to get this darn article moving.

Appeared in Malaysiakini's Vox Populi: Use OSA against Dr M? Dream on

Shufiyan Shukur: I am sick of this bridge issue. Can we cut it out? Crooked or straight. Lose or win. What does it all mean? It means our neighbour doesn't want to play ball with us, so screw it, let’s not play ball with them. So Mukhriz, Sanusi, Mahathir, Syed Hamid, Kit Siang, and all you others, shut up! I want to get on with my life without reading about this darn bridge.

The World Cup's around the corner. So don't spoil my enjoyment of it because I might not live long enough to experience the next one. Besides why bother with a bridge. It'll only give the Singaporean armed forces a scenic route to Johor when they decide to over-run it. Which isn't such a ridiculous thought when you consider the possibility that reclamation may not be a viable option forever and ever.

And with Israel as its role model, and the US as its big daddy (well at least until US marines start raping its gals), Singapore is a military threat, so don't make it easy for them to cross over. Let their army suffer the current crossings and the wet straits - it gives an opportunity for our pot-bellied and lethargic army to take potshots before being completely overwhelmed.

Did you know that our armed forces rely on everyday citizens to report of encroaches into our sovereign airspace by the Singapore airforce?

We don't seem to have military radars to detect such encroaches so we don't have any means to respond to them.

The Singaporeans on the other hand have AWACS.

And have you read recently that we have air-to-surface missiles that won't fire?

I wonder who is making money at the expense of our security?

Will Singapore be successful in over-runing Johor (if not the entire peninsula)? Damn right they will -- our army's slogan is 'one bullet, one enemy' or something lame and visceral like that. Their recruitment slogan is 'the most powerful warhead is on your shoulders'. -- damn powerful slogan.

That small little dimple of an island will one day rule Johor.

For want of better things to do, I took the 'Tickle Test' for emotional IQ. Pretty interesting stuff and I think the results come very close to my own self-assessment.

Go ahead, try some of the tests at Tickle. http://web.tickle.com/

This is my report:

Perception
You scored 5 out of 10 on the perception scale. Reading people may not be your biggest strength. You are well aware that communication is a dynamic process consisting of at least two people sending and receiving messages between each other. The important thing to remember, however, is that communication is both verbal and non-verbal. For example, if you notice someone glancing at their watch during a conversation, you might miss the full range of underlying messages a signal such as this could be sending. This person could be anxious to end the conversation because they are bored or because they need to make another appointment. This person could also be nervous, and checking their watch is a sign of this. On the other hand, this person could simply just be checking to see what time it is. People who score in your range on the perception scale tend to take things at face value and would interpret the time checker's action as merely wanting to know what time it is.

After all, if they're late, wouldn't they just say so? If they're nervous, wouldn't you see other signs of that? And even if you were looking for further signs, it's possible that the more subtle cues, such as their tone of voice or the type of eye contact they make, might be lost on you. It's not that you wouldn't notice it, it's just that you don't always know how to interpret non-verbal signs collectively.

You have a hard time putting multiple clues together to form a new concept of how a person is relating to you.In the above scenario, there could be numerous reasons a person wouldn't state outright that they are late and have to go. People's motives for their behavior are sometimes complex and inaccessible to you.

In your own situations, try to pay more attention to what is being said and what is not being said. Picking up on the tone of voice, nervous gestures, or facial expressions offers invaluable information on how a person is feeling. In the end, not taking the world so literally will reduce the number of times you are misled by what people say versus what they really do.

Comprehending nonverbal cues will make you a more sensitive person, better able to predict the world around you and make decisions accordingly.

Expression
You scored 7 out of 10 on the expression scale. Your score indicates that you are relatively comfortable in expressing your emotions. However, you are not as open with your emotions as you could be and may even be embarrassed to acknowledge or express them. You are fairly in tune with both your conscious and unconscious feelings and why you are feeling a particular way.

For example, if you'd been working for a promotion at work you might have been confiding in a close co-worker about wanting a certain position. Then, a couple days later you might learn the position you'd wanted has been given to your co-worker! Although rationally you understand she wasn't vying for the position behind your back and it was a matter of circumstance that she got the position over you, you still feel disappointment and anger.

Chances are, because you are someone who is relatively comfortable expressing emotions, you probably won't hide your disappointment because it's not "rational." Instead, you might realize this is a situation that needs to be addressed between the two of you. You know that ignoring this touchy situation could breed resentment further down the road. Simply put, you have a need to clear the air. Whether you do this effectively or sensitively is another story, but the point is you do not waste energy protecting yourself from what you feel.Sometimes people mistakenly equate being self-aware or relying on your emotions for your responses as a sign of weakness.

This may be a problem for you. In the above example, it might be hard for you to express disappointment to your co-worker because it shows you have a vulnerable side, that you felt hurt. However, you are self-aware enough to understand that all the intellectualizing and rationalizing in the world cannot erase your discontent.

After all, you recognize you will be compromising your happiness if don't tend to your emotional needs.

Empathy
You scored a 8 out of 10 on the empathy scale. You respond to others with your heart and soul.

Most of the time, people sense your genuineness and commitment to being a compassionate person. You tend to not only observe other people's situations, but also understand the importance of empathizing instead of criticizing.

And in general, you are not one to put down others simply to boost your own self-esteem because you are better at putting yourself in other people's shoes than some.

You are astute enough to know that sometimes you won't have all the information about another person you need to make a fair judgment of them or their actions. You won't know their background, their personal or financial situation, or another key element that might be driving them to do something a certain way.

But even armed with this awareness, you may need to put effort into refraining from easy criticism. Too often people put down others to boost their own self-esteem. It's important to keep in mind that sometimes we can't see all of the situational pressures that influence how other people act. Before deciding that someone's behavior is due to a flawed personality, ask yourself: is there anything about the person's situation that may have led to this? It's wise to understand that you're not perfect and someday you might need others to cut you some slack, too. All of us need people in our lives who honor our individuality and imperfections.

My score was 118 out of 145 (if I'm not mistaken). And the results go on to advise on things one can do to improve the score.

Ana, Ani & her family are on the way to the airport from the Mandarin. They've been here since last week -- 10 days. I wanted to send them off, but they decided it was best to arrange with the hotel limo to take them to KL Sentral for the fast KLIA train.

At the very least I wanted to send them off at the hotel, but Raziq's fever had gotten worst during the night and we couldn't sleep worrying and monitoring his temperature. So, I didn't even hear the alarm going off at 6.30.

My colour is Brown! What a revelation, and I thought I'm a Blue kinda guy.

Take a test and be amused:



Your true color is Brown!

What's Your True Color?
Brought to you by Tickle

We are in Malaysia, enjoying the comforts of home and of a nation that is relatively wealthy and developed. There are no wars being fought around the corner and when we go out to work, for a meal, a drink or to visit friends and relatives, we are almost assured that we will return in one piece. If there is anything that will kill or maim us, it will be the traffic -- it wouldn't be a bullet, stray or aimed from an insurgent, army or mercenary.

We could be caught in a crossfire between criminals and the police, or an armed robber could kill or injure us or a disease would strike us dead. But it wouldn't be from a bullet from a war that happens around us everyday.

We, being so far away, have no inkling of what people go through in Palestine, Iraq (http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/04/20/landing-at-the-iraqi-blogodrome-10/#more-9307) and the other parts of the Muslim world, and we sometimes (nay, all the time) forget to give our thanks to God for our good luck. We must breathe Syukur Alhamdulillah with every breath because Allah swt has blessed us with such great fortunes. We must breathe Al Fatihah to all the Muslims who are suffering and dying because the West believe our religion is evil. And we must pray also for non-Muslims who have suffered from the violence that have been perpetrated against them by people who have hijacked our religion.

But what do we concern ourselves with in this beloved land? We argue if our country is an Islamic nation. We quarrel about whether it's OK or not OK to wear a headscarf after the Muslim fashion, or if in cleansing ourselves for prayer, whether it's haram that we washed our face 5 times instead of 3.

We are dead worried if eating with chopsticks is haram. We have become riduculous in our pettiness. Maybe it's because we have been living such a good life, that we can't see the spirit of Islam, nor its substance -- only its form. So our Imams wear the jubbah when a 'baju melayu' would suffice.

I wonder what this means:

"My search for answers on Mak Yong and the tarian istana brought me to the terrains of post-structuralist theories of language and symbolic power and the role of art in the development or retardation of human consciousness. Whether one watches Mak Yong, Mawi (photo) or M Daud Kilau, or listens to Led Zeppelin or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the impact of mental colonisation can be explained. "

Taken from "Who does Mak Yong serve?" by Azly Rahman in Malaysiakini.com (http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/49539)

Read through some damn interesting blogs today. Couldn't do much else -- mind and body feeling rather sluggish and still can't get over Azhar passing away...still can't get over the feeling of utter vulnerability ... when is it going to be my turn to go ... and I have children so young? And I haven't made good. I haven't paid for the wrongs I've done to my parents and my kids...

The blogs:

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2707&popup_delayed=1 (Amazing interesting read)
http://freeexpressionasia.wordpress.com/2006/04/19/sheila-coronels-keynote-address/ (Sheila Coronel's address at Free Expression Asia)

Azhar Shaari passed away on Tuesday. Hafidz told me. He couldn't have been much older than I, maybe just 4 years older.

But I don't know the cause. I called Sulik and he was on the way to Kuala Kangsar where they'll take the body for burial. Sulik said that he didn't know either. Just that Azhar complained of tummy ache, collapsed and died.

I feel so sad for the parents, both still alive and having to bury two of their children, Yan just 9 years ago and now Azhar.

Parents shouldn't have to bury their children, but so many do and I'm so afraid.

Suddenly I feel the vulnerability.

No, I am not an apostate

Many of my friends who have access to this blog thought that I was turning apostate in reading my 'It must be nice to be Christian' post on March 25.

Of course I have no intention of adopting Christianity, because I believe that Islam is the right and most complete religion.

But because it is so complete, it is difficult to understand. It is indeed a weighty religion to understand and to follow, made worst by pre-Islamic cultural practices of peoples purporting to be Muslims in so many parts of the world. Which are Islamic requirements and which are cultural practises of various races who've embraced Islam over the centuries, are mixed in a quagmire of interpretations.

The more one goes into it, the more confusing it gets. So it is best that religion remains religion, culture remains culture and politics remains politics. Easy if only Islam isn't also a way of life.

But am I Muslim? Yes I am...culturally.

Appeared in Malaysiakini

Loh Seng Kok (BN-Kelana Jaya) wasn’t really far off in his speech when he complained about ‘imbalanced’ history textbooks, prayer recital guidelines and the difficulty of non-Muslims with regards to places of worship.

My fellow brethren strut around thinking that we shaped this nation. Well, let me tell it to you guys, others have shed blood for this nation, and if it were only possible to put the blood from all the races into barrels, classified by race, I wager that non-Malay blood would probably fill up more barrels. And if you could do it for sweat, the result would be the same.

Without the sacrifices and hard work of all Malaysians, this country would be hmm…maybe like Papua New Guinea. Anyway, without the Chinese and Indians who influenced the culture of this peninsular, we Malays would still be strutting around half-naked. They civilized us, before Islam did.

So my brethren, cut some slack. Recognise and acknowledge the contributions of others who helped give us so much.

(I won’t touch on the issues of prayer guidelines and worship that Loh brought up as well, lest my brothers in Islam label me murtad (apostate) which would be most scary.)

Shufiyan Shukur

It must be nice to be Christian

My people, we are full of angst. We are full of fear. We are insecure. We feel we are under siege.

Why my people? We rule this land. We are the majority. We rule the government. We have benefits the envy of our fellow Malaysians. It is our King who sits on his thrown.

Our religion is supreme. Mosques dot every housing estate and kampong. Early morning and very evening, the commandments of our God and teachings of our prophet, aspects of our religion are showcased on TV or broadcast from our radio stations.

But we have issues, serious issues. We are always on the defensive. We are always suspicious and the more we use religion to stress our ‘dominance’, or seemingly to be better Muslims, the more we feel we come under threat.

Christians don’t talk about Christianity. Hindus don’t talk about Hinduism. Buddhists don’t talk about Buddhism. THEY JUST PRACTICE IT.

But here we are, Muslims. Talking and talking and talking about Islam. It’s in our faces everyday, every minute.

Yet we seem to practice only the superficial – ‘bila saya ambik wudhu’ saya terlupa kalau saya dah basuh tangan saya tiga kali atau lebih…kalau lebih, haram ke?’

…and the next minute, we slap our wives for disobedience.

We go through the motions. We do our postures and say our prayers, like robots. We seem not to have the spiritual link to it. We’ve reduced our prayers to the Rukun Negara.

Our girls wear the tudung, but sleeves above their elbows, tight-fitting T-shirts and jeans, and walk hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm with their boyfriends in the parks and shopping centres of KL.

For me, no big deal, but lets take the tudung off?

Our boys seldom miss their Friday prayers or their daily prayers for that matter, but wouldn’t hesitate to drop their pants for a good romp with their ‘tudunged’ girlfriends in a Chow Kit hotel or the back seat of a Kancil or Saga. They wait in anticipation in front of factory gates for the girlfriends’ shift to end.

It’s too much to be Muslim. Too much pressure to do things we can’t understand because we pray in a language different from ours.

We understand the Shahadah, our affirmation of God and his prophet. Give us the Al-fatihah and most of us are lost. We recite it well enough, paying attention to the makhraj, but we can’t quite remember the meaning of each verse. Forget about knowing the meanings to the hundreds of verses in the Quran.

We’re lost, totally lost. And we can’t pray or recite the Quran in any other language but the language it is written in. We hope that when we are interrogated in death in a language we don’t understand, our spirits will know the answers – at least that’s what our ustaz tell us, but could this not be a cop out?

I don’t know. I certainly don’t know what Islam is all about. I ask Allah for forgiveness in a language I understand but go through the motions of prayer reciting verses in a language unknown to me.

There seems to be contradictions in what is taught and what is practiced. We are told that idolatry is haram, but we revere our prophet no differently from the way Christians revere Jesus, Hindus, Lord Murugan and Buddhists, Buddha. We have idolized our prophet.

God Almighty! What’s happening to the world of Islam?!

We’re in turmoil. Shia and Muslims are killing each other in Iraq. We’re butchering and being butchered in Nigeria and in Kalimantan.

How about we just chuck all the legal issues in the Moorthy case (and all other cases of apostasy) and focus on the human and religious issues?

For one thing, I, as a Muslim am not convinced that the late Mr Moorthy converted to Islam and remained a Muslim till he died. In my mind there is a possibility that he may have reverted to Hinduism. Did anyone hear him recite his ‘Shahadah’ before he lapsed into a coma (or helped him recited it)?

If Mr Moorthy really died as a Muslim, and had been cremated as a Hindu, what does it really matter? If he was a Muslim, regardless of how the body was treated at death, Allah swt would ‘deal’ with his soul as only He knows. Don’t you trust Allah swt implicitly and explicitly?

I think it awful for Mr Moorthy to have been buried by strangers, save for his brother. A person should be buried or cremated by his family members – a last farewell.

Also, I don’t understand the difficulty for converts to revert. If a person wants to leave Islam after conversion and reverts to his/her religion, or indeed if a born Muslim were to embrace another religion, what’s the problem?

The Quran says: Let there be no compulsion in the religion: Surely the Right Path is clearly distinct from the crooked path.(2: 256)

So let them (the apostates) answer to Him.

Allah swt did not mention in His Quran any punishment for apostates, so why are we relying on man-made Hadiths? Isn’t there a rule that where the Quran and Hadiths contradict, the Quran shall remain supreme? And in this case, there is a contradiction.

Even the Hadith in this respect is contentious with medieval and modern day Islamic scholars disagreeing on the penalty for apostasy.

The detractors to the death penalty were (and are) of the view that when the Prophet Muhammad said that apostates must be killed, it was in time of war. His fighters had asked him how apostates should be treated (for they were once Muslims) and his reply was that they should be treated the same as the enemy.

Those who believe that apostates should be put to the death quote from a Hadith:
“The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims." (Bukhari Vol. 9, book 83, number 17, narrated via Abdullah)

In my view, the death advocates must go back to basics – there is no compulsion in Islam and they should know that in times of war measures are different from times of peace.

It is also my view that although the word of Allah swt in the Quran is for all eternity, the interpretations of the Hadiths were man-made and should be taken in the context they were first written.

The recent cases on apostasy have shed a poor light on Islam. Now those who have intention to convert for fulfillment and belief, might just hesitate and Islam would have lost a ‘saudara baru’.

I wouldn’t recommend conversion for marriage though. Well, maybe a word of advice for those intending to convert for the ephemeral reason of ‘love’ – convert and get married elsewhere and don’t bother changing your identity card incase the ‘love’ turns sour later on and you crave for pork again.
For me the question is; what are we to follow, Allah or Imam Bukhari?

What do they teach in college?

Over the last one week, I’ve been going through candidates for the position of Consultants, PR Executives and Mandarin Specialists.

I can’t comment on the candidates for the Mandarin Specialist position, but going by what my colleagues who reviewed the written and translation tests tell me, their command of the language is only so-so. None could translate very well either.

Of the candidates who applied for the Consultant and PR executive positions, I am surprised that they were not able to articulate what PR is all about and many were Communications graduates. I wonder what they teach in college.

When asked the reason for them studying and wanting to get into PR, most mumble that they ‘like to meet people and organize events’. Well isn’t that shocking!

What’s surprising is that their command of English is absolutely poor – not even passable – even one who had graduated from Monash here. Those who had come out from TAR College or UTAR – well, absolutely appalling command of the English language.

(Not that my English is any good and I can’t tell between an adjective and an adverb and sometimes it’s as screwy as a pig’s tail, but I make the effort not to be a pig’s tail)

But there is hope! One lady, well she is 35 years old, was very good. English, very good. Verbal skills, very good too. But she dressed a little too casually for an interview. She comes from a production house and writes scripts. The probability is, she may not last very long in our environment. We’re very business-like, though there are periods of screaming and swearing. Dress code is work attire and a blazer is always worn for meetings with client or at events. Shoes must be spick and span and for the guys, a tie is a must.

So for those coming from the creative environment of advertising and production who are more comfortable being seriously casual, may find it difficult to fit in.

Another applicant I’ve only just interviewed today for the PR executive position surprised me a little. She’s a design graduate from MMU, but is working in the corporate communications department of a listed company. She started as a graphics designer and doesn’t do much writing, but she handled the ‘press release’ test admirably. I’ve spotted only one grammatical error, but I leave that to nervousness and time rather than anything else. I would recommend her for sure.

March 24, 2006

I just rejected business from Microsoft Malaysia. But it was a long wait. They first discussed the testimonial production September last year and it’s only today that they called to confirm the shoot.

But I have to be responsible to Zaman and Tham who gave me a job at Alpha (albeit on contract) which has helped save my butt.

My financial problems are not yet over by a long shot, but this regular income eases the problems of meeting monthly expenses a great deal. If I were to take on the production, it will surely encroach on my time at work and this wouldn’t be fair.