The presence of an Indian Muslim interfaith debator, Dr Zakir Naik attracted 30,000 in Kuala Terengganu but agitated some segment of Hindu that IGP had to initially cancel the scheduled Melaka do.
The Hindu were upset of a statement Zakir Naik made during a debate with a Hindu in India that had offended them.
It is quite the usual exchanges in an inter-faith debate about my religion is right but your's is wrong. The Muslims seem to feel nothing wrong with that, but when something is said about Islam, they can be equally emotional.
Keling being Keling, they can dished out but lack patience and tend to be emotional and easily agitated when are dished back. They now take their dispute into our country.
Some will say Malay or Muslim can be the same too. We will not dispute that.
Anyway wattaheck, lets not be hypocritical. All religion bitch about other religion. It is not the ideal thing to do but it happens all the time, in the open or behind close door.
Muslims say something about Christian's trinity and Christians make remarks about Allah moon god and Prophet Muhamamad having many wives including a child.
So the Christians should not be offended about the close door session to Muslims at UiTM about Christian threat. An organised and focused evangelical movement for mass conversion of Muslims to Christianity in this country is an open secret.
Why should they be upset of Muslims discussing among themselves of this threat?
To Christians, propagating Christianity is a cardinal duty. Guess it is same of all other faith, Muslims included, to propagate God's message. Each faith's version of God's message, off course. Except for Buddhist, Christians or Muslims or Hindus are fanatical about this
Diversion'
When Hindraf and Indian members of DAP got vocal and demanded to get this "satan" out of the country, it is no more about Zakir Naik's deemed offensive words to Hindu in India. It has turned political and the motive to agitate an interfaith conflict for next GE is obvious.
And, they went to the point of dramatising a bomb threat of P Ramasamy.
It serve to make it difficult to tahan this racist agitators. At one time, he challenged Malays to reignite May 13. Police should have taken him and his counter party for trying to invoke May 13 again.
What we cannot understand is what does May 13 got to do with Indians or Hindu? So this Indian dog is minding for DAP. These days DAP got Malay dogs as in Amanah with Dato Nizar Jamaluddin and the horny entertainer and Tun M's pinch hitter, Mat Sabu as part of package.
Deputy CM of Penang could be creating a diversion for Lim Guan Eng who is a hot soup over suspicion of corruption in the purchase of his home in Jalan Pinhorn and the link to the development of Taman Manggis.
Notice the bag under his eyes.
Frankly as an Facebooker wrote here, it is "buang masa".
It's a Keling problem!
Another thing we cannot understand is why these Kelings have to bring their conflict at Tanah Besar Keling to this country?
And to the point of doing a wayang Tamil.
May have offended some Mamak when we said this frankly this morning. Allow me to explain.
We have been living in peace and harmony with great tolerance for various races and religion.
By right, Malaysian Muslims should stop bringing such preachers from India and Indonesia but instead be preaching to these countries how to live in peace and harmony.
Zakir Naik comes from a country with long history of clashes between different faiths and races. His combative style of debate is the wrong orientation for Malaysia.
Off course, we expect to get criticised from fellow Muslims for saying so.
One argument claimed that although Muslims are minority in India, Zakir Naik is free to give public talk on differences of religion. He even operate a television program on Islam viewed by millions of Muslims and non-Muslism.
They claimed no incidents of quarrel between Hindus and Muslims. Yes, sure ....
Generally, the Muslim public and "ulamak" came out in defense of Zakir. [See one of the FB dedicated for Zakir here].
They see no issue with Zakir. He is said to have been open and inviting to dissenting views in his dialogues. Sure, it is to whack the bugger to pieces.
But they argued that Prophet Abraham went to the extent to destroying idols and blamed it on the Principal deity for it to prove his point. It may be suitable for the times so they felt it is all well in a public debate.
They also see Zakir have been quoting from the Quran and Hadith, so what is wrong.
Our concern is whether he is interpreting it right in accordance with epistemology of knowledge or just literal self interpretation.
Security concern
The Muslims have generally criticised IGP for being cautious in maintaining peace and harmony.
They cited Zakir as a former recipient of the Maal Hijrah award. Islam is "official religion" but who is ruling and dictating things around?
The mamak IGP has since conceded.
A response can only be expected from the Hindu. So do not be surprise a radical Hindu preacher be brought in from India.
Interestingly, our opposition sympathiser friends are coming out to defend Zakir.
They were so open and liberal on the kalimah Allah, Anwar's sodomy conviction and many other interfaith issues in-sync with PKR, pre-GE 13 PAS, and various left leaning Muslim NGOs.
Hipokrit tahi hijau ....
This time around, all Muslim groups and political parties, including PAS and Amanah are for Zakir Naik to speak.
Bet they would not mind to see Zakir speak in Penang at Ramasamy's area in Peral. The combative Zakir would not mind.
We have been following Zakir and the late Ahmad Deedat for years.
Yes, they are great debators, capable at the power of reasoning and serve the purpose for their more hostile environment.
So you think you won a debate but does it serve any porpose, more so it's suitability in Malaysia.
We did not notice him saying anything out of the ordinary in such debate or dialogue.
However, the extent of Zakir's combativeness have gone to the point of insulting Hindu God, and have been reported to not be received well by Muslims and Muslim clergy in India too [read here and here].
From a security point of view, Zakir's presence can be suspiciously dangerous.
There is the suspicion that he is preaching Wahabism, and defender of ISIS. He is allegedly funded by Wahabi of Saudi and the Saudi never deny Iran's accusation of them funding ISIS.
There is nothing seriously wrong with Wahabi or more accurately the Salafi. They are generally Sunni and in many areas we are quite in agreement.
Problem with Wahabi is they tend to simplify things and brand other Muslims not in sync with their practises as kafir. We will not rewind the incidents in Kelantan and Terengganu.
There is a tendency to be militant like ISIS. Will expect someone say Saudi donate because Malaysia is against ISIS. 1MDB also has syiah Qatari as partners. So leave 1MDB out for a while.
It is hard to identify Wahabi. Like the syiah, they have a tendency to practise taqiyah till the situation suited them. Sometimes they could blurt out like the You Tube video here, allegedly.
One indicator of a Wahabi is their animosity towards syiah as Zakir demonstrated.
Some say Zakir argued using power of reasoning and logic. It is useful tool for debate but religion if based on faith. Theology is body of knowledge developed over centuries. Is it guided by knowledge or simplistic logic?
Wahabi, syiah, Islam Liberal and anti hadith all use logic and end up misguided. Who is Zakir's guru?
Some say he is a good debator and converted non-Muslims into Islam. Unfortunately, oratary skill does not impress us. One aspiring Prime Minister had great oratarial skill.
It goes back to the characteristic of preachers or pendakwah. A pendakwah should have three important qualities; ilmu (knowledge), amal (application of ilmu) and adab (proper and exemplary conduct).
Zakir serve a certain purpose but may not be exemplary for Malaysia.
So does the likes of Perlis Mufti Dr Asri, and "Ustaz" Azhar Idrus that do not potray the right adab. We are not just being partisan as we have reservation of pro-BN preachers like Dato Mashitah, Dato Kazem and those brown envelope driven ones.
The Perlis Mufti and former MB of Perlis, Dato Seri Shaidan Kassim have been at the forefront in questioning religious establishment and preaching Wahabism.
It goes to the ridiculous point of Shahidan wanted to organise a debate of himself against Dato Dr Jamil Khir in cabinet.
This exuberence could eventually lean towards a mild version of kafir mengkafir.
Coincidentally, Dr Asri is supportive of Zakir Naik.
The religious establishment is playing the role of protector of faith for the masses.
To understand this, refer to the mystical incident between Sunan Ampel and Sheikh Siti Jenar in preserving the faith and practises of the masses. Those outside the mainstream religious approach should keep it within their circle.
Since we are touching on mysticism and sufism, Zakir Naik is not important to argue over. He could be another celebrity preacher which usually does not add much to existing body of knowledge.
More important that our "zikir" is embodied within our heart and soul and reach heaven. Focus on the this month of Rejab to prepare for Ramadan.
Equally important to some is their obligation and responsibility of a Zakar Naik. Quite sure Zakhir would agree.