Friday 2 May 2008

Reject TERAS’s Superficial Islam!

by

Farouk A. Peru
(http://www.peru.name/ )

The MCA’s dramatic suggestion to the government to allow Muslims to become apostates from Islam has immediately raised the ire of TERAS.

Is it a wayang kulit? In my opinion, yes it is.

I don’t think the MCA cares about the welfare of wanna-be Muslims apostates all that much, personally.

However, wayang kulit or not, something needs to be said about Teras’s understanding of Islam.
TERAS understanding of Islam is superficial, that is, it looks to a person’s Mykad or a whether a person attends religious studies in schools or not.

It doesn’t care at all that a person’s heart is simply not accepting of Islam’s concepts. As long as the person makes up for the statistics, great! No complaints there.

This is why we have a society of people who are afraid to think. If they truly believed that they had the truth, would they be worried if others of their group leave it?

What about the Quran’s notion of what matters? As usual, it would be diametrically opposite of TERAS (and Abim’s and PAS and Jakim’s) notion:
1. The Quran gives the complete freedom to a human being to believe or not. It does not limit any time or background for a person to reject faith (10/100)

2. The Quran doesn’t give any human being the authority to act as a compeller to another to embrace faith. Muhammad himself was told NOT to be a compeller but to remind people (50/45)

3. The Quran doesn’t say that what we now know as ‘Islam’ to be the only true religion. It says that what is acceptable to God is submitting/being at peace with Him (3/19). On the contrary, the Quran only posits belief in God and being good as the only requisites to salvation (2/62, 5/69). Not only that, the Quran admits there are a multiplicity of paths to God (29/69)
From the above, we can see that the Quran is not even close to being on the same page with TERAS with respect to the apostacy issue.

TERAS, aside from being racists are also Muslim fundamentalists and their notion of Islam are as hollow as the shells of their racial ideology.

To my fellow Muslims, it’s vital for us to appreciate faith on a processual level, that is, something a person goes through and attains, rather than be stamped on his mykad.

Reject TERAS’s understanding of Islam and apostasy. It should not challenge your faith or insult you if your fellow human being feels that your path isn’t for him.

Rather, it should prompt you to think about it and grow from the experience.

Instead of worrying about apostates, we should worry about Mat Rempits, crooked politicians, racism and the lack of critical thinking in our society.
-Farouk. A. Peru

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