Open Letter To Anas Zubedy - A Counter-Letter to Dr. Zakir Naik
Dear Dr Zakir,
I have to apologize for the outburst of my fellow countryman Anas Zubedy who, in his latest blog posting, has asked you to leave Malaysia. I am here to write to convince you otherwise: that not only should you not leave, but to lengthen your duration of stay, diversify your place of ceramahs, return more often and intensify your fervour in the kind of dakwah that you do: a most non-vindictive, non-antagonistic, scholarly and, unfortunately (the one that became the central raison d’etre of some people’s hatred towards you), full of indisputable truths in them. And I too will give you my reasonings.
Now I doubt though that this letter will be read by you, or even reach you, as compared to Anas’ who probably have his minions try send HIS letter to you. If as such, let’s just regard my letter as a rhetorical one---that it could/should be read by others other than you.
I apologize for Anas because you might think that his words represent the whole country in its entirety or are some kind of epitome of the general Malaysian psyche. Nothing could be further than the truth. You see, we Malaysian Muslims are a motley crew of different characters and idiosyncrasies, right from the most pious and God-conscious to the most despicably and spiritually turpitude. And you know what?
Everyone has access to the internet. Everyone can write their thoughts about Islam. Everyone can claim to be a voice of the religion and, if one is equipped with some kind of babyface- ness and some applauds from some islamophobes or liberal muslims, who knows---one might even get to be popular and well-read.
Anas does not belong to the former category. At least you can realize that much by now just via reading. And I am not saying he is spiritually corrupt either, being well-mannered and having pleasant demeanour. But you can well sense his ... lack of knowledge.
His lack of Islamic Spirit, of a Mujahid, of one who cares least if the religion is going to get some beatings or not. His concern is not that. Rather, his concern is more towards what his readers would think of him, the majority of which are made up of non-muslims and liberal islam.
For how are you expected to write if you are writing for those who would like to listen more about Islam not as one which the prophet SAW has brought, but as one which could be modified to fit in the whims and fancies of the general non-muslim populace.
He does not understand Aqidah, as you can well see his stand on Syiah. He does not conform to the idea of Islam being “ya’lu wa laa yu’la alaihi”, as promulgated by the prophet SAW. To him, all religions are the saaaaaaame. All have equal merits, and Islam is just one of the many numerators pegged on the denominator of goodness.
Contrary to his insistence of being an avid Quran reader (he even has some study group making tafsirs of Quranic verses. I am not joking!), he doesn’t understand the Qur’anic spirit. Or, at most, glance off the many diverse Qur’anic verses on faith and life in general and only pick ones which he thinks would be fodder enough for his general blog readers. I shudder to think of the kind of misinformation, of selective facts and of a general depravity of truths that his non- muslim readers have been exposed to all this while.
Now why is there a phenomenon such as Anas Zubedy? One word:
Born Again.
(OK that’s two)
You see, a 60’s, 70’s Malaysian Islam (of which Anas’ childhood was immersed in) is not the Malaysian Islam that we see now. Those were the years of Mokhtar Dahari, of Malaysian women not donning tudung, of “Guinness Stout Baik Untuk Anda” advertisements still embellishing the local malay-held Utusan newspapers.
In general, a widespread era of neo-jahiliyyah. Then in the 80’s-90s (Anas’ formative university years) there was an explosion of kesedaran, and students coming back from al-Azhar and Madinah University began to convey to their parent folks that hey! We’ve been having it wrong all these times.
There is no Bomoh Jampi. Mandi Safar is wrong. Donning the tudung is wajib. And prayers is a must, not something optional. There was an almost overnight transformation due to being exposed to the truer Islam as opposed to the malay-flavoured Islam prevailing then.
But some things steadfastly refuse to be swept along in the winds of change. City folks preoccupied with chasing the hedonistic dreams and life, and youthful folks (university ones, the kind that Anas was surrounded with) just on the verge of being exposed to newly-found breaking of religious shackles ignored this change.
Theirs was the era of Bakat TV. Of the discotheque. We don’t need no freakin’ Islam to tell us what we can do and what we can’t.
But the winds are stronger. Come the new millennium, people like Anas look around them and find that they have been left behind. Far, far behind. They feel a need to catch up, to be shoulder-to- shoulder with those who carve out a name championing a most noble cause. But what to do?
They don’t have any Islamic trainings. Some have left religion way, way back before. In universities and colleges, while the other students enjoin one another in their usrahs or khurujs or ceramahs, they were busy with dating, with Abba and Bee Gees, with discos. So apart from their primary school years of learning the Juz-‘Amma from their grandfathers or the local ustazs, they really have NOTHING by way of Islamic advancements to be put onto their spiritual resumes.
Beginning from the 2000’s, we see a proliferation of people who you SENSE come from a more liberal society and upbringing but writing about Islam. Suddenly overnight we have these Born-Again writers flooding the internet firstly to show that they THEMSELVES are also champions of Islam and secondly that hey! Read me! I have come with the kind of Islam that is both modern, progressive, accommodative which even the non-muslims love.
Seriously, don’t we wish that we have THESE kinds of people to face Abu Jahal and Abu Lahab during the prophet’s time (SAW)?
But commensurate with Anas’ path towards full righteousness is his being influenced by Quranist ideologies. He is surrounded by people like Syed Akbar Ali, Malaysia’s most vocal proponent of no-hadith, qur’an-only beliefs.
A lack of basic fiqh, fused with a rejection of the prophet’s hadith and general taqwa, and you have a most explosive case of Islamic Misinformation you can ever perceive with two brains.
So there you have it, Dr Zakir. Don’t take too much heart, now that you know certain histories and backgrounds. Onwards to the allegations that Anas have got on you.
1. YOUR PRESENCE IS CAUSING A FAMILY DISPUTE
Seriously, I don’t even feel a need to comment on this. It is self-explanatory, self-revealing. According to that other Anas, Anas bin Malik (RA), the Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: " I wish that I could meet my brothers." The Sahaabah (RAA) asked: "Aren't we your brothers?" He replied: "You are my Companions, but my brothers are those who will believe in me without having seen me."
What can you say, Dr Zakir, some people regard their relationships to the multitude of non-muslims as his family much more than you and me ever are?
As for Anas, yes please be comforted by your “family” here. As for me, my brothers and family are ...err... quite different from yours. Before anyone can point a finger saying that I am against Muhibbah of the races, I am not.
I have a multiracial neighbor that I play games with, drink coffee with and argue with on whether Q could obliterate the Borgs in one fell swoop. But family? Brothers? I only follow the conjunction of the Qur’an: “Verily the believers are brothers.” (al Hujurat-10)
2. YOUR PRESENCE IN MALAYSIA HAVE MEGATIVE IMPACT ON NON-MUSLIMS TOWARDS ISLAM
Now I am scratching my head on this one. Is this a statistical study or what? A scientific poll? Which authority has the audacity to conclude something like this, and if so under what premises? And let me pose a counter questioning to Anas: Name one Islamic Dakwah personality which, if brought to Malaysia, would, in your mind, have a POSITIVE impact on the non-muslims towards Islam?
Hello... None, OK? Positive impact means what. That they nod their heads in appreciations? That they show they like it by purchasing Islamic paraphernalia?
Anas said that your presence is getting non-muslims further away from Islam. This is where Anas’ confusion reaches its peak. He equates people disliking Islam as a sign of failure.
If so, Anas lacks the knowledge of Seerah big, big time. He lacks the understanding, not to mention the spirit of Islamic Dakwah big, big time. (By the way how much does Anas know about dakwah, apart from him being able to SPELL it? Has he ever been in khuruj?)
When the prophet preached Islam in Mecca to Umaiyyah bin Khalaf, Walid bin Mughirah, Utbah bin Rabi’ah and others, what kind of response is Anas expecting to be produced by them. The same as his non-muslim and liberal muslim readers accord him now, with applauds and compliments?
Is Dakwah to be done the result of which should be praises and accolades rather than a general feeling of discomfort onto the ears of those whom the dakwah is given?
Have you, Dr Zakir, started to feel a sense of ... inadequacy in the understanding of the Islamic spirit prevailing on this person now?
3. COMPARATIVE DEBATES DO NOT WORK IN MALAYSIA
Actually Anas, they do. What you PERCEIVE as a non-level playing field as far as dakwah is concerned in Malaysia, is actually a phenomenon best described in one of the talk events of Dr Zakir Naik where after expounding the inconsistencies of some biblical texts, one christian questioner stood up and asked,
“Dr. Zakir. Why do you insult us christians? What have you got against the bible that you are saying that their passages are wrong? Why do you say that the bible is not from God?”
And Dr Zakir answers (Anas pay attention carefully). “If I tell you that 2 X 2 is 5, what do you have to say to that?” And the man answered “That you are wrong.”
To which Dr Zakir replied, “are you insulting me? I say 2 x 2 is 5 and you say I am wrong?” The man said. “I am not insulting you. I am just saying you are wrong”.
“Like wise”, said Dr Zakir. “Neither have I insulted the bible nor have I disrespected it.
What I am saying is it is just wrong. And here is why I have said so .... (proceeds to read and analyse the conflicting verses). Now how can God be the author of some conflicting facts? And if you have scientific, logical, mathematical and factual proofs that you can provide that disproves my thesis, then by all means produce it. If it is sensible enough, I am more ready to declare that I am mistaken in this.”
Anas, if it is not Zakir Naik who could highlight to the masses things like these, then who would. You? Would you like to take his place? No. Notwithstanding, with the kind of “with charity towards all, malice towards none and love for all ...” mentality permeating in you, never in a million years would you be so factual.
You would sooner hide verses such as “Innad-Deen indallah al-Islam” rather than tell your non muslim listeners what Allah says.
Then what would you say in from of Allah on the day of judgement if asked, “O Anas, on earth you played with your friends. Joked with them, socialize with them. But never once did you attract them to Islam.
Even if you think you did, it wasn’t via the way of the prophet. Never once were they attracted to the Quran because never once did you point out that whatever they read other than the Quran was wrong and not from me”.
Now I might sound I am in some level of bigotry here but upon closer scrutiny, I am not. The christians or people from other denominations have equal rights to say that “Actually you muslims are wrong according to our dogma. According to our beliefs, you all will enter hellfire.” And I am okay with that. And get this:
SO IS OUR ENTIRE GOVERNMENT, MUSLIM POPULACE AND ISLAM IN GENERAL. We do not mind you to think that WE are the unsuccessful ones in the hereafter, just like we think YOU are. But will that harm perpaduan?
Not at all. After all this, we still go to our friends’ daughter’s weddings, sit and sip Stevia-laced coffee in any kopitiam, and fight with one another whether Man U is better than Liverpool or imbibe uniappam in any banana-leaf restaurant.
What is preventing us from having our Mokhtar Dahari-Soh Chin Aun-Santokh Singh moments are NOT religion. Definitely NOT Islam. They are politics, and we have diverse ways to view THAT one. Speaking of which ...
Sorry Dr Zakir. Not much comment in here, apart from giving my two-cents view from a religious standpoint. I am neither a politician nor like politics that much, but I do NOT conform to the plan of making our top-most potential people to take over the premiership who have come from a background of homo-sexuality.
Any persons, entities and politicians who conform to this should not be agreed upon. Period. That’s my entire political thoughts wrapped in 2 sentences. Clever, Sensible and Far-looking is what I is.
Lastly Dr Zakir, do not take things too hard, as I said. Perchance if you could be visiting (on your way) to a small dilapidated coffee stall by the roadside in Keramat, maybe you can stop by and I can interest you with some home-made cheese pisang goreng and the best lemang this side of the hemisphere? No?
Sincerely,
Your brother
J Rizal
ps: check for adherence to Anas’ rules for Anonymous writers:-
4. Your presence is slowing down Malaysia’s political revitalization
1. No profanity---Checked
2. Seditious – nope.
3. Don’t play God --- Na’uzubillah.
4. Sweeping statements – Like, “You cause family disputes” kind of sweeping statements?
Nope.
5. Facts as opposed to opinions – Whaaaat? I thought I should be asking you that, especially
with that “Your presence here is causing negative impact” thing
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NOTES ON CHARLOTTESVILLE:
OR, WHY WHITE PEOPLE DO NOT EXIST AS A PEOPLE
I've heard some several buddies, people I know well and care about (most of them not in comment boxes or in public) asking about the moral equivalency between the neo Nazis, white nationalists, and other white ethnostate type supporters and groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa (short for Antifascists), and other direct action groups.
I'd like to speak to that comparison a bit and then turn to a more important part of it that I worry about. Before I get to that, I should first say that I've said enough about Trump. Honestly, the guy confuses me. He swings from a nihilistic idiot to a idiotic nihilist. His inconsistencies pile so high that you either get lost in them or you use them wholesale to try and make your point. He wins in the time and toll it takes. He also, I think, has found a very particular niche worldview for his newfound politics and is willing to, at the end of the day, embrace ANYONE willing to give him what he wants the most: affection. Never, at least to my memory, have we had a more emotionally needy president. But that's neither here nor there at the moment.
If you look at most social protests and revolutionary movements you will find a basic set of factions that don't change. They tend to spread between non violent oppositions and even less violent moderates, both winged by some type of pragmatists who are not in principle opposed to violence. Different sides will use the radicals of different parts of this division to throw away the entire argument of one side or another, and this is not an even equivalent exchange in the history of US racial tension. But I want to stay away, mostly, from broad historical claims here.
The point I am driving at is evident when we realize that the Civil Rights activists who practiced non violent acts of resistance were often lumped in with Black Panthers, or others not opposed to violence, although the two groups were ideologically fairly different. But I am not willing to say that they were so different as to not be judged as being on roughly the same side of the discussion. After all, the Civil Rights movement was not just the movement for the passage of legislation nor did it belong to the non violence of MLK Jr entirely. This is not historical. If you don't see that the US institution of slavery was a grave moral evil and that the Jim Crow laws that succeeded it were demonic in their formal and informal application, and that, as a result, those determined to end these things were in principle on the side of justice, then you really have no moral compass. Say what you will of the vast differences between MLK Jr and Malcolm X, but it is hard to argue that their social protest was off key in the tonic.
The more popular -- but equally as appropriate -- comparison these days is to Nazi Germany. (Of course, a great deal of the sentiment of the Civil Rights movement was a direct result of the effects that US wars had for those within its ranks who were not white, but that might be slightly off the mark in this case.) There is a bright and clear moral line between the Nazi ideology and its perverse Final Solution and those who sought to oppose it. This line, by the way, finds its way directly into the symbolism and rhetoric of the neo Nazi's at Charlottesville. Not only were there swastikas, there were Nazi crosses and other niche paraphernalia. There were the salutes, yes, but there were other salutations and insider ways of speaking going on. There were also the tiki torches, the modern Pepe Wal-Mart replacement for the burning torch rallies and burning crosses of the KKK. The grand knight of that sick group was standing by. They brought their own military-grade armed militia to protect those who came in homemade riot gear. This was not the making of a peaceful protest or free speech of the sort that we see the Westboro Baptists practice (not that they are emblems of public virtue, far, far from it!).
As I said earlier, if you find yourself unable to distinguish between Nazism in its original form and neo Nazis, white nationalists, and others like them and those who through what ever means they find useful (which one can disagree with in practice while still endorsing in principle) oppose them, then you are morally corrupt. If you can't quite figure out how the math works in this moral calculus, you are morally mindless and incompetent.
Of course, within any opposition to these (supposedly) easy immoral targets one can find many arguments and even passionate disavowals. But there are real moments when these lines are simply drawn and one must take a side. I have in the past even used the language of "alt left" in an entirely different usage, but I regret it deeply, now, seeing its life-cycle. I will not exchange my allergies to the ideological types of identity politics I have long opposed nor will my more specific critique of the critics settle. All that fuss gets set aside in these events. If I have to choose whether to stand next to a neo Nazi or Antifa, I'll choose the latter on pain of eternal damnation. To those who say you don't have to choose, that risk is one I am not willing to make. I would rather be a black panther than a lynch mob, as much as my truer sympathies lie somewhere else. Despite all my oppositions to modern warfare, I would pick up arms against the Nazis long before I'd "peacefully" cheer on their side. I think most people feel this way.
But something remains and this is what I worry about and even dread most: we are not fighting Nazis or lynch mobs. Most people would never go to march in Charlottesville. And even when you talk to many of the white nationalists they will say something along the lines of "I'm not racist." To them, their present politics is no longer that of the slaver or the KKK. They don't wear hoods and they don't want to own people as property anymore, it seems. They hate the Jewish people for reasons I am still not able to process in my mind, but their argument is more separatist than colonial -- so they claim.
They seem to think that the USA was founded by *their* ethnic ancestors, who hailed from Europe, gathered together in this ancient race called "White" that has recently, especially after the activism surrounding police brutality against African Americans, fallen into a disrepute that is sending the world into a globalist terror to come, in the biggest of the big governments.
Now, these conspiracy theories do not need to be true or believed to find where they hit a live nerve in a lot of people. Some people do ask why white people cannot have rallies for themselves without longing for ethic purity. Some people do think that white folks today are being washed away through interracial marriage, but many more who don't mind interracial romance still worry that white people are on the losing end of public sentiment. Lots of people who try to counter this tend to make it worse by appealing to gotcha replies about privilege or other things. I tend to find that too complex.
I recently commented to one of my friends that I don't think of myself as having very many "white" friends. Some of you might balk since many extremely intimate people in my life are, supposedly, white. And of course if we use one way of thinking about what "white" is, that is true. On the same logic, I would be, in certain real scenarios, white as well. But what I meant when I wrote to my friend was that I see my friends of European descent as from where they are. Those who don't know where they are from share with me a genealogical confusion that I can also understand.
Maybe this weirdness is partly because, on the vulgar ethnic analysis I am used to, I am neither white nor Black. And, of course, as many Africans who are neither black nor American will remind you, things become quite complex depending on what rules we are using to count the deck.
My point is this, and if you read nothing else, please read this: There is no such thing as "white people" in history. Most folks who use the expression were not allowed to use it only a few decades ago. The white supremacy of the KKK of old hated Blacks, yes, but also Mexicans, and Catholics, and Jews (of course), and atheists, and more. Depending on how you see it, whiteness was either more or less ecumenical, but just as ideologically religious.
Let me say it again: There will never be a "white ethnostate" based on European culture because the history of Europe is covered in ethnic feuds and wars. If you've never heard of a guy named Napoleon, check him out. I'm being serious. If you think of yourself as being "white" in some serious ancestral way, you're not. You are wearing a name tag your family was GIVEN at some point but never had by its own right. There are no white people in this familial sense. (Settle down critical race theorists, I am well aware of the whiteness that is real, too, but this ain't it.) There is no such thing as a white European culture or of a white heritage in that sense at all.
Again and again: The most scandalously false part of the neo Nazi mentality is as old as its previous, original half baked idea in Hitler's weak mind. The concept of a master race doesn't work for mastery of people nor does it work for figuring out who you really are. We come from places with names and languages and peoples and legacies that are concrete. Some of us lost a lot of memory at the hands of another, and others lost through the same hands. Today we tend to think that the ancestors of slaves, or indigenous peoples, or mixed-up mestizos are the ones who lack a strong identity and the rest have theirs in bold font. Not true. From your family to your soul, you don't really know who you are if you are using ideological pet words to hang the hat of your self.
I'm not a real Mexican and I'm not a real American -- and I'm no Canadian, either. My father was an orphan, so I've taken his bloodless name as my own, a Portuguese word by etymology. I of course will pass as a white guy at a Black family reunion, just as I passed as an indigenous guy today on the pier (until I produced a fishing license instead of a status card), just as I passed as an Iranian at a birthday party last week, and so on. But the real facts of who I am don't work in the abstract.
This is why if you want to find a better substitute for whiteness find a Greek Festival or an Irish Pub or a German Beer Garden or a French Restaurant. This is food and drink, and it is a set of multicultural cliches, but enjoy an Italian family dinner and tell me there is nothing about who someone is at stake there. The point is that the real identity we can and do celebrate is everywhere and it is not necessarily riddled with guilt, even if sometimes it could use some (or far less). None of it calls itself "white." None. If you are using "white" as your only name tag, then I am sorry to say that you've been fooling yourself. You don't have a people by that name. There is no such thing. Your great-great-great grandmother would mostly likely not answer to "white."
Personal history quickly becomes social, national, and regional histories and we find ourselves, again, at Charlottesville. All I can say for now about it, to my dear and beloved friends who I suspect think that they are "white," is this: We cannot have white rallies because there is no such thing as a "white" people. Black Lives Matter is not a movement for everyone who is of one dark color in the world -- it is about the US experience for those living within the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow over the past three years (some Black activist groups are critical of this aspect of BLM, by the way). If you want a "white" identity, then look to the folk expressions of it that we have and should treasure like music, food, and regional folk ways of being. Poetry, dance, dialect, accent, story. These are not safe or sanitary places -- I tend to think this story of a "white people" got made up there, too -- but they also don't pretend like people are any more or less related than they really are.
Donald Trump is a German-American man, not a white man. His whiteness is an entirely different issue that I am disinterested in getting into right now. If you wonder why white people are seen as bad sometimes, it is largely because of this false assumption: that white people exist as a people when they so manifestly do not.
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