Authorities blamed for Islam’s bad image

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PETALING JAYA: Amanah communications director Khalid Samad has called for the opening up of space for public discourse on Islam as a means of encouraging the spread of information on the religion.

Speaking to FMT, he said this would go some way towards addressing a concern recently raised by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Zahid, speaking at a conference in Ipoh on Tuesday, attributed some people’s negative opinions about Islam and Muslims to a lack of information about true Islamic teachings.

Khalid accused the government of discouraging the spread of such information through the enforcement of certain laws.
He cited the ruling requiring public speakers to have credentials recognised by religious authorities.
“The objective of the law is to prevent deviant teachings, but the authorities enforce the law even against those who are not imparting deviant teachings and those who are not even teaching but merely speaking about Islam,” he said.

In August, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) labelled Indonesian scholar Mun’im Sirry as deviant, accusing him of questioning the origin of the Quran when he spoke at a forum on the Quran’s call for moderation.
A month later, officers from the Federal Territory Islamic Department (Jawi) arrested Turkish author Mustafa Akyol and detained him for 18 hours following his speech on apostasy at a talk organised by the Islamic Renaissance Front and G25.

Last January, Khalid himself was fined by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) after he was found guilty of giving a religious talk without credentials at a surau in Taman Seri Sementa in 2011.
Khalid said such autocratic behaviour gave non-Muslims the impression that Islam was intolerant of healthy discourse.
“The fact is that Islam is so pro-freedom of speech and opinion that you can write theses on it,” he said.

“There is certainly a need for debate on the actual teachings of Islam and what Islam teaches with respect to political culture and political practice, including the question of accountability and extremism.”
Without freedom of speech, he added, it would be hard to counter extremist views such as those propounded by Zamihan Mat Zin, the Jakim official who was recently embroiled in controversy when he voiced support for a laundry business that restricted its clientele to Muslims.

“When you have all these extreme opinions espoused by individuals who are thought to be scholars of Islam, then not only are non-Muslims confused, Muslims themselves become confused,” Khalid said.
“We need room to enable us to clarify that such views are not what Islam is about. But how do you rectify the situation when there isn’t even a right to speak?”

samasam90

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