MUST MUSLIMS ‘SIN’ THEIR WAY TO THE FRONT-PAGE OF THE SECULAR MEDIA TO TEACH EVERYBODY ABOUT ISLAM?

By Mansor Puteh




A front-page pseudo-event of a recent past has once again put the Malaysian and international media in the spotlight, and not just the original creator of the said event.

I first heard of this when I was abroad and in the company of some local English folks who knew next to nothing about why Muslims are to conduct their lives properly in public. I was therefore not surprised that some of them were surprised. I did not have to be defensive either.

Some of the international media organizations had carried the same story and highlighting it, which is good so that they can learn another facet of Islam that they did not know of before.

Islam and Muslims can only make it in the international media this way. So why can’t we give them some of that once in a while.
They can educate their readers and public better this way – better than any of the pious Muslims or ulama can.

So in a way, the Muslim woman in Malaysia who had become the focus of attention can be thankful her experience has indeed become a useful tool to educate those who are not familiar with Islam.
Will the hapless Malay woman attract enough international media attention so that she could later get offers to write books on her experience and one of which can be turned into a feature film or limited drama serial to be shown in the west, so they can show how cruel Islam is? I’m not sure.

The main theme of the imagined drama: Downing something sinful into one’s body is a far worse crime that any Muslim can commit compared to blasting one’s body with explosives!

I did not know Muslims must be lashed 80 times for consuming liquor in public before.

How could a person with such a long name which is essentially Sanskrit or Indian can be Muslim, too?
And how could a Muslim woman who was not known to be wearing the headscarf don it now? In fact, she was also not a known personality, until recently.

And I now know they can, which is good because I have become a little enlightened by what is happening to the hapless Malay woman and the Malaysia and international media. Both of them have exposed themselves their true colors with one having committed in Islam and the other for writing about it.

And how ironic, that a lot on the media can be written on this event, too, that they did not know of before, that they can indeed be used to spread Islam amongst themselves and those who did not know of this religion before.

The woman and the event have all become important and interesting tools to disseminate Islam to those who are not yet Muslims – especially those non-Muslims who have not had enough of the bottle yet to realize their folly that only a religion that forbids the consumption of such a thing can make them realize this.

They have not found a religion that forbids the consumption of liquor that they can rely on. All other religions as opposed to Islam do not try to stop their inherent from drinking and be merry.

Malaysia is short of stories by Malays and Muslims intellectuals, artists and creative creatures, so anything of this sort can be attractive for the media to highlight, because some of the media creatures may have become tired of highlighting stories of the politicians, who can only come up with the same issue.

No Malaysian politician has come up with anything interesting lately other than to be involved in the same scandals and petty disputes. Even the defamation suit by a senior Chinese party official is nothing new except for the amount that was stated which seemed to be enormous but not too preposterous for anyone to comprehend.

Aren’t politicians in Malaysia and elsewhere supposed to have thick skin? What sort of shame do they have still? I thought by getting into politics, one has lost all shame normal persons ought to have to protect their personal dignity as human beings.

So no wonder, so few dignified persons never ever considered this vocation, choosing other less-paying ones instead.

Who was the person who once said nicely that once a person enters politics, he or she loses his or her dignity? How true indeed!

That Malay politicians can only make news if they bicker with each other.
And the only person who seems to be able to do this is none other than Nik Aziz of Kelantan, who has the knack of creating headlines and front-page news most of the time and get away with it.
A Malay-Muslim woman was caught for consuming liquor in public. She admitted it and was sentenced according to Islamic law, by being lashed for which she wants to receive, like it is a badge of honor. And why not?

For a woman who did not have any public profile before, she is now in the limelight and on the front-page of the newspapers and electronic media.

How cunning for the media to ‘encourage’ such a woman to come to the fore with a brave face despite her unIslamic conduct?

And how shrewd for the same media to ‘encourage’ Muslims, women or even men to get on the act, and jump onto the bandwagon and commit sin so they can also be accorded with the same treatment and get the right attention in the media.

They do not need to engage a media consultant or publicist to organize any media conference; they can still command the right attention and get it with the representatives from the media organization flocking around her.
And if this is not enough, their parents, too, can ‘benefit’ from the sudden media attention their children have got.

There is no shame in committing sin amongst Muslims; because there are many organizations and individuals who will come to their aid, who won’t feel guilty about downplaying the sinful act that they had committed and can use the occasion to further degrade the Islamic religious institution.

It is also strange how some Muslims have to commit sin in order for the others to learn a bit more about Islam.

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