Perak Mufti pointed at Raja Sherina

When the hard-hearted hard-headed hardcore Mufti of Perak demonstrated unusual meekness, it tells us more that we need to dig up - see my earlier posting Perak Mufti unusually meek!.

We knew he was then in deep sh*t. We heard the Sultan of Perak had snubbed him. He was persona non grata for the SMS scandal which saw angry Muslims duped into believing a Malaysian church had the temerity to mass-convert hundreds of Muslims.

But he denied he was responsible for the SMS wildfire, having only heard about the alleged mass conversion from a woman who sent him an SMS message on Oct 21, providing him with the time and place of the alleged provocative baptism.

Then he admitted that he asked her to meet him at his house, and after receiving from her the documents etc he handed all the information to the police and the Special Branch for their investigation like a good citizen!

But he also admitted he raised his concerns over the allegations with representatives of Muslim non-governmental organisations at the state mosque here on Nov 2.

He reminded me of one of my neighbours whom my village called ‘Big Mouth’. You want anything to be ‘circulated’ or ‘broadcast’, tell it to Auntie Big Mouth. Maybe today we would be calling her Auntie Internet?

So the Mufti dobbed the woman as the culprit, who had told him the alleged mass baptism – see Perak Mufti blamed woman; SIS condemns him!.

But Sisters-in-Islam (SIS) said bullsh*t to that. The Muslim NGO slammed the Mufti for spreading wild malicious rumours which could have resulted in an ugly religious clash.

SIS criticised him for failing to “learn from past experiences the danger of disseminating unverified information especially regarding contentious issues such as apostasy”.

SIS programme manager Norhayati Kaprawi said: “This is not the first time the mufti has made careless statements and allegations.”

She cited a number of previous statements made by the mufti, including in February where he claimed that between 100,000 and 250,000 Muslims had renounced Islam.

She added: “To date, he has not been able to substantiate these claims, except to merely state that these were obtained from ‘reliable sources’.”

In other words, he bullshits.

So instead of dealing with the Mufti, who has been notorious for spreading malicious unsubstantiated rumours, Perak police are looking instead for the ‘SMS woman’, identified as Raja Sherina – lovely name but she’s currently not walking around proudly to enjoy KTemoc’s admiration of her sweet moniker.

Raja Sherina - Star photo

The Mufti even told the media (they couldn’t stop him from babbling – no, one can’t a whistle-blower who has been a wee too overly eager to deflect the blame to someone else) that Raja Sherina, in her 40’s, is a graduate of the International Islamic University of Malaysia and the Al-Azhar University in Cairo – impressive academic credentials.

I like to meet her, yes I do, I want to help her!

But I think the Mufti has been let off the hook too easily – pity but entirely predictable!