Monday, June 06, 2016

PAS' prospects in Sungai Besar

Malaysia-Today - PAS as a Third Force


Australian politician Pauline Lee Hanson very nearly started a viable Third Force in Australian politics but when Australian voters became more familiar with her brand and style of politics they withdrew support for her politics

RPK propounded some interesting political points about and for PAS in his new post, which I intend to take on for discussions in a new posting, but not today.

For this evening I only want to comment on one of his commentator's remarks (but not RPK's post itself, though of course the commentator's remarks would be related to his post).

M2Day visitor Norizan Bin Yahaya commented in relation to the two pending by-elections in Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar, saying [unedited]:

I think UMNO will win Kuala Kangsar but PAS will narrowly take Sungai Besar and Amanah will be lucky not to lose their deposits. Mahathir will be happy if PAS can win a sit....what a unique scene that will be but PAS will be quick to disassociate itself from Mahathir.

I believe his views would be a typical take on the by-elections by the Malays. I propose to present my views as well though I have no doubt many Chinese will kill me if I so much as dare to suggest I represent the Chinese view point, wakakaka.

So no, this is only kaytee's assessment, which I further propose to limit my take to only the Sg Besar by-election.

On Norizan's belief that PAS will win Sg Besar, I would very dearly love to, and indeed also with some degree of confidence, say there is no way that'll ever happen. Yes, there's only a snowflake chance of PAS winning in Sg Besar.

But then with UMNO and PAS in what I termed as incestous relation in my previous post 
The sex of Malaysian politics who knows what kowtim-ness telah diatur & diberes-kan behind the scene between UMNO and PAS?

Could there be a possibility of 'You take Kuala Kangsar, I take Sungai Besar' a la bisa diatur?

Thus I will play safe and say there is only one way for PAS to win Sg Besar (or for that matter, Kuala Kangsar a la one for you and one for me), and that is, ONLY if UMNO (Najib or Mahathir's UMNO) allows it, principally by PAS winning from the Malay voters base which constitutes approximately 70% of registered voters in that constituency.

And the above is because the 30% voters who are of Chinese ethnicity (and most of whom voted PAS in 2013) will NOT vote for the Islamic Party this time, nay not one single vote, principally because of hudud and partly because of the DAP support for Amanah and MCA-Gerakan support for UMNO.

The best outcome for PAS is if the Chinese in Sg Besar stay at home with their fave election past-time, playing mahjung and pakkau, wakakaka, for otherwise PAS can say ta-ta to 30% of the total votes. Perhaps a PAS fatwa dispensation for Chinese to be still blessed even if they sin in main judi on the by-election day, may be advisable, wakakaka.

So if PAS or Norizan has factored the Chinese votes as part of the Islamic Party's winning factors, then the party is fantasizing.

The only Chinese who will vote for PAS are Ridhuan Tee Abdullah and Ustaz Ann Wan Seng, assuming both are registered voters in Sg Besar, wakakaka

Ooops wait, I forget there is an off chance PKR VP Tian Chua (and perhaps a few of his PKR Chinese followers) may possibly support PAS, based on his publicly stated wish for PKR to continue its alliance with PAS. And I suspect Tian Chua may not be partial to Amanah too, so there are more reasons for him supporting PAS.

I wonder whether he is a registered voter in Sg Besar? Wakakaka.

As for PKR in general, you have to guess where its support will lie?


Sunday, June 05, 2016

The sex of Malaysian politics


It's now raining in Sydney. On such a rainy day, sex would be wonderful. Besides, what else is there worthwhile to do on a raining day, wakakaka.

Now, perhaps even politics would be described best in sexual terms.


OK then, currently the Malaysian political scene is in a humongous sexy mess, with lots of political illicit sexual affairs, including incest, sodomy and adulteries, going on at max speed - all of course in the political (and not bodily/physical) sense, wakakaka.

For example, PAS is sleeping with UMNO, an incestous relationship as PAS was an offspring of the latter; it's 
like bonking one's parent or vice versa. No wonder in 2009 Lawmakers were too easy on incest!

Take the recent hudud bill - UMNO jaked the bill, one by a private member, up to the fore even above other government bills, and then Pak Haji Hadi played his part by requesting for a deferred reading/debate, thus far effectively all sweet-nothing, gnam gnam just before the by-elections. If that's not PAS and UMNO in blatant sexual relationship then what would be?

Next, PKR and PAS are also sleeping together, and remembering they are siblings, both being offsprings of UMNO, they are also committing incest, wakakaka.

Despite PAS merajuk a la angry lover, PKR recently in the person of Tian Chua has insisted on NOT severing ties with the Islamic party. See Is PKR still interested in Pakatan?

And of course DAP is in an illicit affair with its one-time archfoe, Mahathir. I'll return to this later.

Moving on to the DAP-PKR relationship, the DAP had been sodomized kau kau by PKR, contrary to the picture some sectors of politics have portrayed and want us to believe, that of DAP being a bully boy to PKR, a silly belief not matched by the series of treacherous acts that PKR had repetitively wrecked upon DAP, especially in Sarawak and Penang.

And when PKR acted treacherously against DAP, its supporters would have the brazen thick-skin to say PKR has at last shown its independence of bully boy DAP, but conveniently ignoring or covering up the truth that PKR has always been the treacherous one, for example, in making unilateral press statements on Pakatan affairs as, just an example, in the lead up to the Sarawak state elections PKR announced (without consulting DAP) that it was contesting in 40 state seats with 15 of those seats non-negotiable.


You may ask why DAP has allowed itself to be sodomized not only repetitively but also regularly, wakakaka.

That's because the DAP or in the person of Lim Kit Siang has very very very ambitious aim to unseat BN-UMNO (effectively only UMNO as it had in Peninsula already demolished MCA, Gerakan, PPP and to some extent, MIC).

And the irony of LKS' aim to unseat UMNO lies in his undoubted full realization that it won't be a DAP non-Malay MP or even a DAP Malay MP who will be the Pakatan PM but rather (and more likely) a PKR MP as one.

Yes, I speculate that LKS wants to dethrone UMNO from Putrajaya just for dethroning sake a la the blindly-discriminating ABU doctrine, even not caring whether a PKR MP as PM and various ministers will be better, which I personally doubt.

Though as a supporter of DAP and once a long time admirer of LKS (I'm more reserved, even limited, in my admiration for him today) I'm happy that LKS have long realized his life-long political ambitions of (a) DAP together with its (then) Anwar-led Pakatan ally PKR winning majority rule in Penang and (b) denying BN its 2/3 majority rule in federal parliament. But I'm less excited about his new but sadly quite obsessive one, that of dethroning BN-UMNO from Putrajaya.

Dethroning BN-UMNO is undeniably the necessary objective of any political party which harbours ambition of political and public greatness in Malaysia, but my criticism of LKS in this regard is that he wants to do it in what seems to me would be in a very unpalatable way, in which he allows the DAP to enter into undignified shameful consort with unsavoury political 'characters' ['characters' include political parties].

Yes yes, you're going to tell me about the enemy of my enemy yadda yadda yadda and all that.

Methinks LKS wants to ride the Mahathir tiger in the way SE Asian political legend has it that Lee Kuan Yew rode the communist tiger. But then, on the DAP relationship with PAS, as far back as in 2010, I had warned the DAP about its alliance with PAS in Pakatan Rakyat, and true enough, it came to grief that the DAP (particularly LKS' son Lim Guan Eng and that Perak MP, Nga) failed abysmally to ride the PAS Islamic tiger.

For more of my warning to the DAP,  see my 2010 CPI article titled Ride the Islamic tiger, risk becoming cat food in which I had written (extracts only):

... We've also read of how in Saudi Arabia, three supposedly learned Islamic judges victimize the minorities, i.e. a Shiite, or one of the female gender (rape victim).

The usual apologists in Malaysia offer the predictable excuses that the Saudi clerics' outrageous injustice was not influenced by Islamic jurisprudence but rather Arab tribal custom -- despite the obvious fact that the verdict had been delivered by Muslim judges in an Islamic nation that is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.

'Tribal custom' was the same pathetic excuse offered when Pakistan, a nation which subscribes fully to Islamic laws, saw the horror of the oxymoronic 'honour rape' perpetrated against Mukhtaran Bibi.

Even the already ridiculous claims of tribal revenge against the woman and her teenage brother were subsequently discovered to be the sheer fabrications of lustful men. But the criminals were not apprehended while their victim was harassed and ostracized.

Where was the syariah and hudud laws in all of this? It had to be secular international pressure which forced the Pakistani president to order the arrest of the criminals. 

But syariah laws or not, those 'honour rapes' continue in Pakistan even after that shameful case. Three years after the victimization of Mukhtaran, another sensational case occurred where seven men kidnapped and gang-raped a woman over two days in retaliation for some perceived wrong.

Were these the examples that the PAS Youth Leader wants us to believe his hudud laws can prevent?

But what worries me most was when PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat recently claimed only DAP chairman Karpal Singh in his party was against the implementation of hudud laws, whose implementation, in their mind, would solve all of the world's problems, the Pakistani and Saudi shameful examples notwithstanding.

In asserting the DAP (all of party, cadres and leaders) only minus Karpal is for hudud, Nik Aziz might have harboured high expectations from Guan Eng and Kor Ming's frequent references to Islamic governance and the Quran.

Let me advice those DAP leaders who want to ride the Islamic tiger that you are unlikely to succeed!

It's consequence would not only be the riders becoming meals for a big cat but in a reiteration of my earlier remark, in a religious state, when power hungry men can overturn the tables into 'God proposes, man disposes', the potential for gross injustice cannot be understated or overestimated.

Our only protection is the current constitution and the secular civil courts, warts and all.

With such an abysmal failure in its alliance with the Islamic party, t
hen what nerve does the party in the person of now LKS have in still believing it could ride the Mahathir tiger, when both PAS and Mahathir do not share the DAP's political ideology?


LKS, ride this


don't dream of this 


or you'll end up like this 

I have labelled LKS' new ambition as 'sadly obsessive' because in his 'obsession', he has a too-eager willingness to allow his party the DAP, as an unpleasant example, to not only be regularly sodomized by PKR but to suffer the insults and treachery in perpetual silence, because he is probably far more worried about PKR breaking off and going its own way than being DAP being sodomized by that party, for he reckons that without PKR and (originally PAS) Amanah, BN-UMNO will continue ruling in Putrajaya.

PKR has already in Azmin Ali's and party VP Tian Chua's arrogant demonstrations of open public flirtation with PAS, the enemy of PKR's Pakatan supposed allies, DAP and Amanah, shown it didn't and doesn't give two figs about its Pakatan allies.

And what has DAP done vis-a-vis Azmin's sexy adulterous dalliance with PAS (adulterous within a Pakatan sense)?

Buggerall. Yes, such have been the frustration of many DAP supporters in the seeming DAP masochistic tolerance of such treachery that even Zaid Ibrahim ta'bolih tahan lagi and took it upon himself to attempt persuading LKS to break off with PKR. I doubt Zaid had succeeded.

Hey matey, LKS even jumps into bed with a man whom he (LKS) had condemned resoundingly for the draconian 929 Declaration and his 617 Announcement that Malaysia has been an Islamic fundamentalist state, which has made matters religious worse for us today.

WTF then would be the point of LKS condemning and criticizing Pak Haji Hadi Awang's hudud bill when he has so willingly consorted with Mahathir, the political architect of Malaysia being "an Islamic fundamentalist state"?

What have become then of his 2001/2002 condemnations of MCA and Gerakan leaders for supporting Mahathir?

With such disgusting political sex I hope no baby will ever be an issue wakakaka and dumped at the doorstep of a bloke in Temerloh, wakakaka again.

Please use a condom for safe sex.




Saturday, June 04, 2016

Political snippets (23)

No 1: MM Online - Azmin ‘on the run’ after failing PAS (extracts):


he's hiding in Svartalfheim

The Selangor menteri besar is considered “on the run” as he has not been seen with other coalition leaders during the announcement of the pact’s by-election candidates in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar.

Azmin’s plan to have a straight fight for both by-elections failed to materialise as the coalition of PKR, DAP and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) is fielding its candidates in the two constituencies.

Azmin had wanted a straight fight between only Barisan Nasional (BN) and PAS in the two constituencies, with parties in Pakatan Harapan solidly behind the Islamist party.

A so-called Pakatan leader who wants a non-Pakatan member, in fact an enemy of Pakatan, to have the two by-election seats instead of fellow Pakatan member Amanah, should continue running, as far as possible away from Pakatan.

It's hardly surprising (from MM Online) ... the menteri besar’s plan was seen, or rather interpreted, as “trying to enhance and strengthen” his position.


No 2: MM Online - Disloyalty to PAS is sin, Hadi tells members (extracts):

KOTA BARU, June 3 — PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang declared today that disloyalty to the party is a sin in Islam, likening deserters to those who abandon their faith.


... and if hudud had been implemented, also a 'crime'.


Kassim Ahmad's priesthood caste in all its self-interest self-indulgent fatwa for numero uno.




What! No fire and brimstones?





why am I in a tropical country? wakakaka 

A modern Aesop's tale about Pak Haji's manmanlai strategy, by FMT's reader Ravinder Singh. I wish I had taken a copyright registration on the use of 'camel' in the religious context, wakakaka.




Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (Beware of Greeks bearing gifts)


But then we know Pak Kadir ain't no Yunani (Greek), thus we know what or rather who his gift of support for Amanah candidates is meant to benefit, wakakaka.


Part of the following series:



The Snippets:
(1) Political snippets (1)
(2) Political snippets (2)
(3) Political snippets (3)
(4) Political snippets (4)
(5) Political snippets (5)
(6) Political snippets (6)
(7) Political snippets (7)
(8) Political snippets (8)
(9) Political snippets (9)
(10) Political snippets (10)
(11) Political snippets (11)
(12) Political snippets (12)
(13) Political snippets (13)
(14) Political snippets (14)
(15) Political snippets (15)
(16) Political snippets (16)
(17) Political snippets (17)
(18) Political snippets (18)
(19) Political snippets (19)
(20) Political snippets (20)
(21) Political snippets (21)
(22) Political snippets (22)


(23) Political pasembur 1


The Quickies:
(1) 3 quickies (1)
(2) 3 quickies (2)
(3) Monday quickies
(4) Monday quickies (2)
(5) Sunday quickies
(6) Sunday quickies (2)


Talking Cock:
(1) Kopitiam Kok-Tok (1)
(2) Kopitiam Kok-Tok (2)


The Whereabouts:
(1) Wonder where they are now?
(2) Wonder where they are now? (2)
(3) Wonder where they are now? (3)

Friday, June 03, 2016

Keris kueh




Note we ain't no Arabs no more
As can be seen, we are Malays
Ya, we ain't the sheik's mandore
We've given up* our camel days

* 
temporarily, wakakaka

Please vote for us, we of thy bangsa
This applies to you, our pals in PKR
And no camel as we'll use Proton Saga
In Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar

We've even celebrated our muktamar
With a gigantic halal green pulut cake
Yes, we are prepared to go very far
As to use a keris on what was baked

But once the election's over, lose win
We'll ta-ta our Hang Tuah garb adieu
Then once again we'll be happily seen
With a Middle-Eastern camel or two



I miss the massage ... er ...bonking on top of my back 

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Is PKR still interested in Pakatan?

MM Online - PKR veep says party still allies with PAS after Muslimat calls to cut ties


Malay unity 

KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — PKR will not sever ties with PAS unless the directive comes directly from the Islamist party’s central committee, Chua Tian Chang said today.

Chua, who is one of PKR’s three vice-presidents, said his party has yet to speak with PAS about the proposal by the Islamist party’s women’s wing to end their political cooperation.

“As far as we are concerned, we will maintain ties with PAS. We will maintain things until PAS’s central committee says otherwise.

“Until then, we will maintain the status quo,” he told Malay Mail Online over the phone when contacted.

Remember last year's headline by the MM Online about Tian Chua and Nurul Izzah meeting up with Jacel H Kiram?


Jacel Kiram is the daughter of former Sulu militant group leader who led the militant intrusion in Lahad Datu in 2013. The Pinoy intruders not only killed several Malaysian policemen but also mutilated their corpses in a horrid display of barbarism.


you only met up with Jacel Kiram
but I also bit a Malaysian policeman 

Readers had then only focused on Nurul's lack of judgement but very few mentioned the naughty insensitivity of Tian Chua who was also there with her.

Yes, though Nurul was silly to demonstrate her piss-poor judgement in being outrageously insensitive to the families of the dead policemen killed at Lahad Datu with their bodies so cruelly mutilated by the Filipino intruders, especially for one who's touted as a future PM, I want to point out what DPM Zahid had said at that time.

Zahid had then accused Tian Chua as the person responsible for the meeting with Jacel Kiram. He stated: "Tian Chua was the man who arranged the meeting. He was the person responsible in connecting with the Sulu sultanate. He has to be very careful with his action." 

If Ahmad Zahid's accusation has been true (Tian Chua threatened to sue him but Zahid gave him 2 fingers), then we need to ask ourselves a sensible question: Why would Tian Chua involve Nurul in a meeting with Jacel Kiram which would incriminate Nurul and likely her position in PKR?

Tian Chua might have been snaky, as DAP people see him, wakakaka; he might have bitten a policeman, as confirmed by the courts, wakakaka; he might have behaved like a wannabe martyr, as we know of him, wakakaka; but he wasn't/isn't exactly stupid or like sweetie Nurul, politically gullible. Au contraire, he's quite cunning and snaky.

Whatever Tian Chua did or does or will be doing, you can bet there's usually a well thought-out motive behind each of his actions, programs or plans.

So, assuming Ahmad Zahid's accusation has legs, should Tian Chua have positioned pseudo-Princess Nurul in a cozy photo-ops with so-called Princess Jacel Kiram to win the favour of the Sabah Bangsamoro voters, many of whom have relatives and connections all the way back to southern Philippines, the bailiwick of the so-called royal Kiram family who still have pretensions to ruling Sabah?

What had been Tian Chua's real motive?

By the by, it's said that within PKR, Tian Chua is allied to the Azmin Ali faction.

This was apparent in the Pakatan chaos during the recent Sarawak state elections. A Malaysiakini report tells us:

PKR deputy president Azmin Ali was alleged to have authorised Sarawak state chief Baru Bian to issue appointment letters to the candidates of the five contentious seats. This is according to a party source.

This was against the decision of party presidential council, which only authorised 35 candidates to stand in the May 7 state election.

This may see three-cornered fights in five state seats - Mambong, Simanggang, Ngemah, Murum and Mulu - where DAP will field candidates.

"Azmin gave the impression to the state PKR that he could push it at the central level to allow three-cornered fights with DAP in Sarawak," said the source.

He then claimed both Azmin and party vice-president Tian Chua instigated Sarawak PKR to take a hardline stand with the excuse that this would force the party and DAP to re-open negotiations. [...]

The source, however said the party president, who signed the appointment letter for 35 candidates, had turned down the request for three-cornered fights.

Now, in this latest MM Online news, Tian Chua has let us know of his party's insistence on remaining in alliance with PAS, something that Azmin Ali has often said he wanted.

Does that make sense for a member of Pakatan Harapan where the other two members, namely the DAP and Amanah, are completely at odds with PAS?

In short, he is telling DAP and Amanah to f**k off, and that it's all about numero uno, to wit, PKR.

So Pakatan, Quo Vadis?







Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Islamic scholar: Separating state from religion necessary for Muslims to believe with conviction and honesty

Continuing the topic as per my previous post God proposes, Priests dispose do you recall how Sheikh Ghazali Abdul Rahman, the syariah adviser to the AG's Chambers, claimed it would be compulsory for Muslims to support the proposed amendments to the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act?


PAS talking, wakakaka 

Well, that's another example of an ulama (not Allah swt) dictating what a Malaysian Muslim must do.

Compulsory, must, mandatory, etc etc. Those ulama really don't give Muslims in Malaysia a choice, do they?

I'll come back to this shortly after we review once again the case of JAWI persecuting (not just prosecuting) Nik Raina.

Yes, Sheikh Ghazali Abdul Rahman's edict on the so-called compulsory requirement for Muslims to support the Hudud Bill is not as bad as JAWI persecuting and prosecuting Nik Raina even though Sweetie didn't do any wrong.

Just to recapitulate for those who aren't aware of how poor sweetie Nik Raina, a manager at The Borders book store was made a victim of those ulama.

Her store was selling a book titled “Allah, Kebebasan dan Cinta”, translated from the English Version written by Canadian author Irshad Manji. At that time it was NOT a banned book.

Nonetheless, she was arrested and charged for being a Muslim manager at a bookstore which sold that book.

The Home Ministry only banned the book 6 days later, yes, a week after the sale.

She was charged under Section 13 (1) of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territory) Act for allegedly selling and distributing a book that is contrary to the Islamic laws.

That completely and deliberately ignored a simple plain truth that her bookstore sold that book six days before the ban by the Home Ministry, meaning at the time of the sale, the book was NOT a banned/illegal item.

How the f**k was she to know the book would be banned six days later? But JAWI didn't care a shit. It's all about the ulama's intent to punish punish punish kau kau.

Almost a year later, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that JAWI had acted illegally in raiding Borders, seizing the books and charging Nik Raina. It was then ordered to withdraw its charges against her in the Syariah court.

But JAWI, despite and in spite of the fact that the Home Ministry ban wasn't published until 6 days after the same, and ignoring the logic of the court's ruling, still appealed against the ruling.

Not only that, the syariah court Chief Sharie Prosecutor (KPS) Mohamad Adib Husain also took the unusual step of serving the notice of the appeal directly to Nik Raina at her place of work in the Mid Valley shopping mall when he should have send the notice to her lawyers, thus breaching the rule that they should not communicate with Nik Raina directly.

According to Roslie Dahlan, sweetie's lawyer, JAWI's actions showed "arrogance" in deliberately wanting to intimidate Nik Raina by serving the notice directly to the bookstore manager instead of the lawyers representing her in the case, a wicked case probably a la "buatkan dia panic lah, syiok saje!".

Rosli added that the latest appeal puts Mohamad Adib the KPS and JAWI’s DG in contempt of both the civil High Court and Court of Appeal’s orders directing that the prosecution against Nik Raina be discontinued due to illegality.

The Court of Appeal had ruled the prosecution against Nik Raina was “unreasonable, irrational” and done in bad faith, and that it was against the “principle of fairness and justice” for JAWI to prosecute Nik Raina for an offence in the Shariah court simply because she was a Muslim and because it could not charge the company and her non-Muslim supervisor.

(1) JAWI wanted a victim to punish punish punish kau kau and Nik Raina was a Muslim which fitted the bill because her Borders boss was not a Muslim and beyond their unforgiving claws. Just imagine what would have happened to her non-Muslim boss if Malaysia was under full syariah laws? Aiyoyo, amah!

(2) JAWI deliberately ignored the fact that at time of sale of the book, no ban on it existed. Yet JAWI wanted to punish punish punish someone kau kau and Nik Raina was just there, innocent as she might have been. There was undeniably an evil intent then, and nothing to do with the great religion of Islam or the noble teachings of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). Those f**king JAWI officials shamefully desecrated the good name of Islam. They should be flogged with at least 100 lashes and then re-circumcised, wakakaka.

(3) The above were prosecutions but that they continued appealing for more than a year after it was painfully obvious Nik Raina was innocent and the court had repeatedly said so could only be termed as PERSECUTIONS, not just legal prosecution.

[Persecutions mean the acts of 'to pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religious or political beliefs, ethnic or racial origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation']

(4) Were Mohamad Adib the KPS and JAWI’s DG in contempt of both the civil High Court and Court of Appeal’s orders? Don't bother to answer.

As I said, god might have proposed, but it's men, those priests, ulama, preachers who dispose.

Okay, let's return to Sheikh Ghazali Abdul Rahman's edict on the so-called compulsory requirement for Muslims to support the Hudud Bill

Sudanese Professor Dr Abdullahi A. An-Naim said Muslims have no obligation to support hudud as the Islamic criminal code is not mentioned in the Quran.

Got that - not mentioned in the Quran. Again we are reminded of what our own Kassim Ahmad said of the priesthood caste. Malaysiakini reported two plus years ago:

Speaking at an event organised by the Perdana Leadership Foundation, he said that Islam in Malaysia has been abused through a “priesthood caste” system.

“This priesthood caste did not exist at the time of the Prophet or the four caliphs. They only emerged about 300 years later by appointing themselves as interpreter of religion for Muslims,” he said.

“They (Muslims) view their religious leaders like gods and goddesses, that these leaders are seen to be protected from maksum (protected from sin) and must decide on everything about their lives.” [...]

He called on Muslims to return the Quran as the sole and highest source of information in Islam, and to reinterpret the holy book to suit modern times.

“I have said before that the Quran explains itself. The old method to use the hadith (Prophet's saying and actions) to explain the Quran is not very good, as this means we are saying that the Prophet Muhammad knew everything. This is ridiculous, as he is just a messenger of Allah,” he stressed.

Kassim was once accused of being anti-hadith, a charged he has denied.

Referring to the first verse of the Quranic chapter al-Munafiqun, he said Muslims are wrong to beatify the prophet.

He also questioned the wearing of the tudung (headscarf) by Muslim women, arguing that hair is not part of the aurat (parts of the body which need to be covered).


[By the by, art activist Raja Aminullah who also spoke at the forum with Kassim Ahmad, expressed disappointment with the absence of scheduled panelist and PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar, who had pulled out at the last minute. Wakakaka]

OK, back to our Sudanese Prof - the Prof, believe it or not, said a secular country [presumably he meant Malaysia] would protect freedom of belief, including among Muslims. Wow!

He said: “The term 'hudud' itself is a misnomer. The Quran doesn't mention the term 'hudud'. It's not in the Sunnah.”

He challenged “Give me a Quranic text that gives this obligation”, referring to Hudud and undoubtedly Sheikh Ghazali Abdul Rahman's edict.

The Malay Mail Online then reported: An-Naim said today that a secular state was not a Western objective but about protecting freedom of belief given the “wide variety” of Muslims.

The scholar of Islam and human rights pointed out that the Shiites in Sudan are forced to live under Wahhabism, an austere branch of Sunni Islam, which they consider heresy, while Iran enforces the Shiite doctrine that must be followed by Sunni Muslims.

“Separating the state from religion is necessary for Muslims to believe with conviction and honesty,” said An-Naim.

Local hudud proponents claim that Malaysia is an “Islamic” country. Malaysia, which practises Sunni Islam, labels other denominations like Shiism as deviant.

An-Naim said the term “Islamic state” does not appear in the Quran and was not practised in the history of Islamic civilisation until the 20th century, noting that the idea of a separate state for Muslims only emerged in the 1930s for a state in colonial India to break away as Pakistan.

An-Naim, who wrote a book on Islam and the secular state, said the government should enforce a single law on all citizens equally.

He described the dual legal system in Malaysia, in which Muslims can be punished for “personal sins” like “khalwat” (close proximity), as confusing.

“A crime should not be made a crime just because it’s a sin to some people” ...

... differentiating succinctly between a crime (eg. an adult raping a 13-year lil' girl) and a sin (having naughty thoughts about Gemma Atkinson, wakakaka) ...



... unless of course those people are the unchallengeable ulama in Malaysia, wakakaka, who (not Allah swt) love to prohibit, persecute and punish to ensure Muslims get the message that they the 'high priests rule the Earth and must NOT be challenged.


God proposes, Priests dispose

Post title paraphrases (with apologies to) Thomas a Kempis' 'Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit'

FMT - A ridiculous fatwa from Fathul Bari


he warned about the priesthood caste 

Journalist Abdar Rahman Koya walloped kau kau the so-called 'high priest of Islam' in UMNO, Fathul Bari for his fatwa on Mastura Mohd Yazid, wife of the late Datuk Wan Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad. Mastura is UMNO candidate for Kuala Kangsar following the death of her hubby who was KK's former MP.

The so-called' UMNO high priest, a young chico, passed a fatwa that Mastura as a widow is still in the period of 'iddah' and is thus forbidden from venturing out of her house during that period, even to campaign as a candidate in the by-election for the federal constituency of Kuala Kangsar.

Journalist Abdar Rahman stated: Really? One does not need to be an Islamic scholar to understand the absurdity of this statement from Fathul, whose Saudi-style Islam has been the order of the day in Umno in recent years. After all, this Malay party too has been inflicted with the disease now rampant among Muslims in this country: listening to young men in skullcaps waxing Quranic verses interspersed with sex and marital jokes.

Iddah is not about stopping a widow from going out of her house to meet friends or to shop or even to attend an event to hear Fathul and his ilk showing their ignorance about Islam.

And iddah is not even mourning. And this is particularly true for a religion that enjoins followers to move on almost immediately after the death of their loved ones. The funeral is fairly quick and simple, and a Muslim corpse is usually buried within 24 hours of death.

Iddah is just a rule to temporarily prevent a widow from remarrying, after which it is natural for her to have sexual intercourse with a new man, so that there is no way that the DNA of the child she gives birth to will be disputed to be that of her dead husband’s.

The four-month period seems to be a sensible one and scientifically sound, for there is no way a cute little sperm of her dead husband would wait four dull months inside her to spring into action the moment it sees a gush of new friends coming. Of course, even this rule can be changed with new scientific discoveries, but that would be another question under the topics of ijtihad and, yes, common sense, both enemies of the Wahhabis.

Now back to iddah and the four-month rule. It is applicable to a woman who is divorced or widowed. And that too if she is lucky (or unlucky) enough to meet a replacement for her dead husband just weeks after sobbing over his grave. But if she has given up the idea of remarrying, then iddah is irrelevant to her.

To cut Abdar Rahman's story short, I'll just reproduce his few concluding paragraphs:

..... perhaps Fathul thinks that he is still living in the medieval period, when Muslim streets were awash with wealth, swept clean by the long and thick robes of women walking gracefully, their faces hidden from pious men lowering their gaze to their pointed leather sandals.

In fact, it is partly due to this fixation with the so-called golden age of the caliphate, or in current parlance the petrol-greased lifestyle of the Middle East, that some Muslims interpret the religion in rich man’s terms. And so we see such rulings to ensure women stay unemployed, enjoying the comforts of home with a couple of maids and that they sit only in the back seat of their cars.

If this type of Islam were introduced to the fishing folk in coastal India or the farming communities in Indonesia, all of whom are now Muslims, they would not have accepted Islam at all. For how else can a lady in Java step into the paddy field without lifting her skirt to reveal her knees?

One of the biggest problems that Muslims face today is the rise of literalist Islam**. Those in this category would like to call themselves “Salafis”, the more polite name for “Wahhabis”, and they have wreaked much damage in the Muslim world, starting right from the birthplace of Islam.

** 
same problem in the USA where fundamentalist Christians who subscribe to every word in the Bible (especially the Old Testament) as the literal truth even believe that Noah's Ark carried on board a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rex, wakakaka

This literalist Islam is marked by an allergy to deeper understanding of Quranic verses, and a rejection of various Quranic sciences used to interpret the revelations based on context and the human capability to think.

The Quranic declaration that the Book is “for people who think”, which means it is open to interpretation as well as to scientific and historical experiences, is lost on people like Fathul Bari.

** And that had been why Kassim Ahmad was both persecuted and prosecuted

To Datin Mastura, here’s an advice. Ignore the young man in the skullcap. Go out and campaign for your party, meet the voters, and give them whatever sarongs and T-shirts your leaders have provided.

And to Fathul’s wife: if you don’t kick the bucket before the hubby, make sure he leaves you with plenty of money, at least for four months, and a good broadband connection in case you are chosen as an election candidate.

The above is a striking example of how so-called ulama (not Allah swt) determine life style of Muslims and why they (not Allah swt) love to prohibit, persecute and punish to ensure Muslims get the message that they the 'high priests rule the Earth and must NOT be challenged.