KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 — The Malacca Islamic Religious Department (JAIM) debunked today a claim that “holy water” was used at the A Famosa water theme park in Alor Gajah, after videos and a warning for Muslims to stay away went viral online.
Its chief enforcement officer Rahimin Bani said the controversial liquid was only “plain water” supplied by the resort to a Buddhist association that held an event there, Malay daily Sinar Harian reported.
“It’s an annual ritual performed by the resort to ask for goodness, abundance of wealth and security in accordance with the Buddhist beliefs.
“They only use plain water supplied by the resort and there was nothing mixed into the water, just some prayers were read,” he was quoted saying.
Rahimin was also reported advising against sharing unverified news that can cause chaos and confusion.
Its chief enforcement officer Rahimin Bani said the controversial liquid was only “plain water” supplied by the resort to a Buddhist association that held an event there, Malay daily Sinar Harian reported.
“It’s an annual ritual performed by the resort to ask for goodness, abundance of wealth and security in accordance with the Buddhist beliefs.
“They only use plain water supplied by the resort and there was nothing mixed into the water, just some prayers were read,” he was quoted saying.
Rahimin was also reported advising against sharing unverified news that can cause chaos and confusion.
Even if there is a thing such as Buddhist 'holy water' or just non-Muslim 'holy water', and as far as I know, there is NO such stuff as 'holy water' in Buddhism or Confucianism or Taoism (only in Christianity), it would only be 'holy' for Buddhists (or Christians), and is NOT 'holy' or sacred for anyone else especially Muslims, so why worry or even bother about it.
Say 'Podah' three times and you will have hexed (or, un-hexed) or voodoo-ed it, wakakaka.
Look mateys, Hindus in Bali pray to the seas and perform ceremonies including offering live animal sacrifices to the oceanic gods and goddesses.
Their Hindu co-religionists in Jogjakarta do the same to Nyai Loro Kidul, the Goddess Queen of the Southern Sea of Java and Indian Ocean, where local fishermen make annual offerings of gifts and sacrifices to Her Divine Being in the form of makanan2 seperti nasi, sayur, ayam dan lain lain - those sacrifices are made onto the sea.
I have read the worship of Nyai Loro Kidul is so strong in that region of Java that the Samudra Beach Hotel in West Java specifically keeps a room, Room 308, furnished with green colours and reserved for the Goddess Nyai Loro Kidul.
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Nyai Loro Kidul |
It was said that the late President Sukarno himself determined the exact location and the idea for a room for the Goddess at the Samudra Beach Hotel.
Are we going to claim no Muslim will ever or has ever stayed at that hotel?
Javanese may be Muslims but a significant number still believe in Hinduism or at least some specific Hindu gods and goddesses.
Once there was a report in a prominent Aussie newspaper that when former PM Paul Keating, who was a very close matey of Suharto, went to visit the then Indon President, Suharto took Keating for a private visit to his family's religious grotto which we were slyly informed might not have been wholely Islamic.
Once there was a report in a prominent Aussie newspaper that when former PM Paul Keating, who was a very close matey of Suharto, went to visit the then Indon President, Suharto took Keating for a private visit to his family's religious grotto which we were slyly informed might not have been wholely Islamic.
Anyway, let's return to topic - those mentioned Indon-Hindu sea events don't make the universal seas unsuitable for Muslims in Indonesia or nearby Malaysia and Brunei so what more for a few drops of so-called 'holy' water (bearing in mind Buddhists don't even have such thing as 'holy water').
And likewise for the seas in Greece and Australia (huge Greek population in Melbourne and Sydney) where on Epiphany, an Orthodox Christian annual event celebrating the birth and baptism of Jesus for these culturally seafaring people, we see a Greek Orthodox Christian priest throwing a cross into the sea to be recovered by enthusiastic Greek men for blessings but again I believe such events do not "contaminate" the universal seas for Muslims in Australia or elsewhere as the seas being universal are connected to one another all over the globe.
I reckon our Malaysian indoctrination of Islamic teachings have somehow produced highly worried and highly sensitive (perhaps over-sensitive) Muslim "purists" who are afraid of any un-Islamic or non-Islamic "contamination" such as trivial or meaningless so-called 'holy water' of non-Islamic religions or even mere words such as 'hotdogs' or 'rootbeer'.
My advice to them is to chill out, mateys. Allah swt knows what's going on and rest assure, such a Divine Almighty doesn't let mere trifling so-called 'holy water' of other religions to affect his believers.
Amin.
p/s from Wikipedia:
"Thálatta! Thálatta" means "The Sea! The Sea!", and was the shouting of joy when the roaming 10,000 Greeks saw Euxeinos Pontos (the Black Sea) from Mount Theches (Θήχης) in Trebizond, after participating in Cyrus the Younger's failed march against the Persian Empire in the year 401 BC.
If you join a package tour in Thailand, it is almost certain to cover one or more Buddhist temples. I have no hangups with going to a non-Muslim place of worship purely as a visitor.
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember seeing the Buddhist members of our tour group queueing up, together with local Thais, to be sprinkled with water which had been blessed by a Buddhist monk.
I think the correct term is "Blessed Water" not Holy Water, but as a general layman's term, there is not much difference between the two.
Some people do have concerns with water which was blessed or otherwise been used in ceremonies of other religions.
These are sensitive matters which you do need to treat with due respect.
As mentioned, it's not a Buddhist belief. The sprinkling of water came from Hinduism, that of the Goddess Laksmi being flanked by elephants pouring water from their trunk over the goddess. This aspect like most other aspects of Lakshmi is representative of prosperity, good luck, and abundance; and the lakshmi motifs, or pouring or sprinkling of water, are very common in Hinduism.
DeleteAs is known, SE Asian Theravada Buddhism conflates Buddhism with Hinduism, and the sprinkling of blessed water has over the centuries become a Hindu-nized rather than Buddhist practice.
Monks of Mahayana Buddhism as those found in China, Japan, Korea (and branches in Malaysia and Singapore) do not sprinkle blessed water - there is just no such practice
I disagree with such matters being sensitive; for a start, it was a false rumour; secondly, I can help assuage Muslim's unfounded concerns by explaining in Buddhism there's no holy or blessed water. In fact I am being helpful