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OPINION | Being More Muslim than Muslims is as problematic as being more Malaysian than Malaysians
18 May 2026 • 11:30 AM MYT
Image credit: Sinar Daily / Kosmo
PAS's Pasir Puteh MP, PAS's Nik Muhammad Zawawi Salleh, found himself under fire last week, even from his own peers in PAS, for speaking ill about Umar and Abu Bakr, who are considered to be two of Prophet Muhammad's closest companions.
Actually, from an outside point of view, I don't even think that Zawawi spoke ill of Umar and Abu Bakr at all.
What Zawawi said was that before they entered Islam, Abu Bakr and Umar had many flaws and shortcomings. To be exact, he labelled Abu Bakr as a "bapa ceti" — a loanshark — who got rich squeezing the poor, and Umar as violent and adulterous.
The way I see it, he most likely labelled them as such in their pre-Islamic days to contrast how much better they became after they entered Islam.
However, Zawawi's statement sustained heavy attacks even from his own colleagues in PAS, who demanded that he apologise and repent for his remarks.
Now if you ask me, if I, who am not a Muslim myself, can see what Zawawi was getting at, surely his colleagues and peers in PAS could certainly see what Zawawi was aiming for, and realise that he was not trying to disparage Abu Bakr and Umar, right?
Of course — I am more than sure that they definitely see that Zawawi's remarks, in intent and context, do not disparage the companions of Prophet Muhammad.
So why did they take offense, you ask?
Well, if you ask me, this is the peril of identifying more intimately with something that many people identify with, when they don't identify very intimately with you.
If you identify more intimately with it than others who also identify with it, although they don't connect with you very deeply, it will cause them to question their identity with it, which will then make them resent you for making them question their identity.
Zawawi is not the only person who found out how problematic it is to identify more intimately with something that other people also identify with.
The Hardware Uncle in Penang who flew the national flag upside down last year also found that out the hard way.
Not only the Hardware Uncle, even former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong discovered it when he earned enormous animosity from his own siblings for trying to identify too intimately with their legendary father, Lee Kuan Yew.
The Hardware Uncle in Penang, who was Chinese, was probably seen as trying too hard to show that he was a "Malaysian" — a label that all races in Malaysia identify with — and that probably offended people like Akmal Saleh, who didn't identify very intimately with the Chinese Hardware Uncle, although Akmal also identified intimately with being Malaysian.
I seriously doubt that Akmal truly did not know that the Uncle hoisting the Jalur Gemilang upside down made an honest mistake, just as I seriously doubt that Zawawi's peers in PAS did not know he had no intention of disparaging Abu Bakr and Umar.
But despite that, they chose to go on the offensive against Zawawi or the hardware uncle anyway — not necessarily because of what Zawawi or the hardware uncle did, but because of how Zawawi's adb the Hardware Uncle's gesture made them feel about themselves.
We also saw how this same problem of identifying more with something that many people identify with occur in Singapore's first family many years ago.
As I recall, outwardly, it was centred around Lee Kuan Yew's house. His eldest son, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, wanted to turn the house into a national monument while his younger siblings wished to demolish it, because that is what they said their father wanted.
The house and the land it sat on were probably worth tens of millions. All the children of Lee Kuan Yew could have made a lot of money if they had just sold it to a third party.
But money was never the issue in their dispute — identity was.
None of them actually wanted a single cent from the house, but despite that, they feuded bitterly and openly over what they wanted to do with the house, despite the fact that there was nothing tangible involved.
Why?
Well, if you ask me, the reason is because when Lee Hsien Loong looked like he was identifying more intimately with Lee Kuan Yew than his other siblings, although his other siblings likely did not identify very intimately with him, it made his siblings question their identity with Lee Kuan Yew, which in turn caused them to feel a great deal of animosity against Lee Hsien Loong, for the way he was making them feel about themselves.
I think that the lesson we can all take from the PAS Zawawi and the Prophet's companions episode, the Uncle Hardware vs Akmal Saleh episode, and the Lee Kuan Yew children rivalry episode, is that we must always be careful with how we identify with the things that we wish to identify with, if other people also identify with it, especially if they don't identify very strongly with us.
Take the concept of being "Malaysian" for example. Malays identify with the concept, as do non-Malays and Sabahans and Sarawakians.
However, although we all identify with the concept of being "Malaysian", we don't necessarily identify very strongly with each other.
If any of us try too hard to identify with the concept of being "Malaysian", simply because we feel deeply connected to it, it might cause an identity crisis to affect others who also identify with being Malaysians, which might then cause an irrational yet deep animosity to set in between us.
This is something that must be part of our realisation and awareness if we truly desire to develop better relationships with each other.
PAS's Pasir Puteh MP, PAS's Nik Muhammad Zawawi Salleh, found himself under fire last week, even from his own peers in PAS, for speaking ill about Umar and Abu Bakr, who are considered to be two of Prophet Muhammad's closest companions.
Actually, from an outside point of view, I don't even think that Zawawi spoke ill of Umar and Abu Bakr at all.
What Zawawi said was that before they entered Islam, Abu Bakr and Umar had many flaws and shortcomings. To be exact, he labelled Abu Bakr as a "bapa ceti" — a loanshark — who got rich squeezing the poor, and Umar as violent and adulterous.
The way I see it, he most likely labelled them as such in their pre-Islamic days to contrast how much better they became after they entered Islam.
However, Zawawi's statement sustained heavy attacks even from his own colleagues in PAS, who demanded that he apologise and repent for his remarks.
Now if you ask me, if I, who am not a Muslim myself, can see what Zawawi was getting at, surely his colleagues and peers in PAS could certainly see what Zawawi was aiming for, and realise that he was not trying to disparage Abu Bakr and Umar, right?
Of course — I am more than sure that they definitely see that Zawawi's remarks, in intent and context, do not disparage the companions of Prophet Muhammad.
So why did they take offense, you ask?
Well, if you ask me, this is the peril of identifying more intimately with something that many people identify with, when they don't identify very intimately with you.
If you identify more intimately with it than others who also identify with it, although they don't connect with you very deeply, it will cause them to question their identity with it, which will then make them resent you for making them question their identity.
Zawawi is not the only person who found out how problematic it is to identify more intimately with something that other people also identify with.
The Hardware Uncle in Penang who flew the national flag upside down last year also found that out the hard way.
Not only the Hardware Uncle, even former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong discovered it when he earned enormous animosity from his own siblings for trying to identify too intimately with their legendary father, Lee Kuan Yew.
The Hardware Uncle in Penang, who was Chinese, was probably seen as trying too hard to show that he was a "Malaysian" — a label that all races in Malaysia identify with — and that probably offended people like Akmal Saleh, who didn't identify very intimately with the Chinese Hardware Uncle, although Akmal also identified intimately with being Malaysian.
I seriously doubt that Akmal truly did not know that the Uncle hoisting the Jalur Gemilang upside down made an honest mistake, just as I seriously doubt that Zawawi's peers in PAS did not know he had no intention of disparaging Abu Bakr and Umar.
But despite that, they chose to go on the offensive against Zawawi or the hardware uncle anyway — not necessarily because of what Zawawi or the hardware uncle did, but because of how Zawawi's adb the Hardware Uncle's gesture made them feel about themselves.
We also saw how this same problem of identifying more with something that many people identify with occur in Singapore's first family many years ago.
As I recall, outwardly, it was centred around Lee Kuan Yew's house. His eldest son, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, wanted to turn the house into a national monument while his younger siblings wished to demolish it, because that is what they said their father wanted.
The house and the land it sat on were probably worth tens of millions. All the children of Lee Kuan Yew could have made a lot of money if they had just sold it to a third party.
But money was never the issue in their dispute — identity was.
None of them actually wanted a single cent from the house, but despite that, they feuded bitterly and openly over what they wanted to do with the house, despite the fact that there was nothing tangible involved.
Why?
Well, if you ask me, the reason is because when Lee Hsien Loong looked like he was identifying more intimately with Lee Kuan Yew than his other siblings, although his other siblings likely did not identify very intimately with him, it made his siblings question their identity with Lee Kuan Yew, which in turn caused them to feel a great deal of animosity against Lee Hsien Loong, for the way he was making them feel about themselves.
I think that the lesson we can all take from the PAS Zawawi and the Prophet's companions episode, the Uncle Hardware vs Akmal Saleh episode, and the Lee Kuan Yew children rivalry episode, is that we must always be careful with how we identify with the things that we wish to identify with, if other people also identify with it, especially if they don't identify very strongly with us.
Take the concept of being "Malaysian" for example. Malays identify with the concept, as do non-Malays and Sabahans and Sarawakians.
However, although we all identify with the concept of being "Malaysian", we don't necessarily identify very strongly with each other.
If any of us try too hard to identify with the concept of being "Malaysian", simply because we feel deeply connected to it, it might cause an identity crisis to affect others who also identify with being Malaysians, which might then cause an irrational yet deep animosity to set in between us.
This is something that must be part of our realisation and awareness if we truly desire to develop better relationships with each other.
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