Perkasa on Allah: Arabs ignorant, Westerners have vested interests, and some Indonesians eat pork
Syed Jahmal Zahiid, The Malay Mail
Datuk Ibrahim Ali has slammed Arab scholars who criticised the Court of Appeal’s ban on Christian usage of “Allah” as ignorant, saying that not everyone in the Middle East, Islam’s birthplace, understood the religion well.
The Perkasa chief also blasted Western critics as having vested interests, while accusing detractors from Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, as worse than the Arabs, pointing out that some Muslims in the neighbouring country even consume pork.
“Why should we be bothered if there are Arab countries or Indonesia criticise the Malaysian courts on the Allah issue. Don’t think that every Arab knows or understand Islam. That there is no one ignorant there.
“Those (from the Arab world) that support the US are socialists and Christians. So when we say Arab we must consider who is talking, in the media that belongs to who and which Arab? Don’t be easily swayed by what they said,” Ibrahim told The Malay Mail Online yesterday.
On Indonesia, Ibrahim said: “The same can be said about Indonesia…it is far worse. Those who don the ‘songkok’ are not necessarily a Muslim…there are those who consume pork. It’s all possible in Indonesia”.
He further pointed out that even though Indonesia has a large Muslim population, it has so far produced very few respected Islamic scholars. “So why should we follow what others say?” he said.
Perkasa is one of the most vocal groups calling for the Arabic word to be barred to non-Muslims here. Iranian-American religious scholar Dr Reza Aslan said recently that the Court of Appeal’s ruling barring non-Muslims from referring to God as “Allah” showed Malaysia’s folly.
The ruling was also censured in several international publications, such as Indonesian daily Jakarta Post, which wrote an editorial yesterday that “those who claim exclusivity to God undermine their own faith, and inadvertently or not, preach polytheism”.
International current affairs magazine The Economist pointed out that Christians in the Middle East commonly refer to God as “Allah”, and called the court verdict an “unhelpful contribution” to religious discourse between Muslims and Christians.
