Why are Jakim and UMS endorsing questionable preachers?
With just a few Google searches, I can debunk his questionable life story but apparently none of the bodies sponsoring Ustaz Ayub’s upcoming talk bothered.
Erna Mahyuni, The Malay Mail Online
Socially conservative, fundamentalist-leaning Islamic preachers are popular in Malaysia and we like them so much we’ll even offer them islands. The preacher I wish to talk about is a local boy for once but of that flavour Malaysian Muslims love and flock to: a convert to Islam.
This man who calls himself Ustaz Ayub Abdul Rahman is giving a free talk in my home state Sabah, with the title: Perjalanan hijrah dan dakwah: Catatan Kehidupan (A journey of pilgrimage and missionary work: Notes on a life).
He claims to be the former senior priest at the church of St Augustine of Canterbury, in Frankfurter, Germany and previously went by the name Reverend Anthony Samy Perumal Viagulam.
From that sentence alone, you know there is something fishy. Frankfurter, my dear Malaysians who do not partake of pork, is a type of sausage. There is no such place as Frankfurter in Germany.
The church, however, is real and has an address: Frankfurter Strasse 3, Wiesbaden, Germany. Strasse is German for street, thus the church is on Frankfurter Street and not in a non-existent sausage.
Some of you might argue it was an honest mistake, that perhaps some Malaysian misread the address. Why then did Ustaz Ayub not correct the poster? He is Malaysian, after all, and can read Bahasa as he is Penang-born and bred.
Here’s the kicker: Ayub claims to be Catholic.
St Augustine of Canterbury is called thusly because he was the first Archbishop of Canterbury and a founder of what is termed the English Church or the Anglican church.
We are apparently supposed to believe a Catholic Indian from Penang somehow ended up heading an Anglican church. He also claimed he was trained at “Benedictine Abbey” in Switzerland.
There is no such thing as an abbey named “Benedictine Abbey.” The Benedictine order is a Catholic order and while the order does have a few abbeys in Switzerland, none of them are named after the order itself.
To say that it is possible for a Catholic priest to become head of an Anglican church in the 70s is implying it’s possible for the Ayatollah to become a spiritual adviser to the Sunnis in Saudi Arabia.
