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Posted by admin
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Monday, 24 November 2008 10:18 |
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Therefore, let us here set aside any questioning of these latest fatwa, and consider instead their effect. They drive a wedge deeper between this country's Muslims and non-Muslims, at a time when racial and religious polarisation are worse than they've been in three generations. NST Editorial
WHAT is called "yoga" in fitness centres and gymnasiums has about as much relation to Hindu devotional practices as taking a deep breath and counting to 10 has to transcendental meditation. This would have been obvious to the National Fatwa Council had it matched its presumably exhaustive research into the religious antecedents of yoga with a visit to any session of the practice now forbidden to Malaysian Muslims. They would have found no chanting of mantras, no liturgies or sacerdotal offerings -- merely people engaged in physical exercise. The term "yoga" in this context is scarcely more laden than "Pilates", "aerobics" or "jumping jacks". Still, the council has seen fit to solemnly proscribe it for Muslims, for fear of it eroding their faith. To be fair, were the Fatwa Council to have no more than an advisory role, it is highly doubtful that anyone would heed its rulings on matters such as this and the similar proscription now levelled against women not dressing as the council maintains women should dress. But the council seems clearly to presume that Muslims themselves can't be expected to know what being Muslim means, and is consequently concerned with protecting them from themselves. Hence, the council's edicts are accompanied by equally stern warnings against their decisions being questioned by any quarter: the opinions of non-Muslims are irrelevant for obvious reasons, and the criticisms of Muslims are also irrelevant because the council holds that, by definition, those who question these decisions are afflicted with a flawed understanding of their own religion. The council cannot lose, and its critics cannot win.
Therefore, let us here set aside any questioning of these latest fatwa, and consider instead their effect. They drive a wedge deeper between this country's Muslims and non-Muslims, at a time when racial and religious polarisation are worse than they've been in three generations. They undermine, perhaps fatally, the more inclusive and universal tenets of the "civilisational" Islam Hadhari advocated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the rationalism alluded to by Raja Muda of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah in his address to last weekend's international conference on Islamic studies, as well as efforts to present ourselves as "an exemplar of a modern, progressive and moderate Muslim country" in a world where civilisations are clashing to ever deadlier effect. Most gravely of all, they emphasise again that the National Fatwa Council enjoys the legal standing to declare that its decisions can never be questioned, presuming they hold all the authority of divine scripture.
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