Tun Dr. Mahathir: If it is not just, then it is not Islamic

“If  it is not just, then it is not Islamic”.

That was Fourth Prime Minsiter Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s brief explanation on the true philosophy and perspective on how God’s law should be administered to mankind. “It was mentioned 43 times in the Al Quran about ‘Just’. So to be ‘just’ in our judgment, is submitting to Allah s.w.t.”.

This was the strong message delivered in the launching of blogger Syed Akhbar Ali’s third book, “Things In Common”.  The book dedication was done at a Malay cuisine restaurant in Sooka, KL Sentral, “Kelantan Delights” . Syed discussed at great length the similarities and resemblance between Islam and other ‘Abrahamic’ religion; Christianity and Judaism. The commonalities between the three groups of faith should be a drive and factor of co-existence and moving forward, instead of division. Tun Dr. Mahathir commended Syed for his ‘bravery’ to discuss very delicate and sometime sensitive issues, despite not agreeing entirely on how the arguments been raised and discussed. However, as Malaysia’s most prolific blogger, he was throwing support to another blogger.

As someone who had lived for 84 years, he reminded the book launch guests that sometime, some narrow minded Muslim clerics make unreasonable fatwas. Example was not too long ago, Tun Dr. mahathir recalled that some Muslim clerics disallowed electricity inside mosques. This is because electricity was popularised by Christians. Some also disallowed Muslims corpse be carried on motorised hearse and instead, insist on carried by pall-bearers all the way to the cemetry.

He went on articulating further how some Muslim’s ways to interpret God’s law within the ambit of very narrow perspective that people in some Muslim societies seeking justice end up being victimised in the process. The example he put forth was a woman, who indentified her rapist, but was unable to furnish four credible witness for the crime. The case end up with the perpertaror went scot free and the woman is damned for making fitnah (false acusation) and punished instead.

“If two persons, one a Muslim and one a non Muslim commit a theft together. The Muslim is found guilty under Hudud Law and his hand chopped off but the non Muslim is not tried under Hudud and was only imprisoned for two months. Is that just?”, insinuating PAS’s political proposal of enforcing their version of Hudud Law only to Muslims sometime ten years ago.

Many Muslims nowadays selectively use (in many cases, misuse) and hide behind the cover of Islam for their own advantage. Tun Dr. Mahathir also quipped that certain individual was acused for a sexual crime but wanted it to be tried under the Syariah Criminal Court, because the acused says he has the right to be tried as a Muslim. This individual wanted to use the ‘window’ that four credible witnesses will not be furnished to support the acusation and thus go scot free. However, Tun Dr. Mahathir also reminded that as a Muslim, this acused man vehemently refused to swear in the name of Allah s.w.t. holding the holy book Al Quran in his hand infront of an Imam, in a mosque to clear his name. Of course, the refusal was not without lame excuses.

It is so obvious he was referring to Anwar “Second-time-sodomist” Ibrahim upcoming case. The victim, Saiful Bukhari Azlan went infront of the Kuala Lumpur Mosque Imam to swear in the name of Allah. s.w.t. holding an Al Quran last August.

Tun Dr. Mahathir also admitted that he learned and deepened his knowledge of the Al Quran from interpretations in Malay and English. However, many orthodox scholars’ opined that Al Quran should be taken in the original Arabic scriptures. His argument is that, if these scholars could articulate the contents of Al Quran in Malay, then there is no reason to understand the holy book in other languages besides Arabic. He also said that if he finds the interpretations is consistent in at least three forms, he will take the intepretations as genuine and substantial.

In the media conference later, when asked about the proposed ‘third bridge’, he argued the same points we at BigDogDotCom put forth on Thursday. He also commented on the unity talks between UMNO and PAS, that the views of UMNO grassroot must be sought first and PAS must clear state their position. He also state that it is not good to have a 100% Bumiputra and Muslim Government when Malaysia is a multiracial and multifaith society.