Our Iblisian defenders of Islam

It is customary for a Muslim to praise Allah whenever he hears that someone has converted to Islam.

But there was no such response from me when I read news sometime late last year that Rowan Atkinson, the British comedian fondly known as Mr Bean, had converted to Islam.

Two reasons for this indifference: first, the source of the story is not very different from those which have reported similar celebrity conversions which have been proven to be untrue; second, the ummah already has too many celebrity comedians, so what’s new?

The report, now proven to be fake, is just another of the many ways Muslims today are reassured of their religion, telling themselves that their religion has a celebrity following, and so they must be on the right path.

Such reports can be found aplenty, and most have their origin in fringe pan-Arab satellite television and news sites, and are narrated with zest by our equally sensational Malay-language media.

One is reminded of the news that the late Neil Armstrong, the first man Americans claimed walked on the moon, had embraced Islam, because he heard the Muslim call to prayer, or azan, while in space. The incident was a miracle, so never mind if space has no molecules for sound to travel.

Then we’ve also heard the conversion stories of many other celebrities, which are either fake or will never be confirmed. Princess Diana and Michael Jackson come to mind.

It is as if Muslims feel that Islam’s validity and strength depends on such celebrities, forgetting that some of the earliest Muslims were ordinary people and downtrodden nobodies, not the powerful Arab chieftains of that time.

The same is the beginning of many a great religion in human history, where the poor and defenceless were the ones who rallied around their prophets. As such, it is an ironic twist of faith, so to speak, to see that religion is now being manipulated by the rich and powerful.

Nothing illustrates this better than recent statements purportedly in defence of Islam by those in power, who at the same time, have no inhibition about indulging in crass materialism.

They are the same people who have no qualms about making distinctions between God’s creatures, for example, by reinforcing the mythical hallowedness of the royal breed, something no Islamic text can justify.

This religion of the downtrodden has now been hijacked. The adage of the Devil quoting the Bible, in this case the Quran, has never become so real in Malaysia’s history.

It is in this state of affairs that Malaysia should work towards state impartiality towards religions, or equidistance, under which a government maintains the same distance from all religions under its jurisdiction.

As the failure of the religion-politics fusion continues to manifest in Malaysia, the question is whether more Muslim scholars would advocate neutrality in religion. This, then, will be the only way to honour a religion, in this case Islam.

What better way to protect Islam and Muslims in Malaysia than closing down all the various Islamic departments which have not only proven to be a total failure in renewing the Muslim faith, but have acted as the greatest bane to the Malaysian Muslim ummah, embarrassing well-meaning Muslims with fatwa-like statements that have never been used even in the most conservative of Muslim societies?

The proposal to make Sunni Islam (a term which for some mythical reason is always called “Sunnah Wal Jamaah”) the only accepted version of Islam in the country is only the latest of a series of comedies churned out by our salaried defenders of Islam.

Then of course we have a minister from none other than the Prime Minister’s Department who revealed what tiny knowledge he had about Muslim history and Islamic thought in his public exchanges with another equally funny man from the Home Ministry.

Both compete in public, using their office hours which could have done justice to public funds, deriding those who are not like them as deviant.

Their public exchanges remind me of the Quranic anecdote of the creation of Adam. The Angels were not happy with God’s plan to create a new creature in heaven called man. They questioned God, “Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood, whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy name?” (2:30).

Ultimately, they bowed to Adam when instructed to do so by God. Not so Iblis, or Satan, unhappy that God had created another kind to celebrate the praise of the Lord.

What this story attempts to show is the haughtiness of Iblis for thinking only his kind can be God’s true servants.

Such Iblisian piousness is now displayed by our salaried defenders of faith. Like the blind men and the elephant, each claims to know the truth, but in the end, they only exposed their mammoth ignorance about Islam.

What bigger miracle does it take to prove the truth of Islam? It is this: despite the clownish behaviour of our Muslim bureaucrats, Islam still prevails in the hearts of Muslims. Despite all the negative da’wah (propagation), people still want to learn and enter its folds. This in itself is a miracle which no celebrity new converts to Islam could achieve.

When all is lost and one feels like losing one’s religion, perhaps this fact – that Islam still survives, despite Jakim, despite Jais, despite the muftis, and their ilk littered all over the civil service – is a reassurance of one’s faith. – January 10, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.