When I was schooling in Alor Star, I remember going to school on Saturdays and joining the Quran dan Tajwib classes just for fun. The religious teacher (Ustaz Salleh) was amused that a Chinese boy would sit at the back of the class listening to his friends reading from the Quran. However, Ustaz Salleh did quietly inform me that I was not to touch the religious book.
When I was in Form Four, I remember a teacher, an Indian Christian, urging my classmates to do something for another classmate who was suffering from depression. My Muslim classmates suggested that we buy a copy of the Quran for him.
So we contributed to the fund and the Muslim boys bought a copy of the Quran.
And then the Muslim boys told the teacher and the non-Mulsim boys that we were not allowed to touch the book.
When I started working as a teacher in rural Kedah, I remember one incident when we as a group of teachers were invited to a kenduri on Nabi Muhammad’s birthday(PBUH) at the compound of the local mosque.
We were told that we could eat just about anything on the table, except the beef. The cow had been slaughtered as a form of sacrifice and so should be consumed only by Muslims.
We wanted to enter the mosque, but they encouraged us not to. It is sad that as a non-Muslim Malaysian, I don’t know much about Islam.
I have been invited by Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh friends to visit their churches or temples, to attend their religious classes, to attend their religious ceremonies, to read their holy books which were presented to me as gifts, to take up their correspondence courses, to listen to and watch their free CDs and DVDs, but I have never once been invited by a Muslim friend to learn something about Islam.
So, thank you, Nik Aziz, for making that positive statement about a non-Muslim reciting a verse from the Quran.
G.K. LIM,
President, HRD Gateway,
Kuala Lumpur.
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