THIS APPLIES TO THE CHRISTIANS, TOO

Actually, this applies to the Christians as well. Once Christians can accept that there is much myth and legend in their beliefs and what they view as the ‘Holy Books’ are nothing but unproven stories and fairy tales then maybe the Christians, too, can unlock and liberate their minds, like what Han Xin suggests the Muslims do.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Pakatan must take the Malays beyond Umno’s battle cry of “Takkan Melayu Hilang di Dunia” by liberating the Malay mind, through information, education and commerce.

To free the Malay mind Pakatan must also unlock the Muslim mind. The imprisonment of the Muslim mind began when in the 900s, Muslim scholars argued that all major matters of religious law had been settled and closed the “Gates of Ijtihad.”

To liberate the Muslim mind would require the re-opening the “Gates of Ijtihad” and encouraging the practice of “tajdid” or renewal. There must be freedom, freedom to explore new ideas, freedom to question old ones and freedom to innovate. This is difficult with conservatives who view each change an affront to “taqlid.”

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Those were the excerpts from an interesting article written by a Chinese, Han Xin, and published in The Malay Mail Online. I say ‘interesting’ because a lot of what Han Xin said I have, in fact, said myself many times. However, while Han Xin targeted his critical analysis to just Islam or the Muslims, I addressed mine to all three Abrahamic faiths or Semitic religions.

The Chinese ‘discovered’ Christianity in the days when the Jesuits first went to China to set up missionary schools. It was not, however, until the Second Opium War in the late 1800s and after Nanjing and Shanghai were carved up by the Western powers that Christianity became ‘fashionable’.

Children of the prosperous and the elite were sent to missionary schools set up in the ‘foreign zones’ and then on to England, France or the United States for their tertiary education. They discarded their Chinese names in favour of western names and abandoned their Chinese attire for suits and dresses.

We must note, however, that only the boys were allowed this luxury of a higher education. Girls were only allowed primary education due to the Confucius belief that only ignorant girls can be virtuous. Hence educated girls were considered not virtuous so their prospects for marriage would be bleak if they became too educated.

And that is why girls who wanted to become doctors would run away from home to receive their education and would remain spinsters for the rest of their lives. And because of that these girls were considered lesbians for shunning marriage and for living amongst girls in schools run by nuns. The alternative would be they would be forced into marriage at age 15 or so.

It is said that the Shanghainese were already dancing the Charleston even before the whites in Chicago during the ‘Roaring 20s’ knew what that was. And, of course, every respectable Chinese would know ballroom dancing and would swing to the music of the big band during what was known as the ‘Swing Era’.

That was how ‘advanced’ the Chinese were in the 1800s. (At that time Malays were still wearing sarungs and did not know how to wear shirts and pants, let alone coats and ties). They were so advanced that they soon abandoned their Manchu hairstyle for Yardley and women unbound their feet so that they could grow their feet bigger and fit into sexy high heel shoes (before that small feet were considered beautiful).

However, in spite of how modern the Chinese had become with their western names and church-going on Sundays, they never totally discarded their old un-Christian beliefs. They still wailed at funerals and burned paper cars, paper mansions, fake money, and whatnot to ensure that the dearly departed could take all their wealth with them wherever they were going to after they died.

They still believed in feng shui and bad omens such as a child whose mother died during childbirth was cursed and hence treated as a second-class or pariah member of the family. Men still married main wives and secondary wives plus kept concubines who were to serve main wives as unpaid servants and slaves. And the children of secondary wives or concubines were confined to the servants’ quarters and not allowed entry into the living quarters of the ‘main family’.

Many Chinese Christians until today still believe that Jesus is a historical figure plus that the Bible is the word of God when many in the west (even members of the cloth) now believe that Jesus is more mythical than historical while the Bible did not really come from God but are stories fabricated by man and borrowed from pre-Christianity religious beliefs.

In fact, the virgin birth, the three-day death, the resurrection, the great flood, plus many more events that form the basis of the Christian doctrine are present in many other religions before Christianity, which is proof that Christianity is not original but a borrowed religion, which to some extent even so is Islam.

Even if I were to agree with what Han Xin wrote, this is certainly not a predicament unique to just the Muslims. The Christians are equally guilty of not having a liberated mind. The Christian mind, too, needs to be unlocked.

Han Xin write: To liberate the Muslim mind would require the re-opening the “Gates of Ijtihad” and encouraging the practice of “tajdid” or renewal. There must be freedom, freedom to explore new ideas, freedom to question old ones and freedom to innovate. This is difficult with conservatives who view each change an affront to “taqlid.”

Actually, this applies to the Christians as well. Once Christians can accept that there is much myth and legend in their beliefs and what they view as the ‘Holy Books’ are nothing but unproven stories and fairy tales then maybe the Christians, too, can unlock and liberate their minds, like what Han Xin suggests the Muslims do.

Han Xin is of the opinion that the Muslims are backward in their values and beliefs mainly because they are forbidden from re-interpreting Islam since more than 1,000 years ago. If Muslims are backward (because Islam is backward) it is only because the source of Islam (Judaism and Christianity) is backward.

Christians will argue that Christianity, unlike Islam, has already been ‘modernised’ by no other than Paul, the doctrine that was canonised 300 years after Christ. Muslims and orthodox Christians do not think so. In fact, Christians would view ‘modern’ Christians as deviants and Catholicism as not even Christianity in the first place.

In short, what they are saying is, ‘modern’ Christians have abandoned the teachings of Jesus and have invented a new religion, which they mischievously call Christianity. Hence, Han Xin’s argument is Muslims, too, must become modern Muslims by abandoning true Islam and invent a new religion called ‘liberal Islam’.

But there is no such thing as liberal Islam. Liberalism is the opposite of Islam. It is the enemy of Islam just as the church views liberalism as the enemy of Christianity. Hence if you are a liberal Muslim then you are not a Muslim. You are a deviant.

And this is what people such as Han Xin and those of his ilk do not understand. And do you think Muslims can accept liberal Islam when they cannot even accept Shia Islam and they consider Shias as deviants who must be arrested and jailed?

Before we ask Muslims to question Islam we must first ask the Christians to do the same with Catholicism. Before we ask Muslims whether they are practising true Islam we must first ask Catholics whether they are practising true Christianity.

I will not disagree that we need to ask whether Islam has deviated from the proper Abrahamic faith. But an equally relevant question would be whether Christianity is really what Jesus taught us or is it a fabrication to steer the Jews away from Jesus.

I believe that Christianity is a fabrication just like much in Islam is as well, done in the days of the power struggles between various political groups after the death of Prophet Muhammad who re-invented Islam with an aim to hijack the religion for political gains.