Muslims in Sabah, Sarawak uneasy over Dr M’s support of Ibrahim Ali’s Bible-burning call, says Speaker
Muslims in Sabah and Sarwak are uneasy over Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's support of the Bible-burning call by Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali, a Sabah leader said.
"Telling Malaysians that it is right for Ibrahim to call for the burning of the Bible is not something Muslims in Sabah and Sarawak will endorse,” Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak, the Speaker of the Sabah state legislative assembly, wrote in a blog posting yesterday.
"Even if the Christians do not protest such statements, Muslims will still feel uncomfortable with something like that," he said.
The former Sabah Chief Minister said Muslims burning Bibles to protest Christians using the word Allah was not a mark of respect.
He said the argument put forward by Dr Mahathir that even the Quran can be burned was not valid as it was a different matter
"Copies of Quran that are old and tattered and can no longer be read must be burned to ensure it is not treated like trash.
"Burning Quran, which is old and tattered, is an act of respect. But burning Quran as a mark of protest is not a mark of respect," said the Usukan state assemblyman.
"This is more so if it is done by non-Muslims to protest against Islam. The same applies to Muslims burning Bibles to protest Christians using 'Allah' in the Bible.
"This is not meant as a mark of respect like Muslims burning old and tattered Quran," Salleh said.
He said the authorities should be putting the issue to bed rather than continuing to fan the flames and inciting racial hatred.
Salleh also said Dr Mahathir should be the voice of liberalism, not extremism.
Yesterday, Dr Mahathir said it was not an issue calling for the Bible to be burned as long as there were good intentions.
The former prime minister, who is also a patron of Perkasa, said that Islam also allowed for the Quran to be burned and not discarded all over the place, or to be stepped on, if it was no longer used.
"We always burn the Quran, when it is old and no longer in use. What is sure is that we cannot throw it around," Dr Mahathir said.
"So, burning the Quran with good intentions is not a problem," he said when asked to comment on Ibrahim's call to burn Bibles which had the word Allah.
On Monday, the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) had said in a statement that Ibrahim's call for Bibles to be burned must be viewed in its entire context.
It had said that the Perkasa chief's statement was in response to the reported distribution of Bibles to Muslim students of SMK Jelutong in Penang.
"As decided by the court, before a statement is said to have seditious tendencies, the statement must be viewed in the context it was made.
"When studied in its entire context, Datuk Ibrahim's statement is not categorised as having seditious tendencies.
"It was clear Datuk Ibrahim Ali had no intention to create religious tension, but was only defending the purity of Islam," the statement had said.
The AGC had said that the Bibles distributed outside the school could have threatened the faith of Muslim students if they had read the holy books.
Ibrahim's call last year to burn the Bibles that contained the word Allah had sparked outrage among Christian groups and politicians, with critics accusing Putrajaya of double standards in its use of the Sedition Act.
De facto law minister Nancy Shukri had also come under fire when she said in her written parliamentary reply on October 7 that Ibrahim had not been charged as he was defending Islam.
She had told critics that she had replied on behalf of the Attorney-General and the Cabinet could not meddle in the issue.. – October 30, 2014.
