HAZWANI BINTI ABD HAMID.. 0720496

QUESTION:
“ Of Course Religion is Important but I am A Malay First before I become A Muslim”. Discuss…

Alhamdulillah, for given me to write for the second position paper. For this time, the question quite hard to think, but I try to give my opinion regarding this question. Before I go to explain more, I want to us think first what means by “Malay” and what means by “Muslim”. Many of us always think and get synonym Malay and Muslim. For me actually, the word ‘Malay’ is different from ‘Muslim’. Malay is one of the races in Malaysia besides Chinese and Indian, meanwhile Muslim is someone who commits and convince with Islam. For the information, Islam consist a variety of races in this world and all of them called as ‘Muslim’. So we cannot say that only Malay is Muslim.

Before that I want to explain what the meaning of Malay. The term "Malay" can refer to the ethnic group who live in the Malay Peninsula (which include the southernmost part of Thailand called Patani and Satun) and east Sumatra as well as the cultural sphere that encompass a large part of the archipelago. The Malay ethnic group is the majority in Malaysia and Brunei and a sizable minority in Singapore and Indonesia, and they form the majority in the five southernmost provinces of Thailand which historically made up the old Malay kingdom of Patani. Then the meaning of Islam is religion based on the teachings of the Qur’an, the word Islam is a homograph, having multiple meanings, and a trilateral of the word salam, which directly translates as peace. Other meanings include submission, or the total surrender of oneself to God. An adherent of Islam is a Muslim, meaning "one who submits (to God)". The word Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive.

So from those meaning, in my opinion, I am not denying that statement said religion is very important but I am not agreed with statement that ‘I am a Malay first before I become a Muslim’. We cannot say like that because be a Muslim when we submit the God and the Malay is only heritage and gene form our parents. For example, if we are born in other Islamic ethnic group, we also are a Muslim but the different is only the races. Besides that, when we say we are the Malay first, of course we will do all the Malay culture. It do not wrong if we do it as long as we cannot against the Islam. But today, as we can see, many Malay people more depend and trust the tradition compared to our religion. For instance, a number of young Malay Muslims, especially those from a more secular or westernized background are less-than-practicing Muslims. They observe the practice of a holy month (Ramadan), when fasting during daylight hours is mandatory, and abstain from pork, yet may not pray five times a day nor visit mosques frequently.

Actually, Malaysia is one of the most religious countries in the Muslim world and Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, and the Government actively promotes the spread of Islam in the country and its friendship with other Muslim countries. All ethnic Malays are Muslim (100%) as defined by Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia. There are also substantial numbers of Indian Muslims and a few numbers of ethnic Chinese converts. From these, clearly the Muslim is come first than the Malay races.

In conclusion, I still with my stand that I am not agreed the Malay first than Muslim. As Muslim, anywhere anyhow, Islam is the first and we must live in Islamic way even we are different races. Besides that, it shows that, Islam is holistic which the Muslim people live in all the country in this world.