MUSLIMS AND MALAY IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCES?

POSITION PAPER 2


“Of course religion is important. But I am a Malay first before I become a Muslim.” Before I go further let me explain what is the above statement are all about. Maybe some of us feel confuse when we read this statement. Actually, the statements explain that they know religion is important but they as a Malay people feel that their race is more important than their religion.

Some people might have their own reasons when they said their race is more important than their religion. They are free to say a loud about their opinion and what they feel. Maybe they feel like that because they are born in the culture that practice full of culture values, so to them it is normal to do something that against their religion because other people also do the same thing. For example, in Malay culture during wedding ceremony the bride and groom will sit close together on bridal dais, while the other people will see them like a king and queen for that day. To them it is nothing wrong, because other people in their culture also doing the same thing when there are wedding ceremony. So to them, although in Islam Allah did not allow us to do that but for them it is all right because their culture practices that.

Moreover, some of them feel that their race are more important then their religion because if they do not practice what Malay culture are doing they afraid that they will be discriminate by their own race. They feel that they have to follow what ever that their culture is practicing without think first whether it is right or wrong according to Islam. For example, in Malay culture we practice that when we walk in front of people we have to bend forwards and down to show that we are respect people in front of us especially older people. But in Islam it did not mention about that, in Islam we have to respect all the people but Islam did not ask us to bend forward and down when we walk in front of people to show our respect, all this things are only our custom. Hence, some of them feel afraid if they did not follow Malay custom maybe some people might say that they do not have well-mannered and they will discriminate by their own race because of that.

Unfortunately, in my opinion I’m not agreeing with the statements above because I have my own stand about that statement. In my opinion although they are born in the culture that practice full of their culture values, but it is their responsibility to investigate whether what their culture are practicing are right or wrong. Allah did not stop use to practice our culture values if it did not against the principle of Islam, but according to the example above it say that during wedding ceremony the bride and groom will sit close together on bridal dais. Hence, we as a Muslim and Malay people should think about this issue, firstly we have to know the purpose we are practicing that thing during wedding ceremony. If the purpose is just for fun so it is all right to do that, if we do that thing because we want to show of to others so we have to stop from doing that thing because it is against the principle of Islam.

Besides that, we did not have to feel afraid that other people will discriminate us if we did not follows our culture values because everybody are free to do what they think is the best in their life. In what ever we do we have to seek reddho from Allah because Allah is the one who are created us, so in what ever we do we should refer back to our religion. Moreover, sometimes other people did not discriminate us if we did not follow them because in our Malaysian contact normally they are aware and respect in everything we do because they know that everybody have their own stand and they should not push everybody to do what we are doing because it is depends the individual it self.

In a nut shell, all of us have our own stand whether to follow Malay culture or to follow our religion but to make sure that what ever we do is balance between religion and our culture demand, we have to investigate what is the best for us to determine which one is more important our race or religion, because sometimes what is our race practice are a good thing that we can follow because it is not against the principle of Islam.



Created by: Wan Nor Masithah Bt. Mior Abdul Aziz. 0720436