KUDOS to Farah Ann Abdul Hadi for the gold medal she contributed to the SEA Games national team.
Clearly, she practised hard, and put herself through gruelling training and a disciplined regime to be able to deliver such a stellar performance in the competition.
Therefore, negative comments from some quarters focusing on the “decency” of her outfit are lame and unnecessary.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin probably put it aptly when he responded by saying that we were not in a position to judge anyone from the Almighty’s perspective.
It is a shame that such bigotry exists among some Malaysian Muslims. What Islam teaches about preaching and spreading Islam is totally the opposite of how some Muslims feel compelled to spread the true message today.
Islam promotes external and internal peace of one’s being with the Almighty. It is about seeking the truth of our purpose and existence in this world and the hereafter.
It is not a religion where one imposes one’s beliefs onto another human being.
Prophet Muhammad, in conveying the one message of Islam, never demonstrated that ridicule or humiliation would endear Islam to non-believers.
His approach was through the example of his impeccable values, such as honesty, compassion, understanding, humility, moderation and total surrender to the One Creator.
This is the true way of how Islam managed to be propagated and adopted by billions of people on this planet beginning from one person, who was illiterate but had the best of behaviour and conduct as a human being.
Unfortunately, some Muslims, perhaps in their zeal to prove to others their level of piousness, or whatever other reasons, have forgotten the values taught by the Prophet.
In their unthinking haste, what they achieve is portraying a skewed view of Islam.
Is it any wonder then that Islam is associated with violence, rigidity and unreasonableness by some non-Muslims?
Incidents, such as the “wearing sarong rule” in the Road Transport Department and comments towards Farah Ann, should be rebutted strongly and not repeated.
While these may be isolated cases, it does reflect the seeds of extremism and bigotry taking root in our Muslim society’s psyche.
This must be eliminated altogether over time.
Allowing such extremist attitudes to foster will only breed narrow mindedness and bigotry in society.
Malaysian Muslims are better than this. They should strive to be an example of moderation, compassion and reasonableness, rather than narrow mindedness and hastiness.
Sugiman Sabri,Kulim, Kedah