Category Archives: Malaysia

A Wahhabi Coming of Age in Indonesia and Malaysia?……

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“FOR decades, South-East Asia has had two lucky bulwarks against militant Islam: the peaceful, tolerant form of their faith practised by most South-East Asian Muslims; and the relative incompetence of local jihadists. But South-East Asia’s tradition of syncretic Islam has been threatened by stricter forms imported from the Middle East, seen as more modern and correct. Violent jihadism seems to be following the same pattern, if the bloody violence in central Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, on January 14th, is anything to go by…………  In Malaysia, however, the government itself has thoroughly politicised Islam, leaving little room for dissent from its harshest rules. A study last year found more than 70% of Malaysia’s ethnic-Malay, Muslim, majority support hudud laws such as stoning for adultery…………….”

Southeast Asia has been largely under the radar as far as Wahhabism and Jihadi terrorism is concerned. Saudi madrassas (meaning schools but here ones that stress Wahhabi ideology, manned by Saudi clerics-teachers) have been around for a couple of decades, and a new crop of young terrorists are coming of age.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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The March of Violent Fundamentalism in Southeast Asia………..

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“Islam in Malaysia, and Southeast Asia, is taking a more conservative turn. The Muslim faith, brought here by Arab traders hundreds of years ago, has coexisted for generations with Malay customs such as shamanism, other forms of traditional medicine and the country’s sizable Buddhist, Christian and Hindu communities. But more recently, conservative Wahhabi doctrines, often spread by Saudi-financed imams, are redefining the way Islam is practiced and, for some, eroding the tolerance for which the country has been known………. Politicians, meanwhile, are now competing with each other to show off their Islamist credentials. The opposition Pan-Islamic Party strict adherence to Shariah has helped build its support in rural areas. And a government investment fund—under the control of the Muslim-oriented ruling party…………”

In the West they/you talk of Islam and Muslims as if they/we are a monolithic thing. They/we are not. When they say Muslim and terrorism in the same sentence in the West they mean Wahhabi, a small but expanding puritan sect of Sunni Islam. These are the ones engaged in worldwide terrorism as represented by Al Qaeda, AQAP, and ISIS (DAESH).

But there is an even more violent campaign of terror among Muslims, a sectarian war, most of it committed by Al Qaeda and ISIS and their ilk against all Shi’a Muslims and against many Sunni Muslims as well. It now spans the globe.

For years Malaysia has banned the practices of Shi’ism, even as the regime and its clerics moved deeper into the realm of Wahhabi intolerance. Local Shi’as have to practice their rites in secret, otherwise they risk persecution and prosecution. As the article says, the Saudi Wahhabis have been spreading their intolerant sect for decades, by sending Imams and establishing and financing schools. Stoning of women and public flogging is more common now in Malaysia and a few other places than it ever was in the past.

The same applies to Indonesia, which also persecutes its non-Wahhabi Islamic minorities. But that has been the trend through all Sunni Islam: a Wahhabi-ization of the mainstream. Egypt is now quasi-Wahhabi, and that includes Al-Azhar. The trend toward Wahhabi-ization and intolerance among Muslims and toward other muslims, in both Arab and South Asian countries, has accelerated in the past decade. It is now sweeping North and West Africa. Even among European Muslims it is very common, much more common than you think.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Allah is Coming, Allah is Coming: What is in a Word?………

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“Malaysia’s highest court on Monday dismissed an attempt by Christians for the right to use the word Allah, ending along legal battle that has escalated religious tensions in the country. The case, in which the Catholic church challenged a government ban on its use of the Arabic word to refer to God, came amid concern from minority religious groups who feel that their rights are under threat from rising Islamisation………..”

This is uncommon in Muslim countries, especially in Arab countries. Normally people of all faiths use the term ‘Allah’. In recent years Malaysia has been trying to out-Wahhabi the original Wahhabis, out-royal the king (no pun).

Allah is really a linguistic term. Just a term that denotes a deity or ‘the deity’. Arabs and other Muslims use Allah to denote God, Dieu, Yahweh, etc. Even Arab Christians use “Allah” for “God”: they would be surprised to know that they could get thrown out of a church in some God-fearing states here if they use the term.

It is just a language thing, not a specific first name. Arab Christians often yell “Ya Allah” just as Arab Muslims do when exasperated. Even Arab Jews used to do that, before the Jews in most Arab countries left or were pushed to leave. I suspect that maybe some Israelis might do that by now. Who knows, maybe some day they will adopt and claim it as their own term, just like falafel and hummus.
Politicians here who are ignorant and/or opportunistic (surprise!) use the term as a rallying cry to get votes.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

On Al Sisi, Malaysian Airlines, Kim Jong Un, Al-Azhar and Chicago Voters………

      


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Some in Qatari media, and offshore media owned and those financed by Qatari potentates, keep trying to make mischief. They have been claiming that Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi has hinted in Abu Dhabi that he may be able to solve the mystery of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Some Egyptian politicians, terrified that Al Sisi may win the coming presidential elections by the typically Arab 99% of the vote instead of the expected and more respectable 80%, are pushing back. Others have noted that 99% still sounds pretty democratic, if compared to the 100% won last week by Kim Jong Un of North Korea. 

Some Al-Azhar cleric added a fatwa that: “Yes, it is possible to win 100% in a democracy. It is possible to win 105% in a democracy under certain circumstances. For example there are cases where the dead have been allowed to vote, and I am not talking about Chicago either………..“.

Cheers
mhg

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A Dirty Open Secret of Malaysia: the Sectarian Angle, the Wahhabi Angle……

      


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“In early August, Malaysia’s Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Abdul Rahim Mohamad Radzi announced the growth of the minority Shia population along with government plans to root out the movement. Radzi said, “The development of information technology is among the factors for their growth as the teachings are spreading through a range of social sites,” adding that as such, measures to curb Shia practices will “involve the Home Ministry, the police, Registrar of Societies, control of publications under the Printing and Publication Act, curbing the production of CDs and DVDs by the Film Censorship Board and monitoring by the Immigration Department.”…………..” 
This statement by a Malaysian bureaucrat titled Datuk Seri Whatever sounds like something uttered by Dr. Josef Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister of the German Reich.

Malaysia is more than just a country of incompetent feuding officials as we have seen from the fiasco of the MH370 tragedy. It is also another bi-polar Muslim state, while it tries to present a fake tolerant face to the outside world. Yet the country has been Wahhabi-ized over the past few decades. A couple of years ago in Malaysia, the Malaysian Islamic body, the regime’s National Fatwa Committee, went totally Wahhabi and announced that it is not permissible for Muslims to participate in any gathering or demonstration intended to oust a government. That is straight out of the playbook of the Saudi princes who use regime muftis and religious fatwas to stifle dissent.

Malaysia
is now a fully officially a sectarian society: it does have a Wahhabi problem which also has led to its “Shi’a” problem. In the sense that Shi’as are persecuted and are forced to practice their faith in secret. They usually have to practice their faith in privacy, and often these gatherings are raided by regime security police and people are actually arrested. Apparently the religious establishment in Malaysia is dominated and managed by Wahhabi hardliners. Which also means the ruling regime, the establishment, has become more intolerant and Wahhabi. It is as sectarian as, say, Egypt has been under Mubarak and Morsi and Sisi combined. 

Even though Malaysia is so far away from the Wahhabi heartland of Riyadh. Very few in the West are aware of that. This also means that Malaysia has a “Wahhabi” problem: since it is Wahhabi influence and ideology of hate that has led to its Shi’a “problem.

 
The country’s rulers, a bunch of Datuks and Seris, also treat its citizens, especially the women, quite different from how they treat Westerners. A few years ago there was the case of the native woman who walked into an establishment that legally serves alcohol: she reportedly ordered a beer and ended up being sentenced to death. Apparently she needed to become a foreign tourist and dye her blond to legally qualify to poison her mind and body.

Cheers
mhg

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Of Interpol, Shady Princes, and a Humorless Jordanian Fugitive……..

      


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“An Interpol red notice, seeking the arrest in London of a Jordanian businessman at the centre of a high profile legal dispute involving two senior Saudi princes, has finally been withdrawn after more than two years. Faisal Almhairat claims that the notice authorising his extradition was issued in pursuit of a business vendetta. The international police agency, based in Lyons, France, has admitted belatedly that it was not “in compliance with Interpol’s rules”. Almhairat, 45, has been living a fugitive’s life in London, moving from hotel to hotel, because he says he fears that if extradited back to Saudi Arabia he would not receive a fair trial…………..”



In
recent years Interpol has occasionally acted as a private security agency or a private outsourcing concern for some governments, but not all governments. The Saudi government is one of those lucky ones: can you imagine Interpol being so accommodating to Venezuela or Vietnam for example? 

If this Jordanian man was a Saudi national, it is almost certain that Interpol would have kept trying and would have succeeded in getting him sent packing to the tender mercies of the princes. As it is, they kept trying for two years to send him back. In fact it is also likely that even with him being a humorless Jordanian, he would have been sent back quickly if he were not enjoying the protection of the British legal system. Now I don’t know if this man is innocent of the accusations or just another crook: he can be either. As far as I know being humorless is not a punishable crime, especially not in Riyadh and certainly not in Jordan. (Why doesn’t he go home to Jordan? Is he worried that King Abdul will pack him back to the princes?).

Remember the young Saudi journalist who two years ago tweeted something the princes and their Wahhabi clerics had thought was blasphemy? Kashghari escaped to Malaysia, where Interpol quickly cooperated with the pro-Saudi authorities of that country in having him sent back to a possible death sentence. He was in fact imprisoned for over two years without a trial. (And no, they have never heard of Miranda or his rights in the Kingdom without Magic where rights for the average Mutlaq are sparse and far between).

Cheers
mhg

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Malaysian MH370: the Terrorism Angle, the Vegas Angle, the Mario Batali Angle…….

      


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Media headlined a few minutes ago about the Malaysian Airlines MH370 tragedy: two passengers with false passports bought tickets through an Iranian intermediary.

Details
are not out yet, but BBC now reports the holders of stolen Euro-passports were really Iranians. Oh oh, Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez are probably ready to lead the Charge of the Heavy Brigade into Iran. John McCain will fatwa to ban all trips by Mohammed Jawad Zarif (Iran FM). No more more Vegas trips, no more blackjack, and no more Mario Batali cuisine for Zarif in the Piazza. 

Some Chinese groups even (predictably) claim the Uighurs may be involved. Hamas has so far refrained from blaming the Israelis, but give it time. Netanyahu is probably already kicking somebody for not having Ahmadinejad available “when the moment is right”. He probably wonders what Hezbollah may have been up to lately: like where did Hassan Nasrallah spend these past few days and where is he now? (I bet he would love to get the answer on that very last one).