Malaysia: Muslim-Christian clash in Parliament

-

An inaccurate reference to ‘Biblical corruption’ has sparked a storm of protest in Malaysia’s Parliament.

The dispute erupted after comments by Muslim MP Nik Muhammad Zawawi Nik Salleh during a debate about increasing fines for drink-driving offenders.

Nik Zawawi asserted that religions other than Islam forbade their followers from drinking alcohol.

A Christian Member of Parliament, Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham, corrected him, adding that Christians are allowed to consume alcohol, but not to the point of intoxication and debauchery.

Nik Zawawi replied curtly that Datuk Ngeh should check his facts as the original Bible, before it was changed, forbade any consumption of alcohol, adding that he had read about Christianity in documents written by Christians.

Christian apologists who engage with Muslim critics of the Bible and Christianity are very familiar with the common claim by Muslim polemicists that today’s Bible has been changed. According to this claim, Jesus received an original Gospel which foretold the coming of Muhammad. The accusation of Biblical corruption can be heard from Muslim book tables in the streets of British cities, in Muslim missionary broadcasts on Islamic TV channels, and even in the testimonies of former Christian converts to Islam.

While it is highly unlikely that the charge of Biblical corruption would be heard in the British Parliament, the same cannot be said of Malaysia’s Federal Parliament.

Nik Zawawi is a member of the Islamic Party of Malaysia, a fundamentalist party that seeks to establish an Islamic State with Islamic law throughout the country. Malaysia’s population of 31.5 million includes religious minorities of almost 40% alongside the Islamic majority. The Islamic Party of Malaysia is much feared by the religious minorities, wary of any suggestion of Malaysia becoming an Islamic State.

Nik Zawawi’s crude reference to Biblical corruption in the national Parliament has attracted a storm of protest from Malaysia’s 9% Christian minority. When asked for an apology, he replied that Christians ‘have no right to be offended. What I said was not an accusation, but a fact’.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia, the Council of Churches of Malaysia, and diverse other Christian bodies continue to lobby for action against Nik Zawawi. A sedition report has also been filed against Zawawi in the East Malaysian city of Kuching.

The Bill has passed its third reading in the Malaysian Parliament.

First published in “Evangelicals Now” (http://www.e-n.org.uk/), November 2020, page 14.

Popular posts from this blog

Australia: Conversations about Islamophobia

-
In Australia, conversations about Islamophobia are expanding as the Muslim minority community grows. As in the UK, the term “Islamophobia” is often used as a device to silence critics of Islam. In the following interview, I was asked a series of questions about Islamophobia by a university student newspaper that is researching the topic for the interest of its readers. 1. What is Islamophobia? Islamophobia is usually understood to refer to a fear of Islam and Muslims that is irrational. 2. Where and when did it originate? The term “Islamophobia” has its origins in a report entitled “Islamophobia: A Challenge for us all”, that was produced by the Runnymede Trust and published in the UK in late 1997. The report was commissioned by the British government and was officially launched in the British Parliament. As for the origins of Islamophobia itself, rather than simply the origins of the term, such fear of Islam dates back many centuries, probably originally to the years fol...
Read more

The Marrakesh Declaration avoids hard questions

-
The Marrakesh Declaration , ignored by the mainstream media, has been acclaimed as a new dawn by some commentators: as promising an era of tolerance and pluralistic harmony in the Muslim-majority regions, where religious minorities have suffered so much for so long. With so much bad news coming from the Muslim world, new voices of hope are bound to receive a warm welcome. Between 25–27 January, around 300 dignitaries gathered in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh under the auspices of King Mohammed VI of Morocco. This event represented the culmination of four years of planning, led by Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah of Abu Dhabi, President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies. The conference title was ‘The Rights of Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Communities: Legal Framework and a Call to Action’. As the name suggests, its specific goal was to address the discrimination and persecution experienced by religious minorities living under Islamic major...
Read more

Too Happy Together

-
The Australian city of Melbourne and its new Convention Centre played host last December to the Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR), arguably the world’s pre-eminent interfaith event. The PWR was birthed in Chicago in 1893 but remained in a state of limbo for a century until being revived in 1993, with subsequent meetings held in 1999, 2004, and, most recently, December 3–9, 2009. The full text of this article was published in "Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity" 23/2 (March/April 2010), pp47-48
Read more