Malaysian muslim cleric hate

FMT News
May 11, 2015

In the video, ustaz Azhar Idrus warns Muslims against celebrating the Western holiday that is rooted in Christianity.

PETALING JAYA: Now recirculating on social media is a video recorded in 2012 of Terengganu-based Ustaz Azhar Idrus calling on Muslims to disregard Mother’s Day and denouncing it as a Christian festival.

In the 3.47 minute video, Azhar speaks to a crowd, warning them of the celebration’s supposedly Christian roots, saying it was linked to the Mother of the Church, the Virgin Mary.

“The movement began in the early 19th Century, applying to the church and the government to declare this day a public holiday,” says Azhar, who then explains that the movement had asked churches in 1862 to note it in church calendars as a Christian celebration.

“Mother’s Day has been declared a public holiday in all Christian nations; this is why it is forbidden to celebrate Mother’s Day,” says Azhar.

“On that day, people will give a ‘mother cake’ to their mother, and they do this once a year. But Islam teaches us to be generous with mothers throughout the year.”

He pointed out that the Chinese did not celebrate Deepavali, and the Japanese, Awal Muharram.

“They (the Japanese) will not celebrate Awal Muharram because they know it is a Muslim festival. The Mexicans celebrate Christmas and not Maulidur Rasul,” says Azhar.

“The Canadians do not celebrate Thaipusam,” The Star quoted him as preaching in the video.

Mother’s Day was founded in America in the 20th century by Anna Jarvis, the daughter of Civil War peace activist Ann Jarvis, who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and created the Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

Following her mother’s death, Anna campaigned to make Mother’s Day an officially recognised holiday in the States. Following her efforts, Mother’s Day was officially recognised as a national holiday in 1914, set on the second Sunday of May.

Rampant commercialisation and marketing soon brought it to the rest of the world.

A leading Malaysian Muslim cleric has suggested that all women should be fitted with chastity belts as a deterrent to rape and incest, a news report said Friday.

Abu Hassan Al-Hafiz, an influential cleric from the northeastern Terengganu state, said that women were most safe from sexual predators if they donned some form of barrier to their sexual organs.

"We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children are not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection," Abu Hassan said in a sermon late Thursday, quoted by the Star daily.

"My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs. Besides, husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean."

Abu Hassan said that the practise of women wearing chastity belts in Malaysia could be traced to as recent as the mid-1960s.

Women blamed for men’s sleepless nights

From The Times
November 1, 2007

Women who wear figure-hugging clothes are giving Muslim men sleepless nights and distracting them from prayer, a prominent cleric said yesterday.

Attacking the appeal of modern Malaysian women, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat — a fundamentalist Muslim cleric who controls the main opposition party and one of the country’s 13 states — said that provocative clothes were a form of “emotional abuse”.

Clothes that are modest by Western standards were, he said, stopping the country’s men getting a good night’s sleep. “We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Mr Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.” Like so many of his previous outbursts, the comments drew instant criticism from women’s groups.

Previous advice from Mr Nik Abdul Aziz to Malaysia’s women included the suggestion that they would be at a lower risk of being raped if they abandoned their lipstick and perfume. Mr Nik Abdul Aziz posted a diagram of an appropriately dressed woman on his party’s website. The picture shows a woman in a baggy, floor-length dress with a scarf covering her hair.

As the minister of the northeastern state of Kelantan, Mr Nik Abdul Aziz has imposed fines on Muslim women who fail to wear headscarves, and imposed other draconian restrictions. As well as describing smokers as “similar to certain animals which have no brains to think rationally”, he also argued that they should not be allowed to run as candidates in a general election.

He has heavily criticised Malaysia’s endemic corruption, describing bribe-takers as intellectual weaklings who are destined for an eternity in Hell.

Mr Nik Abdul Aziz did reveal a liberal streak this year when he revoked a 15-year ban on snooker. He was responsible for the original ban, imposed because the game appeared to encourage gambling.