Academic Redirect Anger Over Preacher Pair Not At Agc

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Academic Tajuddin Rasdi believes public anger from non-Muslims over Muslim preachers Zamri Vinoth and Firdaus Wong is misdirected, and should be “recontextualised, not towards the Attorney-General’s Chambers, but other parties instead”.
“I have heard these two personalities speak, and it is difficult to charge them with 3R (race, religion, and royalty) when what they say stems from simplistic and uncontextualized religious interpretations of the Quran and Hadith,” he told Malaysiakini.
The professor of architecture explained that a key issue lies in how clerics are taught religious interpretation, or tafsir, without incorporating the political context of communal coexistence and democracy found in modern society.
“That is why we must have muftis who are not only trained in religion but also in the science of diplomacy and nation building,” he added.
ADSHowever, Tajuddin (above) also criticised certain professors of Islamic studies at public universities, who, despite being regarded as “modern scholars”, choose to “sit quietly in a corner”.
“I feel that the promotion of all professors of religion must show great aptitude and expanse in knowledge of human civilisation and nation diplomacy in order to contextualise Islam within the 3R.
Muslim preachers Zamri Vinoth (left) and Firdaus Wong“The AGC has no special training in this area of religious interpretation that is used all the time in mosques but is clearly detrimental to the harmony of our society,” he added.
Tajuddin stressed that only a learned cleric from the so-called “Islamic reform movement” can advise society on the dangers of what Zamri and Firdaus are advocating.
He also pointed out the lack of engagement with art, heritage, and civilisational values of other faiths and philosophies in the madrasah curriculum, public school syllabus, and university-level courses on Islam.
“How do we build a nation when these curricula that are used are forged in the mono-cultural and mono-faith construct of past civilisation?
“Perhaps universities and the Education Ministry should take this matter seriously or else the clerics produced that would become professors of Islam, the asatizah and muftis of the future that bring us back to a spiral of no change or movement in the understanding of religion and the context of art, diplomacy, and science,” he added.
Various quarters have expressed displeasure over the AGC’s decision not to charge Zamri and Firdaus.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said said prosecution could not take place due to a lack of evidence. - Mkini

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