Sajakkini

My first memory or rather introduction to my religion was asking Ustaz Dahalan, ‘If God existed, how come I couldn’t see Him?‘ My mother was mortified, my father rolled his eyes – ‘Ahh … Dina, again you ask funny questions,’ and Ustaz laughed.

I was about seven years old then. My unlimited play time was now shortened, as for an hour twice a week, I was to learn how to read and recognise the Arabic alphabets. That attempt was short-lived for not long after, we moved to Moscow.

I am a practising Muslim. I am not a perfect one though, and I certainly am not a role model for a young modern Muslim woman. My religious upbringing was erratic. My father was a diplomat, and we lived here and there, before Father packed in his diplomatic career and brought all of us back to Malaysia, because he did not want his daughters to be heathens.

Speaking no Bahasa Malaysia, and bewildered by the education system (“They don’t teach about dinosaurs in school, Bah-bah”) and societal values placed on us (“We’re Malays, we don’t behave this way”), my sister and I came home as foreigners. Liza had an easier time acclimatising to the environment, for she was much younger than me. I was then too Americanised, too ‘aggressive’, ‘too un-Malay’, and when I was 15, I was booted to Tunku Kurshiah College to rediscover my roots and religion.

DINA ZAMAN lives in Kuala Lumpur. Her journalistic hero is Tintin, Boy Reporter. She really hopes to learn to swim this year. Other than that, she has few regrets. She can be contacted at dina@malaysiakini.com.

If you ask you’ll go to hell

I knew how to pray and recite the main Quranic verses – The Al Fatihah, the three Surahs: Al Falaq, Al Ikhlas and An Naas – but my recitation of the other verses was pathetic. My dorm-mates were shocked at my slowness and made fun of my recitation of the Quran.

When I asked why we had to pray five times a day; why not 100 times, I scandalised the whole dormitory. I was told that as a Muslim, I was not to question anything. If I did, I was an apostate.

At that age, what would we know about anything? But I was persistent, because even though I horrified my mother from time to time, I was allowed to ask, probe and learn about Islam in a progressive manner. If my parents could not provide us with the answer, they would call more learned people and later, tell me why and what. Home was very different from real life, and it was real life that threw me for a curve.

What makes us Muslim? Based on a year 2000 report conducted by the Malaysian Department of Statistics, there are 13,498,028 Muslims in Malaysia, of which 11,322,282 are Malays, 886,199 are non-Malay bumiputeras; there are 54,222 Chinese Muslims and 59,449 Indian Muslims while there are 1,006,841 non-Malaysian Muslims. The remainder number is 169,035 people. Our practices and beliefs in Islam differ, from person to person, family to family and traditionally.

Malaysian-Muslims interweave shamanistic beliefs and ethnic values and traditions in their practise of Islam. “New brothers and sisters” embrace their long-lost faith (there are no converts but reverts) with ferocity, though some of them have done so only to marry their Muslim spouse, receive bumiputera privileges and marry more than one wife. Former Muslims move on to other spiritual lives as either apostates or practitioners of other religions. This is done covertly, and they risk death and humiliation.

To be a Muslim in Malaysia can be complex and confusing. In school and religious classes held after school, a young child is taught how to read the Quran and conduct his life as a good Muslim. He or she may go home and faces a different world altogether: MTV, parents who drink socially and yet pray, and cannot put two and two together.

This example, of course, is not a generalisation; it is just an example of how a child can be confused. Then there’s the young boy from a rural area who’s been brought up to be a leader of his faith and when he goes off to university or the big bad city to work, he faces temptation. “Loose” women, alluring transvestites, an easier way to make a living: how does he reconcile his faith with the worldly?

Who are we?

These are the questions I ask: are Muslim Malaysians lost? Do we lack confidence in ourselves and that is why we hold onto religion or a certain lifestyle, because there is nothing else left to make us feel fulfilled? Contented?

What makes us Muslim when we wear the hijab but consort with shamans, drink and hold discourses on Cuban cigars while attending Friday prayers diligently, and at the same time, swallow everything an imam tells us when he could be a con-man? Who are we as people and personalities?

This new column is not a discourse or religious book about Islam. It is a very selfish series of articles the writer wishes to do as she explores her religion and people. I see an adventure, of meeting strange, new and wonderful people who call themselves Muslims.

I am Muslim