PKR Penanti assemblyperson Norlela Ariffin has been organising religious lessons, including "bible sessions" to help her Muslim constituents live in harmony with others in a multi-racial and multi-religious country.
Norlela (above) said the two-day session, which she has arranged for Muslims since 2015, comprise mosque committee chairpersons, preachers and experts on the field.
She added, the closed-door sessions which were usually held at a local hotel, was to raise awareness of her Muslim constituents about the Malay Bible.
She added the move was to address the fear of the Holy Bible in Malay, and to help her constituents understand each other's faith to dispel the suspicion among one another.
"To some BN and Umno people, we Muslims are always in a situation, where if we are shown a Malay Bible, we will be converted," Norlela said.
She said this when she interjected the debate on Penang's 2020 Budget by state opposition leader Muhamad Yusoff Mohd Noor during the State Legislative Assembly today.
"There is a fear that if we learn about other people's religion, we will be influence to follow that religion," she added at the Dewan Sri Pinang, where the assembly is being held until Nov 8.
Norlela was responding to the debate by Mohamad Yusof who questioned about Malay Bibles are still being distributed to Muslims.
The Sungai Dua assemblyperson claimed that last year, it was viralised on social media that the books were distributed to Muslim schoolchildren in Penang and Kedah.
Mohamad also warned that there were laws against propagating other religions to Muslims.
To this, Norlela said that Muslims should not have the fear that we are under siege, we should not indulge in fear-mongering as it can lead to racial incitement."
Met later, Norlela said she organised the sessions as the Hudud Bill or Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355) was a hot issue at the time and her constituents had asked her to explain.
"The Malays in Penanti couldn't understand why Non-Muslims were so up in arms against the Hudud bill when it only affected Muslims.
"A lot of people asked me to organise a dialogue, so I thought it would be good to have a closed door session with non-Muslim village development, security committees and temple members so that Non-Muslims can also ask anything they wanted about Islam and Hudud in Mandarin, English or Malay," Norlela told Malaysiakini.
"We did the sessions so that Muslims could understand the religions of their non-Muslim neighbours so they don't fear when they see a Malay Bible because by then you will know what it says and you also know what the Quran says," she added.
Norlela said during the sessions, the Quran and Bible will be placed side by side and the participants urged to read and compare the contents of the books.
She said it was something new for the Malays because they were never exposed before and did not understand about the Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian communities.
"They live in same village for years but never understood.
"On the bible, it was their first time to touch a bible and read it, so we do exercises that they have to read and compare it with the Quran, so there's no fear or stigma about it," she added.
"Are the content the same? There are similar parts, while others are different, we need to cultivate this understanding as we live in a multi-religious community," she stressed.
Norlela has also organised sessions for non-Muslims to learn more about the Islamic religion and Quran, and this is done in their own language.
"We explain to the non-Muslims why their Muslim counterparts need to pray, wash their feet before prayer, wetting the whole restroom," she said - Mkini
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