If hearing a non-Muslim say “Alhamdulillah” will mislead Muslims, and to imply that the speaker should then convert, Malaysia would be drowning in a bureaucratic nightmare, all caused by ordinary words.
In Parliament, PAS’ Rantau Panjang MP Siti Zailah Yusoff warned that Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming’s use of phrases such as "Alhamdulillah" and "sujud syukur" (prostration of gratitude) could “confuse” Muslims and that he was “toying” with Islam.
She demanded directly: “Are you a believer?”, thus turning Nga's ministerial speech on public housing into a theological interrogation.
The real danger isn’t Nga saying “Alhamdulillah”. The real danger is thinking Muslims are so fragile that hearing it from a non-Muslim could mislead them.
It’s telling that only two other MPs, (Nga’s deputy) Aiman Athirah Sabu and backbencher Azli Yusof (Harapan-Shah Alam), defended Nga's use of “Alhamdulillah”. Aiman uploaded her comments to Facebook, whilst Azli felt honoured hearing a non-Muslim use such phrases respectfully.
Everyone else stayed silent, letting a politician turn gratitude into a moral witch-hunt.
Politicians from both sides of the political divide fail to understand that if the majority of them refuse to defend basic respect and reason, then fear and ritualised authority can easily dominate public discourse. Their silence is a catalyst for fear to replace reason.
According to Siti Zailah, using Islamic phrases is no longer just a matter of respect, culture, or shared language. Apparently, it is now a spiritual audition. Anyone saying “Alhamdulillah” with enough sincerity will then be invited to “embrace Islam”.
This is what I call false ownership of language, which promotes the idea that words, phrases, and expressions belong exclusively to one group. Thus, anyone else using them must either be suspect or must submit. The PAS MP's ownership claim started off about vocabulary, then quickly expanded to souls.
She defended her interrogation of Nga by arguing that “Alhamdulillah” is not just Arabic, but a declaration of belief. She reasoned that Surah Al-Fatihah begins with the phrase, and therefore anyone who says it must believe in Allah. According to her, if they believe, then they should convert.
By this logic, millions of Arabic-speaking Christians across the Middle East, who say “Alhamdulillah” and "InsyaAllah" daily, will have been unknowingly Muslim for centuries. Are they misleading Muslims across the Middle East?
Are the Muslims who say “Oh my God” in English, perhaps dabbling in polytheism? If words alone defined belief, normal conversation in Malaysia would become a religious minefield.
Language belongs to everyone
Some Malaysians may recall the volatile, long-standing conflict over the word "Allah" when some Muslims demanded exclusive use of the word, to the detriment of the Malay-speaking Christian non-Muslims of East Malaysia.
Then, as now, will some Muslims ever understand that language belongs to everyone, whereas faith belongs to the individual? Trying to police words, control expression, or claim ownership over phrases doesn’t protect religion because it just spreads fear.
The unanswered question at the core of Siti Zailah’s parliamentary intervention is “How, exactly, does Nga's expression of gratitude, using Islamic phrases, ‘mislead Muslims’?”
Mislead them into what? Into thinking he is Muslim? Into abandoning their faith? Into confusion about God?
These MPs turn Arabic words into a religious tripwire. No Muslim suddenly loses clear, religious guidance because a non-Muslim says “thank God” in Arabic rather than English.
To claim otherwise is to suggest that Muslims lack discernment in that they cannot distinguish between language and belief, between respect and creed. That is a far more damaging assertion than anything Nga said.
None of this was explained, because it cannot be explained without insulting Muslims themselves.
Faith is not that fragile, but for decades, both PAS and Umno-Baru declared that they were the true defenders of Islam and the protectors of the Malay.
The troubling logic
What makes this episode more troubling is the logic being deployed. According to the PAS MP, these phrases are so tightly bound to Islamic belief that their use implies faith, and if used sincerely, should even lead to conversion. This is absolute hogwash.
This is not about safeguarding faith. It is about controlling symbols.
Even more worrying is the implication that Muslims require protection from exposure to shared language. This infantilises believers. It suggests that Islam survives not through understanding, conviction, and confidence, but through linguistic exclusivity.
That is not how strong religions behave. Strong faiths do not panic over vocabulary.
Nga’s response was, in fact, the most multicultural Malaysian thing about the entire exchange. He reminded Parliament that he used the terms with respect, as a Malaysian familiar with Muslim culture. He urged unity over suspicion.
Confusion does not exist among Muslims, but it exists among politicians who confuse control with piety.
Siti Zailah attempted to weaponise faith, ie Islam, as a tool to discipline us. To control us, to manipulate us and condition us in how we behave or speak.
Malaysia’s strength has always been its diversity, like the easy borrowing of words, customs, and gestures across communities. Siti Zailah just wants to turn our shared space into a hotbed of suspicion.
So we return to the unanswered question: "How exactly does this mislead Muslims?"
The honest answer is that it doesn't, in the same way that saying "Merry Christmas" does not turn me into a Christian, or wishing "Kong Hei Fatt Choy" does not make me a confirmed Taoist. - Mkini
MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army, and the president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, X.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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