PETALING JAYA: Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim has lauded education minister Fadhlina Sidek for explaining why she discourages her children from using the word “kafir”, or infidel, at home, saying that the true enemy of Islam is not infidels, but ignorance.
In a post on X, Zaid took aim at “misguided Muslims” who he said were trying to portray her as denying the word’s existence in the Quran.
“She was not trying to do that. Infidel and ‘kafir’ are terms used in the context of enemies of early Islam working hard to stop the religion from spreading. Islam today is no longer in its infancy.
“Islam’s true enemy today is ignorance. Its false preachers teaching false Islam, lack of knowledge, poverty and economic deprivation. These are the natural enemies. Not infidels,” he said.
Zaid said that if orthodox Muslims consider non-Muslims their enemies only because they belong to a different religion, then the Muslim world would be “fighting a senseless, futile battle they can’t win”.
“They can isolate themselves, live in their own world, and refuse to interact with the ‘kafir’. The world will still move on,” he said.
Earlier today, Fadhlina had said she restricts her children from using “kafir” to refer to non-Muslims, claiming it is tantamount to hate speech in Malaysia’s multi-religious society.
She said this in response to a viral video on social media, which shows her at a closed-door event discussing the use of the term.
Fadhlina said the video was deliberately being spread and taken out of context in a malicious attempt to mar her image and credibility, and ignite religious tensions.
She said it was not her intention to prohibit the wholesale use of the terms “kafir” or “non-Muslim”, or deny the use of the terms in the Quran.
On the other hand, she said, it was an issue of choosing the appropriate term in daily life. - FMT
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