I'm curious as a Muslim in Singapore, we are rather racist. I'm starting a series of questions. This is the first part.
As Muslim how do you identify yourself?
This is what I have observed.
1) We segregate ourselves into different races and niches of individual community eg.."Malays/Chinese/Indian" or Muslim converts/reverts, moderate muslims, religious muslims..etc etc
2) We look at another Muslim as belonging to another race rather than belonging to this Muslim Ummah
3) We do not look at ourselves and others around us as belonging to a bigger part of the community.
4) We as a part of being a muslim, we do not call ourself as " i'm a muslim" but rather i'm Malay/ Muslim or Indian /Muslim or Chinese /muslim.. etc.
5) We sometimes even hide our identity as muslims. Ashamed of it.
6) We are afraid to talk about religion fearing riots or legal / government action against us. Some say our country is peaceful because of this.
This fear has bred into our country so much so that as so called Muslims we do not live to the code of conduct of a muslim but rather as a culture.
This is why so many Malays, Indians or Chinese whose parents are muslims have not been able to grasp the real idea / teaching of Islam and have confused our culture to religion. Just look at our Shariah law or our mosques.
Since this mentality has been ingrained into our lifestyle, we as people who have been living in Singapore will not be able to distinguish it.
So my dear Singapore muslims this is my question
i) What do you get identified or labelled as by our Singapore Muslim Community?
ii) Why do you think this is so?
iii) What actions do we take to change this mentality to see us as one Ummah?
race and religion are two different things. race is more of your roots to culture, your present identity, and religion is your code of faith and conduct for today and here-after.
Why would scholars, ustaz or anyone put Prophet Muhammad s.a.w as Al-Quraish in most of their findings or even Sirah Books. - There are possibilities.... Through those years, there are many people by the name of Muhammad. But it is the identification from where you are not what you are(in terms of conduct).
Example, So let say, my name is Sultana, i am a muslim. Your name is Sultana you are a muslim. Another sister also by the name of Sultana and a muslim too. 3 Sultana from Singapore a Muslim. Sultana can recite the Quran very well. Now which Sultana are we talking about?
This is a way to help our findings easily by narrowing down to possibilities of who Sultana is.
It is how an individual think and how it is derive. We can think optimistic yet sometimes pessimistic.
When you mentioned afraid to talk, that is if you mean publicity at speakers corner or wherever. We as an individual muslims, be humble, preach to one another in a peaceful manner and many other aspects. We do not want to lose our fellow muslims lives in a riot. We muslims are ethical.
We can start preaching with one another fellow muslims of different race to tell them we are one. We can have productive activities about Islam organised by any muslims, it can be even you or me, to create the awareness of being as a muslim community instead of differences in race. With internet, we can even spread this news even more to our fellow muslims.
It may sound easy, but nobody said it's gonna be easy.
I apologize if my opinions mislead or had given the wrong information. Please do correct me. I am willing to learn out of my mistakes. =)
wow... a very good topic and controversial in a good way..
Im in the states but was born in Singapore and I totally understand what Sis Sultana mentioned about why we have to categorised ourselves as Chinese Muslim or Indian Muslim..
Muslim is Muslim..
Over here in America, Im not afraid to be called a Muslim... when people ask me my religion... I say Muslim... so what if they look at me like Im from Al-Qaeda or something... I dun care...
Allah is not ashamed of me... so why should I be ashamed of my religion despite the she's-a-terrorist looks thrown my way all the time..
I really do not know at the moment how to change this mentality in Singapore that Muslim is a culture.. which of course it is not..
If parents themselves cannot tell their kids the difference between the teachings of Islam and the general idea of cultures in Singapore, the kids will never know..
The current generation is lost... its the younger ones that we still have hope to change.. but good question....Sis Sultana..Muslims are Muslims...
irregardless of race..
im not sure about the classifications. But I know what non muslims think about us.
In Singapore, the majority is malay muslims. So in a way, they are representing islam. And most of time, like we just inherited the religion from our forefathers so we know nuts abt islam.
We see muslims (regardless of race ) queueing outside singapore pools to buy 4D and ToTo.
So what can we say? Non muslims have no respect for our religion. Thats the reason, we dont know anything abt islam. I asked some born muslims about shahadah THey goes like, "im not sure".
Then now ppl will classify malays who pray as malay muslims, the chinese and indians who pray 5 times a day, are called indian muslims.
Maybe sisters can check out, how pathetic the mosque attendances are in singapore for our daily prayers.
We have 13.9% of muslims in 4.5million ppl in singapore. how come only 20 ppl in a prayer hall for isha prayer?
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