Indonesia – MUI Rants for ‘Repentance,’ Echoed by Biased Metro TV

According to Metrotvnews.com, the Jember (East Java) branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) have got their goat-beards in a twist about a small sect called Qodriyatul Qosimiyah, led by a Kyai (scholar) named Qosim in Wuluhan, Jember regency. They are whining that it’s an’evil cult.’

Chairman of Jember MUI Fatwa and Legal Affairs, Abdullah Samsul Arifin, told the media that this conclusion was reached after a meeting with adherents of Qosimiyah Qadriyatul  and a number of religious and community leaders in the Hall of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kemenag) Jember, Monday (23 / 5).

So what are these poor folks doing that is so ‘evil?’ From what I can discern, nothing evil at all, except ‘deviation from Islamic teachings’ because ‘they use the language of Madura.’ Madura is an island off the coast of East Java, where the local language is neither more nor less evil than any other of the thousands of languages and dialects spoken across this huge archipelago.

Abdullah says it ‘distorts the meaning of the words. viz, “I testify there is no God but Allah, Allah is mine and my Prophet Muhammad is the messenger. ” ‘

Well, if Abdullah chooses to invoke the Almighty in slightly different vocabulary, tough. Indonesians have a constitutional right to worship as they please, though this might be a cause of raised eye-brows among Christians in Bekasi and Bogor, Buddhists in Pekanbaru and of course Ahmadis all over the country, those that have not been bullied into ‘conversion’ or murdered by Islamonazi rabble.

Nevertheless, Abdullah should butt out and leave these people alone.

But there’s more. Abdullah tells a shocked Metro TV that the ‘yellow book of the sect likens the sacred Muslim shrine Baitul Muqodas to a penis!

Now that’s fighting talk! As he says, “That’s very insulting to Islam.”
It does seem insulting. But the Kyai countered this by saying that the old yellow book containing the rude simile was withdrawn back around 1999.

Unassuaged in his indignation Abdullah maintains that the sect is ‘lost. All believers must repent and return to the right path in accordance with Islamic teachings.’

 

Abdullah

So what did Abdullah have to say about their constitutional right to freedom of religion? Not a word, because the reporters obviously saw no point in asking such a question of a man who doesn’t believe in such a concept.

It seems, however, that the pressure from the Islamist sectarians has prevailed, as the Metro TV report ended with a claim that numerous representatives of the religious minority are ready to ‘repent!’ 

(Notice the bigot language used by Metro to describe the coercion of a minority creed)
However, with the sect numbered in thousands, and not just in Jember, it remains to be seen if the MUI bigot brigade will manage to corral them all.