cakap cakap....I will not swear undying alligience to any religion. I will go so far as to say that Islam does not want me to swear alligience to Islam – if it does so then Islam does not have enough belief in its own relevance, goodness and its ability to keep its adherents for time immemorial!

I am a Muslim by Birth – not by conviction, not by conversion, not by coercion or by compulsion….I am a Muslim by birth! And by being born a Muslim I must remain a Muslim for life! Why? The Sultan of Kelantan was born to be sultan but is now no longer a Sultan! We know of individuals born one gender choosing to become another. Nothing is a constant – only death. Even taxes comes and goes, rise and falls. So why does one have to remain a Muslim once one is one?

In matters of religion I will only speak for myself – not even for my wife or my children. And I do so with great trepidation and unease lest there will be some amongst you who will take my candor for discussing my religious preferences as being blasphemous to any religion.

World Religions

Four largest religions	Adherents
World population	6.9 billion
Christianity	2.1 billion
Islam	1.6 billion
No religion	1.1 billion
Hinduism	1.1 billion
Buddhism	Circa 376 million
Total	6.8 billion

     

The above figures tells me there are billions of people who are ‘confused’ as to which religion is the ‘right’ religion to follow – the word ‘right’ being very subjective depending on your perception of what is the right and what is the wrong religion to adhere to. And there are at least 1.1 billion that has got it completely ‘wrong’ because they have no religion at all. So where does it leaves me? 

If you are expecting me to spell out my religious beliefs onto the public domain then I beg you to not hold your breath while waiting for me to do so. I am not about to allow my trepidation to go any further than where it currently is – in my heart!

I am not going to say that Religion will go the way people predicted the Newspaper and the Post Office to go when the Net and World Wide web came into being.  Religion is here to stay in the same way that guns and ammunitions will always be around even if there is universal peace. Even as we become more knowledgeable of the harm that cigarettes cause to our health there are still enough smokers to make cigarette manufacturing a very viable business – in Australia it generates revenue of about Aud 2 billion yearly . That’s no chickenfeed!

Religion is not as toxic as cigarettes. It does good to those who willingly embrace and adhere to its teachings and there are more people who crave for religion than those who crave for cigarettes. The business of religion is big business!

The Roman Catholic Church in a consolidated Financial Statement of the Holy See in 1994 listed the following:

·      US 210 billion in Cash.

·      US 281 billion in Stocks and Bonds

·      US   17 billion in Gold

·      US 281 in fixed assets –investments and real estate.

In Malaysia Religion is big business too. UMNO stakes their political survival on what they promise to do for Islam. Whether they will do as they say they will do for Islam is another matter but they insists that for Islam to flourish, the Muslims must vote UMNO!

UMNO uses religion as a tool to achieve their political needs. They tell us that UMNO must be elected to government again if Islam is not to be belittled and have its ranks depleted by Christians who seek to convert Muslims to Christianity. This is an insult to Muslims because by claiming this fallacy UMNO is implying that Muslim do not have enough faith in their own Islam to be able to withstand any onslaught, however slight, from the Christians who they insists wants to take Muslims away from Islam and into Christianity. All I will say is this – if your faith in Islam is that weak then go where your heart takes you!    

          

I will not swear undying alligience to any religion. I will go so far as to say that Islam does not want me to swear alligience to Islam – if it does so then Islam does not have enough belief in its own relevance, goodness and its ability to keep its adherents for time immemorial! Any religion that does not believe in itself will not stand the test of time as people are invariably drawn to look deeper and more rationally at the choices available to them in their life.

It is time those who profess to uphold the tenets of Islam understand this. Islam cannot hold on to those that no longer uphold these tenets. No law whether man made of that in Islam can hold on to those who wants to leave Islam. This was true in the time of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w), true during the time of the Talibans in Afghanistan no matter what punishment they impose upon these religious offenders and still true today in the times that we live in. No punishment, no fatwa, no dead squad of marauding zealous religious assassination squad will change this. Not then not now.