Before I head on, I have to openly remind my readers that I have NO tolerance for religious bigots, and I have demonstrated this principle since the beginning of my site.

I do not care whether you are Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu, if I see something is wrong and dangerous, I will address it. And I have done this before, to Buddhists, to Christians, and just yesterday, I have written an open post to the editors of Bismika Allahuma, 'In your name, Allah', expressing my intolerance of the recent article.

My last rebuttal with a Christian was on the topic of Dooms-Day Evangelists, and in that post I had renounced the need for many missionaries to express that Christianity was a message that was meant to be preached along the themes of life after death.

In the same post I also pointed out that it was absurd for so-called 'practising Buddhists' to release animals by the masses into overpopulated lake, as I discovered at the famous Sungai Besi Mining Pool, where the Palace of the Golden Horses is. If you do not know this, this is what I saw, happening there: a Buddhist sect, legal of course, has been practising the release of animals (fish and tortoises) into the lake. Alas some of the tortoises/turtles are NOT meant to live in that lake, and as it is, the lake has far too many animals in it fighting for food. Instead of being give a new lease of life, I dread to see that these poor creatures are released to die. And this is still happening.

That said, this is the content of the article published in Bismika Allahuma:

Why the need to speak up and against

I was speaking to my friend Vincent yesterday about the severity of this issue, and he answered me in this way, 'HAHAHAHAHA, goodness Claire, that fella is a religious bigot and a crackpot, and this is the kind of people that you have to ignore, and eventually they will go away. Don't bother lah and leave him alone. Don't read, don't angry lah!'

Now I say it here, Vince, and those of you who feel that is something that we ought to ignore because 'if we ignore he will go away': We have been ignoring for far too long. And in that time, he has not 'gone away'.

It is no secret that this blogger MENJ has been exceedingly open about his dislike and intolerance for the 'absurd beliefs' of other religions. When the PM's wife passed away, this blogger had written a distasteful post on his personal blog saying, in other words, that Datin Seri' Endon 'deserved' it. He has bestowed cheap names upon the leaders of the countries, and has called Marina Mahathir a bitch. He called Deeparaya 'sacriligeous', and has attempted to vindicate the respected Sisters in Islam as a bunch of kufaars, bound for hell.

But then again, he is entitled to his opinions, and to cut him some slack, those opinions are placed on his personal blog, so all that, yes, we can ignore.

What we CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ignore, is this most recent misrepresentation of Islam. This blogger has chosen to publicly announce that it is the intention and hope of the website (that literally is translated to 'In Your Name, Allah'): to 'expose' and 'destroy' another religion. The problem with the post is he has chosen to publicize his bigoted opinions on an Islamic website with otherwise noble intentions of overthrowing anti-Islamic sentiments.

Here I want to thank Mei for writing a superb post on why we must not let this run away.

This is not an issue of 'minishorts tackling another religion'

I must remind my readers who are mostly Malaysians, that this is NOT an issue of taking Islam by the horns and accusing it of slandering Christianity. There is no matter of Islam vs Christianity in this debate. If Bismika Allahuma was a Christian site going by the name of 'In Your Name, Jesus' (dot) org, and posted a photograph of a 'joke' article saying, that it is the vision for the site, to expose and eradicate Islam, I ensure you that THAT is not something that Malaysians, in particular, Christian Malaysians, should take lightly either.

The issue is that there is a certain intellectual human being who so happens to openly profess his passion for Allah and expressed the depth of that passion by inciting hate towards another religion, on a respected Islamic website that is meant to educate and reverse the effects of misinformation.

And I repeat: No, having this kind of hate propaganda on an scholarly religious website is NOT something that we, as law-abiding citizens of Malaysia, should allow.

It is NOT an assault on Bismika Allahuma

The blogger MENJ has since been astoundingly rude and hostile towards me, banning me from commenting on his site, and saying that I 'backstabbed' him in public, and denouncing our 'friendship'. He has called me a backstabber, and accused me of sending him a barrage of unjustified, personal attacks on his personality.

Please be informed, that there was no friendship from the start, we merely acknowledge each other's opinions in a civil manner. While previously I respected his zeal for Islam with a slight shake of the head for his tendency to be bigoted, I kept my tongue to myself, and chose to ignore the obvious.

Do not cast away the severity of the situation by falling back on the immature, 'I am not your friend anymore,' MENJ. We do not need to be friends to know that respect for a fellow Malaysian's religious choice is the necessary ingredient for peace.

And now I repeat again, my pointing out of the extremist message of your post is not an 'ad-hominem' attack as you would like to believe. I would have let it pass, had the post been left to the privacy of your personal blog, but alas, you chose to put it on an open scholarly Islamic website.

Why the article is NOT a satire

It is dreadfully worrying to be impressed upon the message that you want your readers to believe: that Islamic scholars sometimes consider the annihilation of another religion as 'satirical'.

I ask, therefore, for readers to make their own judgement, comparing this paragraph from the article above,

As much as we would like to believe that this scenario is true, this is just a joke. However, this vision CAN be true if the Muslims in the world today unite and understand that Christianity is a religion of blind faith, whereas Islam is a religion of logic and rationality. Much work needs to be done before wecan realise this vision of the future without Christianity.

and this paragraph from MENJ's follow-up disclaimer and abuse on my character:

But there is nothing wrong with that article (which is actually more or less a call for donations in a form of satire). It is specifically targeted at the Christian missionaries. It explicitly names the individuals involved and it does not target the Christian community as a whole. I would think that an editor of a magazine would have more sense than this to have realised that.

You do not have to be a magazine editor to know that the above is NOT satirical, and it is certainly NOT, as MENJ would like you to believe, dedicated to Christian Missionaries alone. And MENJ, DO NOT THINK ME AN IDIOT, to not know which is satirical and which is serious. If the Danish cartoons were not considered satirical, then this article CANNOT be seen as a joke merely meant to be shared with enthusiasts of scholarly religious documents.

IT CANNOT BE ALLOWED.

Do you choose to shut up?

I am distressed because it has been suggested that my voice will be largely seen as a futile effort. Another friend has coyly reminded me that I have to be careful, lest 'something bad happens, as you know, we are a minority'. And that onlookers will only nod and say they support this cause, and then walk away when that 'something bad' happens.

I BEG TO DIFFER. AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE SCARED.

This is not about who's in the majority or who's a part of the minority.

Reading again, MENJ's post is NOT an assault on Christianity. This is a blatant assault on Islam itself, as his ideals and opinions are speaking volumes for the kind of bigoted slant that extremists can be capable of.

As I said previously, had bismikaallahuma.org been inyourname-jesus.org instead, and the word 'Christianity' be substituted with 'Islam', the implications are just as damaging and dangerous.

So I ask you again, is this something that I have to 'shut up', 'calm down' and 'sit aside' just because I do not subscribe to the same beliefs as you and the majority peoples of our land?

The last I read, my constitution guarantees my freedom of religion, and the laws of this land punishes the spread of religious hate and destructive propaganda. If Ayah Pin was hunted down, and deviant bomohs and monks arrested for abuse of religious authority, how can this skewed version of Islam, openly spread 'in the name of Allah' be allowed in our Malaysian blogosphere?

Think again.