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I hope Indonesia wouldn't follow suit.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia's top Islamic body on Saturday banned Muslims from practicing yoga, saying the Indian physical exercise contains elements of Hinduism and could corrupt Muslims.
The National Fatwa Council, which has the authority to rule on how Muslims must conduct their faith, issued a fatwa, or edict, saying yoga involves not just physical exercise but also includes Hindu spiritual elements, chanting and worship.
Council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin told reporters that many Muslims who practice the globally popular yoga failed to understand that its ultimate aim was to be one with a god of a different religion.
"We are of the view that yoga, which originates from Hinduism, combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to be one with god," he said.
"It is inappropriate. It can destroy the faith of a Muslim," he said.
The Fatwa Council's decisions are not legally binding on Muslims, who comprise nearly two-thirds of Malaysia's 27 million people, unless they are enshrined in national or Shariah lawsHowever, many Muslims abide by the edicts out of deference, and the council does have the authority to ostracize an offending Muslim from society.
The fatwa reflects the growing strain of conservatism in Malaysia, which has always taken pride in its multiethnicity. About 25 percent of Malaysians are ethnic Chinese and 8 percent ethnic Indians, mostly Hindus.
Recently, the council issued an edict banning tomboys, ruling that girls who act like boys violate the tenets of Islam.
The issue of yoga came into the limelight last month when an Islamic scholar expressed an opinion at a seminar that it was un-Islamic, prompting the Fatwa Council to step in.
Local newspapers have received several letters from Muslims, expressing indignation at the scholar's view, saying yoga is simply a way to maintain health and has nothing to do with religion.
There are no figures for how many Muslims practice yoga, but many yoga classes have a sprinkling of Muslims attending.
In a recent blog, social activist Marina Mahathir criticized the council for even considering a yoga ban, calling it "a classic case of reacting out of fear and ignorance."
"Yoga may have spiritual roots but most of us do it for the exercise, both for the mind and body," Marina wrote.

Well then, all of my Canadian friends in Malaysia are totally screwed. For them, Yoga is VERY special!

Well it just goes to show, idiots, sorry, absolute idiots exist in every nation, including malaysia, a country I often praise. The fact that a Fatwa Council exists is a national disgrace..

I did have a chuckle at the tomboy ban.. Can you imagine, being such a worthless sack of shite, that you have time to sit around and contemplate as to whether or not being a tomboy breaches the tenets of islam? I can see their logic though, better that a muslim woman dresses as a tent, than as a male..

A question, is copulating in a fish pond in breach of the tenets of islam?

Ct

milan wrote:Recently, the council issued an edict banning tomboys, ruling that girls who act like boys violate the tenets of Islam.

Yeh but you know thats not what they really meant. Its just they couldn't quite bring themselves to say it.

Council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin told reporters that many Muslims who practice the globally popular yoga failed to understand that its ultimate aim was to be one with a god of a different religion.

Hmmm well if there is only one God, it really makes no difference how a person 'is one' with God. Is this guy suggesting that the Hindu God and Muslim God are two different Gods, isn't he then saying there is more than one God? Which goes against Islamic teachings.

It's all very silly, and won't stop me from doing Yoga.

It's all very silly, and won't stop me from doing Yoga.

Well, yes and as a matter of fact I was just finnished doing it when I put up this thread.
But one never knows what's next after this pornography law passed in Indonesia anything could just be legitimate under its almost overall sweeping law.
Let me find the one exception that's encouraging as I have it somewhere in my file.

Found it but it's in Indonesian.

Pasal 14

Pembuatan, penyebarluasan, dan penggunaan materi seksualitas dapat dilakukan untuk kepentingan dan memiliki nilai:

a. seni dan budaya;

b. adat istiadat; dan

c. ritual tradisional.

Translation:

Creation/the making, distribution and the use of sexual materials can be excercised for the need that of which posses value in:

a. art and culture
d. custom
c. traditional ritual

As you can see here, it's not such a wide umbrella after all which I hope will remain.

And additional post on this. My feeling is there's a possibility that Indonesia might follow suit.

Editorial: Believe in Yoga
Wed, 11/26/2008

Once again the venerable members of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) are engaged in things which need not be of concern. Instead of bringing serenity, they are squandering their time and attention on issues that serve only to unsettle a finely balanced society.

News that the MUI may put time into debating whether the practice of yoga runs contrary to Islam is an irritating turn of events.

The impetus: Simply aping their Malaysian counterparts who over the weekend issued an edict barring Malaysian Muslims from engaging in yoga.

The argument: Yoga contains ascetic Hindu practices that could corrupt the faith of Muslim practitioners.

The logic: Absurd!

Fear of syncretism between yoga and Islam is preposterous because yoga itself is not a religion. Even if it were, the practice of any religion, or even apostasy for that matter, is exclusively within the private domain of each citizen.

Abdul Shukor Husin, chairman of Malaysia's National Fatwa Council, was quoted by The Star as saying that "Yoga is forbidden for Muslims".

When asked what Muslims can do as an alternative, his response was anachronistic: "Go cycling, swimming and eat less fatty food."

If it were indeed true that the faith of Muslims who practice yoga was being eroded, then would it not also be logical to ban them from learning Balinese dance, watching wayang (shadow puppets) and admiring the greatness of the Borobudur temple?

Would a Muslim art lover not be considered a heretic for hanging an aesthetic picture of Buddha on the wall?

Yoga may have arisen from the matrix of the old Hindu culture but its roots, according to noted University of Chicago historian Mircea Eliade, can be traced back to the pre-Hindu tradition of Indian shamanism.

In modern times the practice of yoga carries little trace of Hinduism. Yoga is generally practiced as a way to ease the aching body and soothe the restless spirit.

For laymen, yoga is nothing more than an advanced form of physical stretching or a relaxing mode of meditation.

No different really from a spa or massage on a lazy weekend.

There are just as many detractors of yoga as converts who have found the "exercise" beneficial to their own faith.

Frenchman J. Dechanet wrote a book on Christian Yoga and Indian author Ashraf Nizami hailed the benefits of yoga when he penned The Yoga of Islam more than three decades ago.

In fact, many aspects of the physical act of Islamic prayer, known as sholat, are analogous to the stretching and meditation found in yoga.

Sadly, the Malaysian religious council is not the first to ban Muslims from practicing yoga. Four years ago, a similar edict was issued in Egypt.

We are fearful of this growing trend to conservatism, in which we see unelected religious clerics, who claim to answer only to God and have no accountability to the masses, exaggerate their hold on political opinion to the detriment of society at large.

We are concerned that the MUI, and our society is general, is too often flung into simplistic and symbolistic dogmas of little intellectual substance which serve only to create unrest and beget parochialism.

We are suspicious that their ultimate objective may not be to project reason, understanding and a sense of community, but rather to augment their own waning stranglehold on an ignorant society by provoking divisive fear.

If the MUI wishes to sustain its eroding sense of self-respect, we cannot but urge it to refrain from making unnecessary edicts that do not even warrant consideration.

Our clerics have historically been leaders of society in times of hardship. Their preferences over the past few years, however, have demoted such councils to a budding joke likely to be ignored by an increasingly critical society.

If each and every individual can find God and truth in his or her own wise, appropriate way, then clerics will become nothing more than missionaries for a godless religion.

Isn't copy & paste wonderful

As you can see here, it's not such a wide umbrella after all which I hope will remain.

So I guess you are fine with the exclusion of things outside these exceptions then? Like TV shows, social websites, the sort of advertising imagery acceptable throughout most of the world, people on the beach in swimwear and so on because these things have been explicitly mentioned by supporters of the bill as unacceptable.

mimpimanis wrote:Isn't copy & paste wonderful

Indeed it is

I thought I might cut and paste a few bits from this JKT Post story from yesterday without comment as they raise similar eyebrows:

Most Islamic studies teachers in public and private schools in Java oppose pluralism, tending toward radicalism and conservatism, according to a survey released in Jakarta on Tuesday.

It reveals 68.6 percent of the respondents are opposed to non-Muslims becoming their school principle and 33.8 percent are opposed to having non-Muslim teachers at their schools.

Some 73.1 percent of the teachers don’t want followers of other religions to build their houses of worship in their neighborhoods, it found.

Some 85.6 percent of the teachers prohibit their students from celebrating big events perceived as Western traditions, while 87 percent tell their students not to learn about other religions.

Some 48 percent of the teachers would prefer for female and male students to be separated into different classrooms.

The survey also shows 75.4 percent of the respondents ask their students to call on non-Muslim teachers to convert to Islam, while 61.1 percent reject a new Islamic sect.

In line with their strict beliefs, 67.4 percent said they felt more Muslim than Indonesian.

The majority of the respondents also support the adoption of sharia law in the country to help fight crime.

According to the survey, 58.9 percent of the respondents back rajam (stoning) as a punishment for all kinds of criminal and 47.5 percent said the punishment for theft should be having one hand cut off, while 21.3 percent want the death sentence for those who convert from Islam.

Only 3 percent of the teachers said they felt it was their duty to produce tolerant students.

Simon, you and I have had some fun in the past with surveys. I’d like to see the actual survey…searched but couldn’t find it, as the results of that survey as discussed in the JP article you quote from have already been called into question…

“Al Muzammil Yusuf, a legislator of the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), denied the survey showed anti-pluralistic views among Indonesian Islamic teachers. He said it was likely the questions posed in the survey had not provided the respondents with enough choices, but rather had used a yes/no format."

On this same topic, another survey conducted in a more scholarly manner can be found here:

http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=11385

One very comforting quote from that article:

"However, Islamic education in Indonesia is nothing if not varied, and its central streams look little like the radical fringe."

@Roy

hence my non-comment on it's contents. I do think that the MUI has a responsibility to Indonesia to take more of a lead on this sort of thing, just as it does on that pedophilic Imam in Java (on which they have been unpleasantly weak).

Although your survey is perhaps a little closer to the Jk Post one than your post indicates:

They co-exist with an almost equally strong commitment to sharia. For example, notwithstanding the strength of their commitment to democracy, 72.2 percent of educators believe the state should be based on the Quran and sunnah (traditions of the Prophet Mohamed) and guided by religious experts.

On matters of women and non-Muslim religious minorities, we see a tension between educators’ enthusiasm for democracy and their commitment to sharia. Some 93.5 percent of the educators believe that a non-Muslim should not be allowed to serve as president. A full 55.8 percent feel that women should not be allowed to run for the office.

What is clear from the survey - regardless of how the questions were posed, is that these teachers are <MOD EDIT>. What hope does a country have when those that are educating the children have such radical beliefs, and they truly are nothing short of radical.

Sorry roy, there's nothing even remotely encouraging anything that came out of this survey, directly or indirectly.

Stoning, cutting off one's hands.. What planet are these <MOD EDIT> living on?

Ct

BaliLife...which survey are you referring to...the one in the Jakarta Post, or the one in my link was done in year 2006...or, perhaps both?

My point is that the survey just discussed in the JP is highly suspicious, and without access to the actual survey, its credibility seriously questionable. The more academic survey, the one I link to, is night and day from the one written about in the JP…thus my comment…“One very comforting quote from that article…” references the 2006 survey which includes what I quoted:

"However, Islamic education in Indonesia is nothing if not varied, and its central streams look little like the radical fringe."