‘Form and essence, sometimes one gets mistaken for the other’
SOME years ago, I was taking a friend from Kuala Lumpur around town in Kuching. We ended at the Islamic Information Centre (IIC), located at Ong Tiang Swee Road.
“Hey,” he said, “I thought this was the Islamic centre. Why does it look like a Chinese temple?”
True enough, the entrance building to the IIC is of Chinese architectural form, and it does look like a Chinese temple.
I raised this question with a friend who was the then-chief executive officer of the IIC.
According to her, the main buildings in the complex are designed according to the traditional building form of some of the major ethnic groups in Sarawak.
The main entrance building is a case in point, and at the back, there are two Bidayuh ‘baruk’ (roundhouse) used as seminar centres.
“Why so? Why not the typical Arab structure of domes?”
She responded: “Well, we are the Islamic Information Centre.
“We want to send the message of the universality of Islam. Islam is a religion that transcends all human cultural forms.
“Islam is not just a religion of the Arabs, and in Malaysia, that of the Malays.
“In fact, our imam now is Chinese.”
One year, I was travelling in China and visited the ancient city of Xi’an. It is a city of a glorious past, once China’s capital and a prominent Muslim city.
There, I came across the Great Mosque of Xi’an. To my uneducated mind, it was a Chinese temple.
Unlike the familiar architecture of mosques with domes and minarets, this mosque was built in a pagoda style with a combination of Chinese and Islamic aesthetics; it combined a traditional Chinese architectural form with Islamic functionality.
The mosque is oriented toward the west, the direction of Mecca.
This is one of the oldest mosques in the world, built in the seventh century.
The start of Islam is marked in Year 610 AD. The Prophet Muhammad and his followers first spread the teachings of Islam throughout the Arabian Peninsula, and soon after, Western China.
It is good to note that Islam was brought to the Malay Archipelago only in the 12th century AD by Arab Muslim and Tamil Indian Muslim traders. So, Islam in China pre-dated Malaysia by at least 600 years.
This brings us to the point and our recognition that religious creeds are ‘the message of the Divine’. It supersedes all human and man-made forms.
My friend from Kuala Lumpur, who protested that the building at the IIC looked Chinese, really missed the point.
Ironically, it justifies the need for an Islamic information centre.
Form and essence, sometimes we mistake one for the other.
I am reminded of a speech made by our newly-installed Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the forthright-speaking Sultan Ibrahim of Johor. It was made in March 2016 (republished recently), where His Majesty urged the Malays not to discard their unique culture in favour of the Arab culture.
“If there are some of you who wish to be an Arab and practise Arab culture and do not wish to follow our Malay customs and traditions, that is up to you.
“I also welcome you to live in Saudi Arabia. That is your right, but I believe there are Malays who are proud of the Malay culture…”
The Agong also said that he preferred to use terms like ‘Hari Raya’, instead of ‘Eid al-Fitr’; ‘buka puasa’ (break-of-fast) instead of ‘iftar’.
“I have been using these Malay terms since I was a child and speaking to my late father for the past 50 years.
“I have no intention of replacing these terms with Arabic.”
Yes, Sir! Sire!
Yes, there is a tendency sometimes for people to confuse form for the essence, and this is particularly obvious when it comes to religion.
However, I am proud to say that in Sarawak, we have demonstrated that we can rise above this weakness.
The St Joseph’s Cathedral of Kuching looks nowhere near the traditional Gothic design of cathedrals in Europe, but it holds true to the essence of the Catholic faith.
A story about St Augustine and a mysterious encounter by the beach might be relevant here.
St Augustine was a great Christian thinker. He was attempting to write a theological treatise, ‘De Trinitate’ (On the Trinity), the foundation of Christian belief.
Despite his intellect, he was unable to grapple with the complexities of how God could exist as ‘three Persons’ simultaneously.
For respite, he took a stroll by the beach. There he saw a little boy, who was running back and forth between the sea and a hole in the ground that he had made.
Curious, St Augustine called out to him: “My son, what are you doing there?”
The boy replied: “I’m trying to fit that great big ocean into this tiny hole.”
Amused by the child’s silliness, St Augustine said: “My son, cannot do that. The ocean is huge and you can never fit this great, magnificent ocean into that tiny hole!”
Undeterred, the boy responded swiftly: “You are trying to understand the mystery of God and the Trinity with your human mind.
“God is infinite, and you are limited. The infinite cannot be contained and confined by mere human minds.”
(Interestingly, St Augustine worked on ‘De Trinitate’ for over 30 years, without ever finishing it.)
So, it is with The Divine teaching.
It is infinite and eternal. It cannot be contained and confined by mere human constructs.
A church, a mosque or a temple remains the site of spiritual messages, irrespective of whatever human and cultural forms that the building takes.