Converts celebrate Chinese New Year
GEORGE TOWN: For Muhammad Asyraf Tan Abdullah, 53, Chinese New Year celebration with his family is still special and what more with his wife making her signatory dishes to add to the family reunion dinner.
"My wife will cook food for the Chinese New Year celebrations and will bring what she cooks back to Perlis to share with everyone," said the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (Macma) Penang chairman.
He told theSun that although initially his family members were unacceptable to his conversion to Islam, they have now come to terms with it and welcomed him and his family into their homes for the festival.
Another convert Muhammad Azran Chan Abdullah, 47, also experienced a similar situation when he converted shortly after high school.
He said he had to leave his family home following pressure but was eventually reunited before his father passed away.
"He was actually against my conversion, he was just worried that I would go astray," he said adding that he would take his family of four to visit his mother at Butterworth to celebrate Chinese New Year without the religious elements.
Yet another convert Mohd Firdaus Teoh Abdullah, 41, also said his family eventually came around to accept his conversion to Islam.
"My mother was furious when she found out I converted and married without her knowledge but they finally accepted it.
"She has since even visited the family of my wife in Kelantan during Hari Raya," he told theSun.
Religious teacher Muhammad Taufiq Abdullah, who is a Chinese convert, said celebrating Chinese New Year was not a sin if it did not involved religious rituals forbidden in Islam.
He said those who converted were free to celebrate festivals with their non-Muslim families as long as those did not run contrary to Islamic teachings.
"Chinese New Year is more of a cultural celebration than a religious festival," he said.
Muhammad Taufiq said there was a need to differentiate between religion and ethnicity as both were different aspects of life.
"A Chinese who converts to become a Muslim does not mean that he or she will have to abandon his or her non-Muslim family, that is not right," he said.