KUCHING, June 14: The full text of Yang di-Pertua Negeri Sarawak Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri message is reproduced below.
ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR, ALLAHU AKBAR.
Bismillahirahman Nir Rahim,
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,
First of all, I wish to take this opportunity to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Maaf Zahir dan Batin, to all the people. Alhamdulillah, we can express our gratitude to Allah SWT because with his guidance and blessing, once again we in Malaysia can celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri this year in peace and with full of joy and happiness.
The prevailing peace and harmony also reminds and gives us the realisation that the peaceful environment is the fruit of efforts to ensure that the state and the people can achieve sustainable progress and unity.
What we have experienced during the Month of Ramadhan, we fast daily or we experience hunger, we control our desire and give ourselves the control and prepare ourselves in facing all the temptations that come up. Obviously, the comfort does not come up without any effort and right attitude that must come from ourselves.
For this reason, we must take the opportunity from the Month of Ramadhan, the Holy Month of the year, to renew our faith and religious practices as well as to put into practice all the teachings of Islam in our daily life.
The month with all its Holiness must be filled with religious practices in our efforts to become more righteous human beings and orientate our lifestyles toward welfare from the situation of just listening, realising and devoting ourselves to the religion only.
Essentially, every religious practice and faith that we perform will not only give good things to ourselves but also to the socio-economy of the community, where we can all realise what is the true meaning of the teachings of Islam and start to practise them as an important direction in our life.
We must also realise that the Holy Month of Ramadhan also teaches us to be patient and learn based on the limit of the subject. This situation will help us in going through our life with obstacles, that we should not overstretch our behaviour to such an extent of going against the law of Islam.
Instead, the situation teaches us the meaning of being tolerant, helping one another, having mutal respect for one another and teach us to put into practice what is good and to distance ourselves from things that are not good.
As Muslims, we realise the Holiness of Ramadhan must be put into practice after the fasting month, with the hope that we can disseminate the goodness of the Religion of Islam to our friends and others. We must make conscientious efforts to become members of a community that follows the true teachings of Islam so that people in and around us understand that Islam is right and beautiful for them.
Alhamdulillah, even though Muslims in Sarawak represent a minority community, it remains a big responsibility because Islam organises activities to serve the welfare and preserve the rights of all the people, regardless of their ethnic origins, religious beliefs as well as customs and traditions.
With the way of life of the community interacting among themselves in peace and harmony, we can feel proud and dignified that all of us can live together, have mutual respect for each other, and that everybody can practise his or her own religion without any restrictions and criticisms from any quarters.
This is the spirit that we want to absorb into our community, which comprises diverse ethnic groups, without having misunderstandings and quarrels among the members. Actually, the State of Sarawak, which is peaceful and harmonious, will become more progressive and have a bright future ahead.
Our tradition of visiting one another during Hari Raya Aidilfitri must continue because it has already become a good trend for the people in Sarawak, comprising diverse racial and religious groups.
For this reason, we celebrate the festival of Hari Raya Aidilfitri as the festival that gives joy and happiness not only to Muslims but to all races in our beloved State of Sarawak. For me, this is the message that I want to give the people of Sarawak, regardless of their racial origins or religious beliefs.
Actually, the spirit of unity and co-operation that we are imbibing and protecting all this while, and we make continuous efforts to imbibe in our children, is to ensure that the unity and harmony that we are enjoying will remain in perpetuity in future.
We must take full advantage of the Holiness of the Month of Ramadan to continue to do good things and continue to practise the teachings of the religion, especially in guiding young people and the people of other races and religions, because good practices must be shared together to upgrade ourselves and our customs and traditions in Sarawak.
Actually, this is what makes human beings different from animals. We are created by Allah SWT to have brains to think and to be capable of deciding which direction to take through the process of evaluation, weighing between what is good and what is bad, and on whatever path that we have decided to take.
We make the best use of whatever awards that have been given to us for good purposes. We must, as far as possible, avoid doing something bad. We must distance ourselves from indulging in bad practices, like spreading falsehood against individuals, or avoid doing something that can bring quarrels and destructions to the state.
The people who can evaluate and make efforts to know the truth will have the realisation and make efforts to strengthen the relationship among mankind. This will make our society to become more matured and will not become easy targets of cheating by foreign agenda and propaganda, which we all know, have bad intentions towards the state and the unity and solidarity of the people.
We must get rid of all feelings of distrust among ourselves. If we cannot work together or the strength of solidarity is not sustainable, it will be very easy for outsiders to continue to manipulate the people with lies and falsehood.
I hope the people of Sarawak will take heed of this advice with an open heart as we celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2018. I hope we can all realise and make preparations for ourselves to become religious and God fearing human beings and have mutual respect among ourselves. As followers of Islam, this is also the time for us to upgrade ourselves and our community so that we will not be left behind.
Once again, I would like remind that all of us take this opportunity while we celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri to extend goodwill, friendship and strengthen the relationship among ourselves. It is important that we must restore and make the relationship to be clear in order to be friendly and strong for the sake of unity and solidarity among the people and the State of Sarawak.
Let us all celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri with the feeling of joy, happiness and mutual respect among family members, friends and the people. Rightly, Hari Raya is a day of happiness and the day of our victory after a month of fasting, a month of controlling our desire and hunger, and a month of upgrading our religious practices to the Almighty.
Let us not waste our efforts in moving towards welfare and other good things because this will bring about more good things not only to ourselves but to all people who know us.
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maaf Zahir & Batin.
Semoga Allah SWT terus memelihara dan memberi perlindungan kepada kita semua. Amin.
— DayakDaily
