KUCHING: Jawi lessons must be made compulsory for Malays and Muslims as part of their religious obligation and learning, but should be optional for non-Malays and non-Muslims.
Santubong MP Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar (pic) said it is essential for Malay and Muslim students to learn Jawi.
“It is the basis of the Islamic religion and learning. The knowledge of Jawi facilitates the student to unearth religious knowledge from the old books, kitab and literature.
“It’s quite sad to see Malay students not understanding Jawi, whereas it is religiously compulsory to read Al Quran and kitab for their religious obligation. That is why the Malays and Muslims must learn Jawi but not the non-Muslims,” he opined, commenting on the Education Ministry’s decision to introduce khat calligraphy to Year 4 pupils.
“The Quran is written in Arabic upon which Jawi alphabet is based on. Most of the religious books are written in Arabic. It is absolutely essential for the Malays and Muslims to learn Jawi,” he stressed.
He said to insist on those who are not Malays or Muslims to learn Jawi on the basis of high proficiency in the language and proverbs borders on ridiculousness.
“For them, it is sufficient to know the language and sufficient for daily communication unless they want to know more. Then that would be optional,” he pointed out.
Wan Junaidi added that most of the old letters, memorandums and journals before the 20th century crisscrossed the world to the Malay world for centuries were in Jawi.
“Students will never know the real contents of these manuscripts, memorandums, agreements and letters unless they know Jawi.
“There might be translations to these documents but like all translations, it seldom surpasses the knowledge from the original text.”
