By Sharifah Sakinah Syed Alwi

When I was a little girl, I accidentally broke my mom’s favourite vase. I wouldn’t admit to it but my parents knew I was at fault so I had to be disciplined by my dad.

He firmly said to me that lying about what I had done wrong would only make things worse. But in the end, they forgave me because they knew their little girl was just an ordinary girl who made mistakes like any other human being.

So, let me ask you this: Is Mrym Lee an ordinary human being? Is she entitled to make mistakes?

A littler recap: Mrym Lee is just another social media user whose actions went viral recently for her ‘undesirable’ behaviour of eating in public during Ramadan ,and who then went on Facebook to have her say.

I have to admit, the first time I read her Facebook status I was a bit confused, even furious, over what she had written. But then, I read through the comments. And my God… Too many harassing comments. Not even constructive criticism. This was when it hit me: What she did may be wrong, but how we responded was worse.

Have Muslims forgotten what Islam teaches? We are supposed to instill love instead of hatred. It is supposed to be a religion of peace not a religion that promotes public shaming on social media. And then we dare claim that the Western media are entirely at fault for tarnishing the image of Islam. Look at our own behaviour.

It saddens me that with the advancement of technology, such as social media,, our religious policing attitude has become more advanced than ever. We were so busy proving to the world how wrong she was to the point that we too, forgot, that we make mistakes. We too, commit sins. We too, hurt others with our words.

I am not an expert on Islam; I still struggle to understand the words I utter during my prayers. But I do know that Islam encourages forgiveness. Mrym Lee deserves to be forgiven.

Ever heard of ‘hablumminallah and hablumminannas’? It is where Allah said that we need to care for both the relationship between us and Him, and also the relationship between you and me, between people.

We are so focused on screaming to the whole world how wrong she was, we have forgotten the beautiful values that Islam teaches.

I guess this is the downside of social media. It breeds too many religious police. May Allah forgive Mrym Lee, may He also forgive us for our public shaming of her.

Sharifah Sakinah Syed Alwi is an FMT reader.

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