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strong>Oct. 17, p5

A Muslim organization has reported a local footwear manufacturer to the East Java Police for sacrilege for producing sandals embossed with the word Allah. The report was submitted on Thursday despite a public apology PT Pradipta Perkasa Makmur made earlier this week.

'€œ[The company] has violated the law on blasphemy and the legal process must continue,'€ Islam Defenders Front (FPI) East Java branch head Haidar Al-Hamid said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Pradipta Perkasa Makmur has been in the spotlight after people reported they had found the word Allah, written in Arabic, embossed on the sandals made by the company.

Your comments:

Could be worth a bit of money as a collector'€™s item if you can get your hands on a pair.

Devanagari

Sandals or crosses are all just symbols that have no religious value at all. Why waste your time on such a matter? Why don'€™t we learn from the European, Japanese, Chinese and American people who work very hard night and day to create good things for mankind?

I believe God loves them more because they work so hard to help those hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters who are hungry, jobless and poor.

Robby Kaware

There is a misunderstanding. The producing company expected to get good business by patenting sandals with the world Allah, a very sacred and respected word for Muslims. The problem is that the position or location of the word should not be down, close to the feet. This will be translated as humiliation or sacrilege.

It would be different if the word were located in a more fitting place. I am sure the company doesn'€™t have any other purpose than profit. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia'€™s largest Muslim group, should intervene.

Hartono

The ironic thing is that the sandals, which to them are sacred because they are embossed with the word Allah, were then burned to destroy them!

Tempodulu

Blasphemy this and blasphemy that. FPI, you yourself are a great example of blasphemy.

Milovalderrama

Islam doesn'€™t teach people to burn churches. Muslims who burn churches are not real Muslims.

Ngikngokk

The insecurity of the Wahhabi mob seems almost designed to embarrass itself. Surely such a great god doesn'€™t require burning of churches or blasphemy laws.

Moderate Islam in Indonesia would be well served to avoid such disastrous associations and stick to the Constitution.

Joyoboyo

Alcohol is freely available in Indonesia. You only have to look in the right places.

The government knows this, but introduces stupid laws against it to appease the FPI and their ilk.

Meaussie

Alcohol is mostly out of reach for common people because of the high taxes imposed on it. You have to go to the '€œright place'€ '€” and spend the '€œright amount of money'€.

NN

Our Muslim brothers could die from alcohol poisoning!

Keris Pusaka

It'€™s actually easier now to buy alcohol at supermarkets '€” they'€™ve opened up alcohol stalls near the cashiers. Back when minimarts still sold beer, supermarkets didn'€™t bother having dedicated alcohol sections.

A couple of years ago the manager of the local Kickers shoe factory was arrested as his company used pig'€™s leather on the inner side of some of their shoes.

At that time an overly pious client who had bought a pair of these '€œoffending'€ shoes and somehow ascertained that the inner sole was made of pig leather went to the local Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) branch. The MUI in turn went to the police and as a result the manager was arrested.

The reason given for the arrest was that the shoes lined with pig leather were not marked as non-halal (or haram '€” I forget what it really was) and therefore the factory had purposefully offended good Muslims.

Gordon Freeman

Most Muslims forget that it is only pig meat they cannot eat. The rest has nothing to do with Islam. But most Muslims are offended by anything they don'€™t know or understand. A friend from the Netherlands told me a story that a local bank had pulled piggy banks as gifts to new customers because it would offend Muslim customers.

Nobody touches my piggy bank that I keep as a souvenir from the time I studied there! Muslims should seek understanding instead of offense. If you don'€™t like European traditions then why are you there?

KP

Such an outrageous intentional act cannot be classified as a '€œmistake'€. Embossing the Almighty'€™s name on sandals is unacceptable, and the factory management, director and staff are responsible.

It'€™s not possible all factory management and labor staff were non-Muslims. The public outcry should lead to the factory being shut down.

Wadata

I think the entire management as well as all workers at this factory (and possibly all their trading partners and customers who dared to buy those shoes and walk on the name of Allah) should be arrested and regardless of their religion and race punished by sharia (which probably involves the amputation of their right hand and blinding) and afterwards they should be handed over by authorities to the righteous FPI to receive people'€™s justice.

For the sandals themselves '€” they can of course not be destroyed since they bear the name of Allah and destruction would mean destroying the name of the most merciful.

GF