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arch 25, Online

Thousands of students from dozens of Islamic boarding schools and universities throughout Malang, East Java, have staged a rally against a Christian legislative candidate for using the word Bismillahirrahmanirrahim on his campaign banner.

The candidate was identified as Pieter C. Zulkifli from the Democratic Party. As far as the protesters were concerned, Pieter had exploited what is a sacred word among Muslims for political ends and they demanded that the party immediately withdraw his candidacy.

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All Abrahamic religions are written and spread in Arabic languages, including Judaism (Moses-David), Christianity (Jesus) and Islam (Muhammad).

Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages of Israel, while 80 percent of Israel'€™s population follows Judaism.

Lebanese people speak Arabic, which is also Lebanon'€™s official language, and the Christian followers make up more than 40 percent of population. Lebanese Christians use the word Basmala, for the identical purpose and meaning.

Now they insist that the word Bismillah should only be spoken by Muslims? No wonder the whole world thinks Islam is a barbaric religion.

Fussion B

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim translates as '€œIn the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful'€.

Do Muslims now have a
different God to Christians? I didn'€™t think so until now. Even your Constitution must be wrong since it states belief in the one God. If there is but one God and all believe in him, doesn'€™t that make everyone'€™s God the compassionate and the merciful? I would think so.

The problem isn'€™t the wording of the banner, it is that the candidate is Christian and anything the radicals can use against him, they will.

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