Recently, a case of a self-service laundry shop that specified that they catered only to Muslim customers has been circulating around in social media. The post caused a lot of outrage among Malaysians (and among Muslims alike), with them hotly debating the logic of having such segregation.
Source: Facebook
A Facebook post was shared around which garnered attention from netizens as it depicted the laundry displaying signs that they only allowed Muslims customers to use the machines. According to Sinchew, the first signboard that was displayed said, “Only for Muslim customers. Muslim-friendly. Please take off your shoes before entering.”
However, within a week’s time, the shop had changed their signboard to another similar message saying, “Muslim-friendly. This shop only accepts Muslim customers for sanctity factors. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Please take off your shoes before entering.”
Source: Sinchew
Apparently the shop that’s located in Muar, Johor has been operating about a year and previously there was no such signboard but about a month ago, signs saying “Only for Muslim customers” were posted above the machines. These new, more attention grabbing signboards were placed at the shopfront this week. Well, it certainly did its job!
Of course, this issue was met with mixed reactions from netizens with some condemning the shop for discriminating against other religions and said that it was bad for unity.
However, some of the Muslim netizens explained the situation to other users and said, “The motive of this shop is just to allow their Muslim customers to be able to clean their clothes well in order to go for their prayers.
“Sometimes at these laundry shops, there may be customers who bring in clothes or fabric that may be contaminated with non-halal things such as saliva or fecal matter from dogs. We must have clean and pure clothes for our prayers so that it will be accepted.”
Source: Facebook
Meanwhile, Harian Metro reported that Johor Mufti, Datuk Mohd Tahrir Samsudin commented on this viral issue. He said, “Cleanliness is very important for our prayers so the existence of this laundry is good for those of us who have to use these services. Sometimes, we may hesitate before using these machines but now Muslims can wash their clothes without fear and we can perform our prayers knowing that our clothes are clean and pure.”
Well, it seems reasonable enough! While we understand that the ‘muslim-only’ condition may feel like a segregation between our multi-racial community, but it is after all a sensitive religious belief. What do you think about this issue?
Also read: Hotel Staff Declines Woman’s Request to Freeze Breastmilk, Said It’s Non-Halal
