Not Encouraged to Visit Inside Gua Charas

Blooper

During last KOS Amazing Explorace, among the tasks that the participants had to complete were to find few things at the seventh checkpoint - Gua Charas, which to me not more than just a recreational place to my understanding, initially.

However, I got quite a number of comments about the visit there. To utmost extent, tawheed/belief issue was raised.

Before I write more, I'd love to clarify that my intention of writing this entry is to be partly responsible as I was the Programme Manager of the KOS Amazing Explorace and I approved the tasks given there. Should anything regarding this issue is raised in the future, please refer to this blog for clarification.

For your information, Gua Charas is a place of worship for Buddhists and Hindu believers to perform their religious duties. But then, it is adopted to be one of the attractive recreational places in Kuantan. To put this thing into the drama, the participants were required to take picture with some statues. So, the question is: Is it, in the context of a believer of Allah and Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., allowed to do that?

So I asked my friend who is knowledgeable about this matter. His points were:

1. If you go there and have intention to do worshiping, it's totally not allowed and could fall into syirik.
2. If you go there to see the non-Muslim to call them for believing in Allah and Muhammad, it is encouraged.
3. If you go there for suka-suka and playing around, it is not encouraged.

Then I asked, what if it's for the sake of a race? He said, as best as possible, avoid it. It may fall to become a slander.

The points are clear, so here is my main stand of writing this entry. Please take note, dear participants. Should there be in the future, someone with bad intention raises the issue of you taking picture with the statue and tries to link you with being unislamic and murtad, so with the proofs from the picture you took from the place during the race, tell him/her that it was merely for the sake of completion of the race, without any intention to have any connections with the belief outside the border of Islam and being a Muslim. The tag that you wore is the best proof to indicate your participation in the race and thus explains your connection with the race, not with the worship things.

On behalf of the organizing committees, I would love to apologize for the matter described above should it caused dissatisfaction and uncomfortable feeling among the participants. We admit we were lack of information especially regarding the religious matter and this entry, I especially write to express my regret.

I am regrettably sorry.