PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said demolishing the eagle statue in Kedah, also known as 'Eagle Square', would not make the Malays in the country more Muslim.

In a blog post today, Mahathir said the Islamic injunction is against worshiping carved images as gods.

"The day some Muslims places joss-sticks and genuflect before the Eagle in Langkawi, that day the offending Muslim should be told that they are not following the injunctions of Islam. They should be told that the eagle is not god to be worshiped.

"So far no Muslims have ever prayed before or worshiped the Eagle of Langkawi. Destroying it would not make the Malays more Muslim," he said.

He pointed out that today's Muslims are more intelligent, that is why they don't worship portraits or statues as they know these are not gods.



"The modern Muslims know that these are not gods and they don't worship them. We no longer hold the ceremony at the Cenotaph (Tugu Peringatan) as that may be construed as a kind of prayer. But we don't have such ceremonies in front of the statue of the first Prime Minister or the eagle in Langkawi. We are not breaching Islamic injunction.

"In Egypt not only are most of the statues of the pharaohs preserved, but new copies of the statues decorate the streets of Cairo. In Malaysia we have the National Monument and the statue of the first Prime Minister of the country," he said.

"Apparently Muslim thinking about statues are ambivalent," he added.

Mahathir also said in pre-Islamic times the "Jahiliah", the ignorant Arabs, used to worship Uzza and Lat, oddly-shaped rocks as their gods.

He said when Islam came, these gods were destroyed and Muslims were forbidden from carving and keeping statues because the early Muslims may worship them as gods.

"It is the worship of these carvings as gods which is forbidden. The Quran is emphatic that no other god may be worshiped except Allah. And Allah cannot be carved in the form of statues.

"Islam also forbids carvings of statues of men and animals. At one time painted portraits of such were also forbidden. The Turkish Caliphs used to have their portraits painted but they were hidden from the public," he added.