While hardliners pour scorn on the organiser of the 'I Want To Touch A Dog' event, messages on Syed Azmi Alhabshi's Facebook timeline paint a different picture.

Support came as early as the morning after the Oct 19 event and new posts were still coming in as of the time of writing last night, even though Syed Azmi no longer seems to be active on the social media site.

One early supporter, Normaliza Mahadi, challenged others to run awareness and charity campaigns the critics of Syed Azmi's dog event said would have been "a better use" of time.

 

"Do it. Gather your crowds," Normaliza said, "Syed Azmi has done it, and all of you do it too. Don't just comment but do nothing."

"If you are just going to preach in the mosque, where is the challenge in that? All those who go to mosques are well-behaved, go reach out. Do your own campaign," she said.

Prior to being thrown into the limelight over the event, Syed Azmi was best known for his involvement in various campaigns to help the disadvantaged.

Providing copies of the Quran in Braille

These include a donation drive to provide copies of the Quran in Braille for the blind unable to afford it, an awareness campaign urging train commuters to give up their seats for pregnant women, donation drives to aid victims of several disasters and various initiatives aimed at feeding the poor.

Others posted albums of Syed Azmi ( left ) in the prior projects, including teaching the homeless to pray, visiting old folks homes and feeding the needy.

The pharmacist promotes some of his events under the hashtag #tamakpahala - which literally means being “greedy” for God’s rewards from good deeds - and publishes his telephone number to help provide answers to people with inquiries.

However, his eagerness to help has appeared to backfire on him, as  his telephone number has reportedly been circulated to his critics to target him for harassment and death threats.

Syed Azmi’s name and phone number were also published under  posting promoting a hoax event, ‘I Want To Touch Breasts’.

Others, like a Facebook group purported of fans of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has snidely proposed other programmes, such as ‘I Want To Touch a Deserted Old Man’, in reference to residents of old folks homes, and ‘I Want to Touch al-Quran’.

'Only in Malaysia are great intentions hijacked'

However, support for Syed Azmi on his Facebook page is near-unanimous. At worst, he was criticised for mishandling the event, despite having good intentions of diffusing the Malay-Muslim stigma towards dogs.

Some have shared news articles and letters that are supportive of Syed Azmi; others posted news reports critical of him but accompanied with comments condemning the article or those quoted in the report.

“Only in my country Malaysia can an event organised with great intentions be hijacked by fanatics to spread hate and fear.

“Syed Azmi, moderate Malaysians from all works of life will always bless you for portraying Islam in such a positive way. Ignore the haters,” said Kishin Sham Mahtani, while sharing a news report quoting a PAS leader questioning if the event would open the flood gates to a sex fest later.

Some posts urged readers to report threats and hate speech for Facebook to remove.

The few posts that are critical of Syed Azmi felt that the event had gone overboard, in particular with some participants supposedly going to beyond touching the dogs and even hugging them

Syed Azmi has not responded to requests for comment.

Hundreds had turned up for the two-hour event at Bandar Utama, and were taught on how to handle dogs and perform ritual cleansing afterwards.

However, critics claimed that the event was tantamount to an insult to Islam, while Islamic Development Department (Jakim) said it will call up Syed Azmi for questioning .

Clerics and religious authorities argue that the event goes against the Shafee school of Islamic thought, adhered to by most Malaysian Muslims, which deems unnecessary touching of dogs as wrong.

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