Religious Sentiment in the Muslim Malaysia: Rationality and the Religious Belief

This paper reports a study on the reaction of the Muslim in Malaysia toward provocative action on Prophet Muhammad. 700 respondent males and females, who were obtained randomly throughout Malaysia participated in the study which aimed at identifying the Muslim reactions toward provocative actions against Prophet Muhammad. The provocative actions include defaming, vilifying and insulting the Prophet. The respondents were given booklets of questionnaire containing statements which were provided with the Likert type scales, ranging from 1. Strongly agree, 2. Agree, 3. Not sure, 4. Disagree, and 5. Strongly disagree. The respondents were asked to response to the questionnaire and after 30 minutes, the booklet was collected. The data which was obtained was analysed using the SPSS to find the percentage, the means and the correlation. The findings show that very high percentage of the respondents were offended and prepared to fight if the Prophet is vilified and insulted. The finding also shows that the Muslim seems to be more easily agitated when Prophet is vilified compared to practicing the teaching of Prophet. The finding shows that 95.3% of the respondents were angry when Prophet is insulted while the respondents who practiced the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad was 85.7%.