That tracks Alan, I agree with you completely. Please don't bow to my opinion on this, it is no more valid than yours. Anyway by most criteria I have qualified myself out of the faith.
Islam is at its heart, I think, an ascetic and sober religion, so anything rousing to the senses is treated with caution. That so happens to cover the joys of music, the topic of which seems to get the same kind of reaction from many Muslims that your engraver had about his carvings. There are many prohibitions in Islam that many a believer will find very uncomfortable and when confronted with it will find a way to reconcile it. I am happy the keris and at least some of its elements were reconciled because from what I understand about Islam it could have just as easily been erased. Maybe the guardians on the hilts did their jobs well.
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