The debate on whether Malaysia is an Islamic or secular country has been further heated by the Lina Joy case. Realising this Al-Jazeera has conducted an interview with Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and Sulaiman Abdullah to get a grip on what it really means to be an Islamic State.
Mahathir once made a politically-motivated statement that Malaysia is an Islamic State, but in substance we are not and I doubt we will ever be. If Malaysia is in fact an Islamic State, his wife wouldn’t even dare to expose a single thread of her hair, as Islam through the Hudud Law requires women to cover their aurat i.e. from head to toe, exposing only our face and palms.
Being an Islamic State means you apply the Hudud Law, as per what PAS is currently proposing. But the nature of the Hudud Law is unlikely to be accepted by non-muslims in Malaysia. So the claim that we are an Islamic State should be entirely dismissed. This automatically means Malaysia falls into the other category i.e. a secular state. And in a secular state, no one should be coerced into embracing any religion.
I couldn’t agree more with an...
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