Fathima Idris' letter Islam - the precise laws needed for man refers.

Let me begin by pointing out Fathima's error. She had mistakenly titled AB Sulaiman's piece 'Morality and law, Keturunan Melayu style'. Her Freudian slip in straightaway thinking Keturunan Melayu (of Malay descent) is telling and perhaps clues us to her narrow and race-biased orientation. In actuality, the article in question was headlined Morality and law, Ketuanan Melayu style with Sulaiman's discussion centering on Malay Supremacy as the plank of Islamic dominance of the public sphere.

Secondly, I find Sulaiman way too kind in ascribing to Fathima a generous degree of conceptualisation and intellectualism when addressing his work, which she characterises as having a 'lack of appreciation of Islam and the law'. A less gallant person would consider the aspersions she casts to be misplaced and her views unfocused (why should Fathima pull, from out of thin air, the EPF as any sort of example when we're talking about law and morality, may I ask?).

While she implies herself to be highly conversant with both Islam and the law, Fathima's pretensions are somewhat punctuated by her own lack of precision. For instance, she writes: 'Ask any lawyer and he/she will tell you that the neighbour principle in the law of negligence, defining the scope of duty and care, was inspired by the Second Commandment in the New Testament'. Now, I may not be a student of either law or theology but I know enough at least to be aware that the Second Commandment (of the Ten, as laid down by God through Moses) is mentioned in the Bible's Old Testament.

Unless I have misread Fathima - which I don't believe I have - her sweeping generalisation is that 'Westernised Muslim liberals' and 'non-believers (possessing) modernist first-class minds' see 'no need for society to have any propriety of behavoiur or language in public'. To counter this perceived failing, she calls for the syariah to become the linchpin of morality - in pluralistic Malaysia.

She shows a preoccupation with the immorality of the news-making young Chinese pair caught holding hands. We wish her righteous ire could instead be deflected to veteran Umno man Adnan Yaakob who made the obscene hand gesture photographed widely by the press and who recently pronounced 'Go to hell' in the Pahang state assembly. Might not the Malay-Muslim chief minister's behaviour be construed as being relatively more indecent than couples showing affection in public?