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**Islam becomes hot topic in Malaysia
**By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - Islam tops Malaysia’s long list of “sensitive subjects” that are forbidden from being raised in public. However, it was as if nothing else could be discussed over the past two weeks.
Two dissimilar events coming one after the other in late December have put religion on notice. One was passage of an Islamic family law, opposed by feminists and moderate Muslims. The other was the forced burial, according to Muslim rites, of a Hindu soldier by Islamic authorities who insisted he had converted to Islam.
Both issues have questioned the role of an increasingly puritanical Islam in a multi-ethnic society that prides itself on tolerance and an easygoing, modern way of life.
Under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s more liberal and less authoritarian administration, long-suppressed frustrations are rising to the surface and there are growing calls for fairness and justice.
On one side, the debate is between Islamic fundamentalists who dominate the burgeoning Islamic Affairs Department that administers Sharia (Islamic) law and mostly Western-educated Muslim feminists who say the department, in its overzealous interpretation of the Koran, has gone overboard in making new laws that discriminate against women and children.
atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HA04Ae01.html
**By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - Islam tops Malaysia’s long list of “sensitive subjects” that are forbidden from being raised in public. However, it was as if nothing else could be discussed over the past two weeks.
Two dissimilar events coming one after the other in late December have put religion on notice. One was passage of an Islamic family law, opposed by feminists and moderate Muslims. The other was the forced burial, according to Muslim rites, of a Hindu soldier by Islamic authorities who insisted he had converted to Islam.
Both issues have questioned the role of an increasingly puritanical Islam in a multi-ethnic society that prides itself on tolerance and an easygoing, modern way of life.
Under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s more liberal and less authoritarian administration, long-suppressed frustrations are rising to the surface and there are growing calls for fairness and justice.
On one side, the debate is between Islamic fundamentalists who dominate the burgeoning Islamic Affairs Department that administers Sharia (Islamic) law and mostly Western-educated Muslim feminists who say the department, in its overzealous interpretation of the Koran, has gone overboard in making new laws that discriminate against women and children.
atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HA04Ae01.html
