Editorial: Doing good, stopping evil

18 Dec 2006

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IT is said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. But with a doctorate in religious studies, 35-year-old Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin can hardly be accused of ignorance when he speaks his mind on khalwat raids, although it must have been his youth that made him unafraid to do so.

Some of his older counterparts have been vocal in promoting crackdowns on indecent behaviour, while others have been conspicuous by their silence, wary perhaps of getting into situations which would incur the wrath of their peers.

In breaking with the official wisdom on moral policing, the young mufti has stepped on more than a few toes. But since he seems to have made it his duty to "present Islam in its modern face and get it out of the clutches of conservatives", he has no choice but to go where other Islamic scholar-officials have been shy to enter.

Now, at least, someone with the credentials and the authority to question the dominant orthodox frame of mind has appeared with a different reading of the sacred texts and the meaning of Islam. But it will take much more than a lone voice to stem the conservative religious tide.

It is one thing to stop vigilantes from lurking in the bushes to pounce on lovers, quite another to prevent official vice squads from checking the guest list and banging on hotel doors to catch couples in close proximity.

The khalwat laws have been on the statute books for a long time and thousands have been charged and fined. The revised guidelines in the conduct of khalwat raids have been designed to prevent the worst excesses in execution and addressing the problems that have emerged, and not with checking the obsession with rounding up the wayward.

Despite the learned opinion of the Perlis mufti that "Islam does not encourage people to look for acts of sin", the moral guardians in other states will no doubt exercise their legal right to peep through windows and stake out hotels.

It will be up to the youngest mufti in the smallest state in the land to show the way to a more pragmatic and ethical application of the principle of "promoting good and preventing evil" (amar makruf nahi mungkar), which is not preoccupied with illicit sex and punishing sinners but is more concerned with addressing the pressing moral and social problems like corruption, crime and drug addiction.