KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31 — The Dewan Rakyat Speaker and its secretary have asked the courts to strike out a lawsuit by the son of a former deputy prime minister over proposed amendments for heftier Shariah penalties, a lawyer confirmed today. Mansoor Saat, the lawyer for Mohamed Tawfik Ismail who filed the lawsuit, said Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Datuk Kamaludin Md Said will hear on January 11 the application for dismissal by the sole two respondents, Dewan Rakyat’s Speaker Ta

KUALA LUMPUR: The religious authorities’ aversion to the use of reason in understanding Islamic texts is against the spirit of challenging prevailing views on the religion as practised by Muslim scholars during the early stage of the development of the Islamic jurisprudence, a theologian told a forum today. Speaking at a forum convened by Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) on the question, “Is reason a threat to faith and society?”, Isham Pawan Ahmad said it was this that allowe

THE declaration of Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government is not shirking its responsibility to make Malaysia an Islamic state has spooked BN component parties, especially MCA. Asyraf added that the government was providing the financial resources to empower Islam, and that this year alone, RM987 million was provided to the Education Ministry for Islamic education, and RM559 million to the Islamic Devel

KUALA LUMPUR: First there was the United States; then came China. Now, Saudi Arabia is trying to peddle its influence in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. The entry of Saudi Arabia, especially the pushing of its Islamic agenda, is likely to affect Asean and the relationships within the grouping, according to an analysis in The Diplomat. Written by Naishad Kai-ren, the article says Saudi Arabia’s influence peddling will deepen the cultural divide and raise difficult questions about

Morocco’s forward-thinking King has reformed its religious affairs structure and is promoting a tolerant brand of Islam in his country and the region. VERY few places on earth offer you the chance to ski (on the slopes of the Atlas Mountains) and then trek through desert (the Western Sahara desert) in the same country on the same day! Morocco, spanning the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, is just such a place. The kingdom has spectacular scenery, amazing food, and most i

A brave new book describes how Pakistan unraveled — and provides a blueprint for understanding declining pluralism across the Middle East. When national security advisor H.R. McMaster wanted to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that Afghanistan was not hopeless, he whipped out a 1972 black-and-white picture of women in miniskirts on the streets of Kabul.The point of this exercise was presumably to show that the country once embraced Western ideals and could do so again wit