There have been many letters posted in malaysiakini which touch on Islamic state and hudud law. There are two main issues I intend to address:

1) Should PAS abandon its struggle to implement Syariah laws?

2) Will the implementation of Syariah among Muslims cause injustice to all citizens?

Syariah laws - which include hudud, ta'zir, and qisas - are matters of principle in Islamic belief. Islam without Syariah is like a computer without its operating system. PAS has been stressing that Muslims should be allowed to exercise their rights to observe their religious obligation by implementing Syariah laws and at the same time respect the rights of the people from other faiths to be excluded from them.

I believe it would very unfair to force faithful Muslims to abandon Syariah laws against their will, especially, when this is very much tangled with their faith. Of course, there are also individuals from Muslim communities who reject Syariah laws. They are entitled to their own opinions, but they should not unfairly represent other Muslims. Besides, the first commandment in our Rukun Negara says 'Believe in God'. How could we believe in God if we don't believe in God's laws?

The implementation of Syariah in certain states should not be viewed as the nation having two sets of laws for different people. This is a simplistic and over-generalisation notion. Most of the existing legal provisions would still be maintained and applicable to all citizens. Only certain provisions concerning specific Syariah aspects require special exclusion.

The implementation of Syariah is more a concept of allowing certain necessary customary set of laws to address the needs and requirements of a multiple segments in a society. This concept is not totally alien to the people of Malaysia and other parts of the world. This is not necessarily detrimental to justice and, in fact, this arrangement could provide a practical solution in a multiracial and multireligious country like Malaysia. In the US, polygyny is generally illegal, but exclusion was given to the Mormons in Utah.

Laws are introduced to effectively address people's needs for justice. It is not the primary objective to maintain uniformity and sameness. The utmost importance is that, laws must be workable to meet the people's requirements. Having the same but non-workable laws is meaningless.

Looking at the way Muslims strive to implements Syariah laws all over the Muslim world is a clear indicator that some provisions in the laws that govern them are no longer deemed compatible with their faith and aspiration. In other words, there are non-workable, and it is unfair to force Muslims to stomach this nonsense continuously.