I refer to Arbibi Ashoy's letter No reason to leave Islam . I just would like to inform Arbibi about a few facts. I personally know two Malaysians, born Muslim, who are now followers of another religion.

One of them is now living in Europe, where she decided to emigrate to because of her religion related problems. Of the second one, I have lost contact a long time ago.

The one who resides in Europe related to me the stories of a few friends of hers who also had to emigrate for the same reason after being locked up by the police and harassed due to their religious beliefs. Honestly, I have no idea of how many people she was talking about but certainly more than one or two.

Here we go then. One single person like me knows for a fact that at least two such people exist. To make a parallel, I can say that I do not personally know of anybody infected with the HIV virus.

Nevertheless, can I say that since that I do not know anybody who is infected by the virus, the virus does not exist and must then be a mere fantasy?

Arbibi is absolutely convinced of the perfection of Islam. I can only say that I am happy for him in that he found inside his heart the right path for his own spiritual upbringing.

From this position of spiritual enlightenment, though, he should also respect the fact that many other people apparently do not find Islam either perfect or flawless, and they should be allowed to find their own spiritual path.

By doing so, he can always hope that those out there who might have tried different routes, will eventually come back, if they so wish.

But to dispute their true identity would an uncompromising mentality, the same narrow, dangerous, one-way mentality that is quickly leading the world to the brink of total chaos.

Let's learn to accept each other for who we are, beyond the facade of religion, race or colour.