Harris Ibrahim ends his letter, Incorrect to say that one who renounces Islam not a Malay , with the phrase that it is not the end of the world for the Malay who renounces Islam.

Of course not. The Balinese Hindus are Malays are they not? The Indonesian Buddhists and Christians are Malays are they not? The Filipino Christians are Malays too.

It is therefore all right for some people who choose to do so to define themselves as a religious group. But to insist that ethnicity and religion must be merged is nonsense.

The Arab Muslims are not Malays, neither are they Bosnian Muslims. Or the Turks. And the Iranian Muslims are not Arab. And in all of these countries you have Arab Christians, Iranian Christians, Turkish Christians and Bosnian Christians.

When the Serbs were decimating the Bosnians, one of the senior generals in the Bosnian army was a Christian. In Pakistan there are Pakistani Christians just as there are Indian Muslims. The former Chief Justice of Pakistan is a Christian.

And Sammy Davis Jr was a Jew. Anyone can be a Jew. And we can go on.