I read with much enthusiasm when I saw the heading of Max Sterling's letter,[#1] Fundamentalism is not a dirty word[/#] (Dec 9). I wish to congratulate the writer for his effort.

What I want to bring to attention here is, as much as there is confusion about a lot of other issues in the world today, there seems to be a collective effort, especially in the West, to cast a bad light on Islam.

Not too long ago in May 2000, a mini-documentary on Muslim women who observed Hijaab and Niqaab (purdah as it's commonly called in Malaysia - where a piece of cloth covers the face from nose down) was broadcast on the BBC Arena programme.

The programme was irresponsible journalism as it portrayed a very lopsided view of the women who observed this religious obligation. One example was by showing a footage of terrorists in hijaab, getting through a police road-block then killing them.

Another footage was of some women in hijaab being dragged away by men. They also interviewed a few Asian women, but all these women gave comments that truly misrepresented Islam, such as "The scholars have always fought against/for hijaab," (without evidence, i.e. giving the name of the scholar) and "Can't have personality in that religion (Islam) ... just someone to go home to your husband to (the wife)".

The programme went on in this manner - without a narrator in the background but merely airing snippets of unfair and one-sided comments from these women. A person who doesn't know anything about this religion will be easily led to believe that Muslim women who use the purdah are all oppressed and have terrorist streaks in them!

Such is the extent to which Western media went in their quest to provide an "insight" into Islam. Yes, we did lodge a complaint with the broadcast station after that but the damage was already done.

One can really question the intention of the producers on whether they sincerely wanted to bring the issues surrounding Hijaab into light as the interviewed subjects in the film are not prominent and learned personalities of Islam.

I believe a similar incident also took place in our dear country when a columnist of a popular local English paper ridiculed the practice of pakai tudung.

This caused much furore in the country but the misconception will perhaps persist in the future. The trouble starts when a person with inadequate knowledge about something opens his or her big mouth.

While I don't claim to be a learned Muslim scholar myself - I for one know that the injunction to cover for Muslim women is written clearly in the Holy Qur'an (Muslims' book of God's revelation to Prophet Muhammad), for any discerning and literate person to understand.

'Kepercayaan kepada Tuhan' (Belief in God) is one of the five articles in the Rukun Negara - which I was made to recite every Monday in the eleven years of my primary and secondary education.

This allows every Malaysian citizen to practise whatever faith he or she chooses to believe, and one is bound by the rules stipulated in that religion. When one transgresses these bounds, it is a mistake to take this person as representing everyone who follows that faith.

Every person owes it to himself or herself to learn and understand their religion from its purest source. And as intelligent and civil human beings we cannot go about making up untruths about other faiths for whatever reason.

In Islam, a difference of opinion is allowed, for example when we have presented our faith to non-Muslims and they choose not to believe, they are let be as long as they do not pose a threat to us.

Faith is not something that can be imposed on anybody - it's definitely something bestowed by the Creator on His chosen subjects.

A final note: in Malaysia inter-religious dialogues are almost unheard of (correct me if I'm wrong), possibly of the fear of instigating a religious clash in our multi-faith country perhaps?

This is a very unfortunate situation, but could it be that we are indeed not civil and intellectual enough as a society to have such dialogues? I leave my distinguished readers to ponder over the question.

Green-moon-girl