Former Singapore prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, in a recent speech at the Imperial College in London, for Singaporean students, compared his student days in the UK to the present times.

He spoke of the many changes — some for the better but more were probably bad — that have occurred over the last half century. He disapproved of the welfare state but had praise for ex-premier Margaret Thatcher's attempt "to reverse it, to restore individual incentives and the motivation to succeed, to encourage risk-taking, necessary for a successful entrepreneurial economy".

Another change he accurately noted was that "churches are nearly empty on Sundays with many de-consecrated and converted into places of entertainment while some 500 mosques are filled to capacity on Fridays, the Muslim Sabbath". This is entirely true.

Some of my more enthusiastic and proud Muslim friends put this down to the zeal of Islam at work in the world today. And this is, indeed, true.

However, there are aspects of the Islamic 'boom' (if you will) in the West which could be ascribed to the typical reaction of minorities to real or perceived sense of persecution, alienation and ghetto-isation.

I say this because I see churches in Malaysia filled to capacity on Sundays, the Christian Sabbath (the same is true of Hindu, Buddhist and other temples everywhere in Malaysia). I somehow doubt that those very same enthusiastic and proud Muslim friends of mine would ascribe that to the zeal of Christianity (or other religious bodies) at work in the world today.

What is exceedingly remarkable about the non-Islamic religious 'boom' in Malaysia is that — unlike in Islam — there is no legal or other sanctions which make attendance at churches and temples compulsory or wajib !