I read with interest the letters that call for the reform of Syariah to preserve women's rights and children's rights .

What we inherited from the British was two legal systems namely the civil and the Islamic.

The former was created by the British and the latter was supposedly the law of the indigenous Muslim people.

Many Muslims, I'm afraid to say, do not realise that there is no such thing as Islamic law, even though there are laws for Muslim people which are based on interpretations of the Syariah.

Syariah, as we know it, does not exist as a system of law. It is merely a set of legal principles derived from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Syariah cannot be turned into law. Turning it into law will rob Syariah of its essential humanity.

Syariah is very broad-based and multi-faceted. Turning Syariah into law which metes out punishments for crimes can lead to its misinterpretation by bigots and misogynists, resulting in the loss of Islam's essential humanity.

This is what is happening in Malaysia today. The Islamic legal system depends too much on literal interpretations of the Syariah. These literal interpretations of the Syariah are translated into rigid and extremist Muslim laws enforced in Islamic courts. They bring injustice to Muslim women and children.

I call on the government of Malaysia, via the Islamic Development Department (Jakim), to freeze the enforcement powers of state religious departments and the judicial powers of the Syariah Court as a temporary measure to save the Muslim women and children from becoming victims of religious literalist tyranny.

I call on the government to review all state enacted religious laws which are unfair towards women, children and non-Muslims.

The government should make sure all state governments enact clear guidelines for the state religious authorities to conduct their duties towards Muslims. These guidelines should ensure that the state religious authorities act reasonably and humanely towards Muslims, especially women, at all times.

State governments should make their state religious departments accountable to all state assemblymen, whether Muslims or non-Muslims. It would be good for state assemblies to have a select committee to monitor the conduct of state religious departments and state Islamic courts.

At the federal level, parliament should have a select committee to monitor the conduct of the Federal Territories religious departments. The federal government and parliament should enact a set of guidelines as to what constitutes un-Islamic practises.

These guidelines should be based on feedback from all members of parliament, women's NGOs and non-Muslim religious bodies. The guidelines should pass the test of reasonableness, meaning acceptability by all religious communities.

Rights of Muslims should be differentiated from non-Muslims in as few areas as possible and restrictions on what Muslims can or cannot do should be standardised in keeping with the tenets of their religion.

Rashid Rida, the great Islamic reformer, once said that whenever there is a traditional ruling by the Muslim ulama that does more harm than good, it should be repealed.

I am confident that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi shares the same spirit of reform as Rida, who was one of the spiritual mentors of his illustrious progressive ulama grandfather Sheikh Abdullah Ibrahim.