I refer to the Malaysiakini report Bouquets, brickbats for yoga fatwa .

I am a non-Muslim. For the record, I think the recent fatwa on yoga is ill-informed and narrow- minded at best.

1. Yoga is its current form is nowhere near the ascetic form practised by the yogis and saddhus in India, and the numerous commercial classes offered in gyms and clubs around the country certainly have absolutely no religious links.

You can certainly find more Hindu influence in a curry house than at an exercise centre.

2. Breathing, in its purest form, involves silent chanting. Our bodies tacitly chant even as we breathe, and it sounds like (wait for it...) ‘Om’. Proper breathing is channeled to the centre of the body.

Try humming or saying a deep ‘Om’ and see which part of your body it reaches. And everyone knows that an essential bedrock of yoga is proper breathing, which brings you to a balanced centre from which you attempt its various exercises.

3. While fatwa are basically guidance for Muslims, it is not surprising that non-Muslims in the context of present day Malaysia are incensed.

This country is founded on the bedrock of unity, integration and racial harmony, and it is these (perceived) small issues that threaten to upset this delicate balance.

Today it is yoga, tomorrow it could mean no Deepavalli holiday perhaps (because it means we'll be observing a Hindu festival. Hindus can always take leave if they want to but we shouldn't encourage national observance of this because one thing could lead to another, right?)

What next? Karate? Christmas trees?

4. As much as the council, some government and social spokespersons and a number of Muslim brethren call for non-Muslims not to interfere in their faith, they still condone (or do little to oppose) infringement on the faiths of others.

Case in point, banning Christians and Sikhs from calling God ‘Allah’ (which by the way pre- dates Islam, and has been used as a practice by Christians and Sikhs the world over for generations). A clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

5. Acceptance of the racial assimilation model that Malaysia is based on means we accept the intermingling of cultures and traditions.

The Malay language has already borrowed much from other languages and much of the present day Malay culture borrows from Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Kristang influences, as much as it does from Javanese and Bugis traditions.

So why the fuss on yoga?