I refer to the Malaysiakini report Bouquets, brickbats for yoga fatwa and Fatwa council bans lesbian sex .

With reference to the National Fatwa Council’s imposition of a fatwa on yoga, isn’t the council a few thousand years too late? As the council itself has pointed out, yoga has been around for thousands of years. Muslims in Malaysia and around the world have been practising it for a long time.

Those who are susceptible to being influenced to leave the Muslim faith would probably have left a long time ago. Those who are still Muslims are clearly not going to leave the faith. What is the point of banning it now?

If yoga is such a threat to Islam, why did the council not recognise the gravity of the situation decades earlier?

Rather than wildly issuing fatwa on various groups of people such as yoga practitioners and pengkids /lesbians who are doing no harm to anyone in exercising their right to make personal choices about their life, the council should understand the core of the issue which is that if a person’s faith is strong enough, no amount of external influences will induce her or him to leave Islam.

Conversely, if a person does not believe in Islam (or any other religion), no amount of browbeating and scare tactics will make that person a believer.

Laws and fatwa can make that person behave or dress in a certain way eg, put on a tudung or go to the mosque on Fridays for fear of getting into trouble if they do not. However, they cannot make someone a believer.

At the end of the day, faith is a matter of individual choice and belief. The authorities can force us to comply with certain practices but that will just create a community of hypocrites, not one of believers.

As for the fatwa on lesbians, I believe that this represents a divisive and punitive perspective of Islam which is likely to create more hatred and bigotry against an already marginalised group and add to the many schisms and hostilities that are already tearing Malaysia apart.

The National Fatwa Council notwithstanding, I prefer to focus on Islam as a great force for unity and love because it emphasises qualities of compassion, acceptance of differences and respect for all.

And finally, I have seen several letters in the press chastising non-Muslims for speaking up on this issue.

As a Muslim, I am all for non-Muslims airing their views on this and any other issue, because Muslims do not occupy the world or Malaysia by ourselves and thus it is important for us to be able to engage in dialogue and debate with others, whatever their faith.