MPF/IRF Joint Statement on Dr Asri’s Debacle
The arrest of former Perlis Mufti, Dr Asri Zainul Abidin by officials of the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) at a private function in a residential area on November 1 brings into question again the intellectual freedom in Malaysia, vis-à-vis Islam.
The excuse given by JAIS that Dr Asri did not have the religious credentials from JAIS to teach Islam runs counter to the spirit of intellectual freedom in the history of Islam. It also gives ammunition to JAIS’s detractors and critics over the years that the Department is nothing more than a tool of a small group of religious scholars who are bent on imposing their views on others. By raiding a religious talk by someone who was once a government Mufti, and who, to say the least, has the necessary academic qualifications to explain Islamic beliefs, JAIS has only shown that it is ill-equipped to take on its critics on an intellectual platform, and has to resort to high-handed tactics.