At the time of writing this, litigation lawyer Siti Kasim had just lodged a police report after receiving death threats for allegedly making certain remarks about God in a recent online interview. The people who made the threats branded her “a destroyer of the Muslim faith”.

Siti Kasim, as we know, is a fierce critic of hudud, among other things, calling it a “man-made law”.

Meanwhile, news coming out of Terengganu says the state capital has got a brand-new cineplex, which opened a couple of weeks ago.

Cinema halls were closed down in 1999 by the then PAS-led government. When Barisan Nasional wrested control of the state four years later, the ban on cinema halls remained.

So, the state government’s decision to lift the ban is welcomed by many in Terengganu. But there is a catch. There is CCTV in the new cineplex to curb “bad behaviour”. Cameras are installed in the hall to broadcast “live” scenes from it onto a big screen placed in the cinema’s lobby for all to see.

And need we be reminded that Terengganu had previously nabbed unmarried Muslim couples for riding on the same motorcycle, accusing them of committing “an immoral act in public”?

Last year, the state assembly passed a bill to amend the Terengganu Syariah Criminal Enactment (Takzir) 2001, which paved the way for sentences to be meted out for various offences, including a two-year jail term or a maximum fine of RM3,000 for Muslim men who do not perform Friday prayers.

Then, we have the “yes, no”, and then “yes”, to the screening of Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. The controversy is over a “gay scene”.

We also have PAS and Umno (or should it now be Umno and PAS?) wanting to amend the now famous Act 355 to enhance the shariah courts, which many see as “all about hudud”.

Islam is being made out to be all about enforcement and punishment, as if the religion is intolerant and focused on trivial matters. Such is the perception or view of many a non-Muslim. That hurts the Muslims, yours truly included.

Even when trying to do something nice, Muslims are viewed with a wary eye, to put it mildly.

Take the recent zakat issue in Perlis. The state announced that non-Muslims will also be eligible for a share of zakat.

Zakat is a form of taxation for Muslims, which is then redistributed to the needy. In Malaysia, redistribution has been, by convention, to Muslims only.

Hence, the Perlis decision is groundbreaking and should be lauded by all. Moreover, it has been done in the past in the Muslim world. But no … non-Muslims (well, some of them) are sceptical, suspecting the Perlis Islamic religious authorities of using zakat to convert non-Muslims to Islam.

I, for one, was sad and angry to read such comments online. However, after taking a second look at the issue, I do not blame the non-Muslims. I can understand their suspicions, their fears even. As much as I respect Perlis mufti Datuk Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, his clarification of the issue somehow has not helped matters.

The mufti was quoted as saying that the distribution to minorities was not limited to the poor but was for everyone for the purpose of “harmonising their reception of Islam”.

Asri’s intention is surely noble — to reveal the beauty of Islam to non-Muslims. But non-Muslims may take his remarks to mean to bring people closer to Islam, which they see as a way to turn them into Muslims.

And it got more frightening for non-Muslims when some Muslims, in their excitement, posted online comments like this: “Hope the goodwill will make non-Muslims want to embrace Islam.”

So, should non-Muslims be blamed for suspecting something is amiss? I don’t think so.

Should Muslims be blamed for wanting to help with zakat and in the process harmonise people’s perception of Islam? I don’t think so too.

Therefore, it is a matter of explaining clearly that harmonising people’s perception of Islam does not equate with efforts to convert non-Muslims. The same goes for the perception that Islam is trivial and intolerant, and all about enforcement and punishment.

Why should non-Muslims be held responsible for having such views when we have very vocal Muslim groups and ulama who portray Islam as such?

At the height of the Beauty and the Beast brouhaha, someone posted a video clip on Facebook of American Muslim scholar Dr Yasir Qadhi. The clip was not related to the Beauty and the Beast controversy in Malaysia, of course. It was made much earlier and showed Yasir explaining how Muslims should deal with homosexuality (go to YouTube if you want to listen to it).

I won’t go into the specifics but listen to his explanation and one can see the beauty and fairness of Islam.

And then, there is Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss academic, philosopher and writer. His views on the need for Muslims to reform their minds are well known. On a visit to Malaysia not too long ago, Ramadan said a fixation on hudud in Islam was wrong. What is Islamic is good governance, fighting corruption and ensuring the well-being of the people, he said.

Ramadan, incidentally, is the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which many in the West consider a fundamentalist, and even extremist, group.

There are many Yasirs and Ramadans out there. Of course, their critics say they are not ulama but merely scholars, and so cannot talk about Islam.

But ulama is Arabic for scholar, isn’t it? And there is no denying that Yasir and Ramadan are learned Muslims.

So, do we have such ulama in Malaysia? Yes, we do. In my mind, Asri is one of them. He has been saying the right things on a number of issues, giving the Islamic perspective. And his views on hudud are also well known. His focus is good governance and values instead of wanting to implement hudud. Citing the Taliban in Afghanistan as an example, he said cutting off hands has not brought the country peace, prosperity, good governance and good behaviour.

Surely, Asri is not alone in this, but the others must be loud lest their voices are drowned out by those of the hardliners.

Mohsin Abdullah, a veteran journalist, is now a freelance writer. He was formerly executive producer at The Edge TV.

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