Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - ONE of Malaysia's top religious scholars on Friday lashed out at comments by an Islamic judge that religious laws on close proximity affecting Muslims should be applied to non-Muslims.
The issue of Sharia or Islamic law is sensitive among non-Muslims here who fear a growing 'Islamisation' of the country.
On Thursday, Islamic Court of Appeal Judge Mohammad Asri Abdullah told a local paper that a religious seminar was proposing that Islamic law on the issue of Khalwat or close proximity should also be applied to non-Muslims through the civil courts.
His comments created a major uproar with non-Muslim religious groups in the country criticising the proposal as a violation of their constitutional rights.
The proposal would apply to a non-Muslim who was with a Muslim and would not relate to two non-Muslims.
Now the head of the group organising the seminar has also condemned the suggestion.
'This is something utterly erroneous,' said Syed Ali Tawfik Al-Attas, the head of the Malaysian Institute of Islamic Understanding.
'We are not in agreement with (Mohammad Asri) at all and because of this... our close friendship and important association with the non-Muslims... is now in jeopardy because ... people are now not going to trust us,' he added.
'In Islam it says to you yours to us ours in terms of religion. For us to think that we can apply Islamic Sharia law to non-Muslims, that is tantamount to (idolatry) because we are assuming we know better than God.'
Rights group SUARAM has also criticised the proposal as a violation of religious freedom.
'This is a clear infringement of freedom of religion and the rights of non-Muslims, which is enshrined in Article 11 of the federal constitution,' group coordinator John Liu said.
Discussions on the issue of race and religion are tightly controlled in Malaysia, which is dominated by Muslim Malays living alongside ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.