WHEN the National Fatwa Council issued two successive fatwas in late 2008 banning tomboys and yoga, outcry from the Malaysian public was palpable. Tomboys sneered, youth collectives protested, and Muslim yoga practitioners posed in defence. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the National Fatwa Council, and even Inspector General of [...]

A MUCH sought-after speaker, imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait in 1948 into an Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship. He has a degree in physics from Columbia University in New York, United States, and was also educated in England and Malaysia. His comfort in slipping into Bahasa Malaysia before this interview was [...]