“It’s okay to be liberal but it does not mean one can do anything outside Islam,” he explained while speaking at the National Aspiration and Leadership Summit here today.
Senator Asyraf, who handles Islamic affairs in the Prime Minister’s Department, said Islam did not condone liberal extremism in which elements detached from Islamic teachings.
“When I was studying in the UK, I argued with some Arabs who said it was okay to have a sip of alcohol as long as it did not intoxicate. But this has been overruled by another Quranic verse which says it is haram (forbidden),” he said.
The senator said proclaiming oneself as a believer meant to understand the religion, rather then labelling each other.
Some also feel he said, they were more Islamic by promoting an ideology which Islam does not teach.
Liberalism has been a touchy subject among some religious leaders in Malaysia who have warned the Malay-Muslim majority population of its dangers, and the threat it presented to Islam.
In 2014, Prime Minister Najib Razak, was reported as saying that Islam and Muslims were being tested by threats under the guise of human rights and liberalism among others.
At the leadership summit today, Asyraf also spoke about the Wasatiyah concept of moderation, and urged Malaysians not to be rigid in subscribing to only one opinion from one of the schools of thought.
As an example, he pointed out that in Islamic banking, Malaysia did not follow the Shafie school, because Shafie was not a trader compared to Hanafi or Hambali. “If we follow Shafie strictly we can’t do business in Malaysia as in Shafie, a contract is considered valid when two parties verbally agree to sell and buy. But this is not the case according to other schools.”
Islamic scholars have differed on the meaning and practise of wasatiyah, championing their concepts in terms of one of the five main schools of Islamic thought.
Asyraf said one of the problems in Malaysia was that people could not agree to disagree and were quick to pass judgment and pin labels on those who did not subscribe to their own beliefs.