Unfortunately, he said, civil courts tend to ignore these provisions on fundamental rights.

“So many fatwas are regarded as if they are independent of the constitution,” Shad Saleem said in a webinar titled “Freedom and Tolerance in Islam: Why We Need Some Rethinking” organised by G25 and Edunity Foundation.

He cited a court case involving independent preacher Fathul Bari Mat Jahya who was previously convicted of teaching Islam without credentials.

The court, he said, had brushed off Fathul Bari’s argument of freedom of speech under the Constitution, on the grounds that “too many views would confuse the Muslims.”

Shad Saleem went on to say that the Federal Constitution defined laws to include written laws, common law and customs “to the extent recognised”.

“Religious law, rules of ethics and morality are not law unless they are incorporated in one of the three.”

He also said the powers of the shariah court in criminal matters were equivalent to the powers of “second class magistrates”.

“So, obviously the intention of the Constitution makers in 1957 was that shariah offences were basically minor offences.”

Meanwhile, prominent scholar Mustafa Akyol said policing Muslims did not make the community more pious or righteous. Neither did the absence of such policing make the community less pious.

Akyol said in Turkey, for example, there are no Islamic laws to monitor whether one was fasting during Ramadan or not, but a majority of Turks would fast.

“Because you fast not for the police, but for God.”

He also said he had colleagues in Tehran who remarked that Iranians were less observant of religious practices, compared to the Turkish although Iran was an Islamic republic.

“People are fed up with that Islamic republic. And a lot of them have become non-practicing (Muslims). Enforcement of piety only leads to hypocrisy, and this should end in the Muslim world.”