In all the socio-political issues framed in religion brought up by PAS, like the Bon Odori festival, the Oktoberfest celebration, the alcohol-mall issue, the stewardess tudung issue and now the Sarawak casino issue, my reading is that PAS has won the “moral ground” in each and every one of them.

Even though Malaysians may heave a sigh of relief when good Muslims like the Sarawak tourism minister or the Sultan of Selangor put the matters at rest with their wise statements of nation-building and multiracial and multifaith inclusiveness that defines Malaysia, I know the PAS leadership is smiling broadly.

The main reason why I say PAS has won the “moral ground” with its Malay ground base supporters is that their issues were laced with Qur’anic verses and religious justification presented eloquently by ustazs or clerics of Islam who are also politicians, while their counterparts in answering are non-Muslim politicians, Muslim politicians who are not ustazs, NGO like Sisters in Islam who do not wear the tudung and are not ustazahs, and even Sultans who are themselves not ustazs.

So, five points for PAS and zero score for Malaysians on the Islamic moral scale.

I have always written strongly to say that firstly, PAS is now a major contender and not a kampung or pondok political party.

Unless we create a policy where no religious ideology should be made the basis for a political party, then we Malaysians must deal with PAS in a respectable way.

Secondly, PAS carries the moral high ground with their politicians being “scholars” in Islam even though of the lowest kind, but to the Malay public, a Malay with a serban, a jubah, has a janggut, can recite Qur’an flawlessly and knows Arabic, he is a “scholar in Islam.”

My issue in this article is to highlight the need for our salaried muftis and “scholars in Islam” in the Department of Religious Affairs as well as highly-paid Islamic scholars in 20 public universities to play a role in countering the narrative of a conservative Islam interested only in the betterment and safety of Muslims alone and not the nation of Malaysia with people of many faiths and cultures.

Why, first of all, are the muftis silent when PAS raises issues which it claims are Islamic issues that are important for the Muslim society?

For instance, when Hadi Awang, the PAS leader, accused non-Muslims as prone to corruption because of their natural immorality and evil tendency, he used the Qur’an and the Hadith of the Prophet to justify his statements.

The same thing was done in accusing PH of working with the evil DAP or making friends with enemies of Islam in the form of Jews and Christians.

Anwar Ibrahim has launched the Madani Islam which is the answer to Islam as a force of nation-building and global coexistence using the Qur’an and the Hadith as the basis for its approach and philosophy.

But I noticed that even JAKIM has not answered his call when I read the text from the Friday sermons.

I have also noticed that not many academics, except those aligned with Anwar from ABIM who are mostly not ustazs, have answered his Madani call.

Public university leadership and the professors of Islam are mostly silent on the Madani idea.

This is where PAS will score many points every time it raises any and every issue it says concerns the Muslim community.

The silence from the mufti office, the ustazs from the religious departments and the professors of Islamic studies is simply deafening!

Mana dia suara mereka? Mana dia jawapan mereka?

If Malay politicians who are not ustazs answer the issues raised by PAS, if non-Muslim politicians answer the questions raised by PAS, if NGOs like ABIM and IKRAM whose members are non-ustazs answer the concerns of PAS, if SIS or non-tudung Muslim women answer PAS and not muftis or professors of Islamic scholarship who are ustazs, we should just declare PAS the winner and give them the winning trophy. PAS will win hands down every time.

If all institutions of Islam are silent when PAS brings up any issue and if all the professors stay silent inside their lush offices and seminar rooms, we might as well change the name Malaysia to Dar-al-Malazi or the Abode of Malaysians in Islamic Arabic.

I said that Sabah and Sarawak will have the same Islamic extremism problem in ten years. I was wrong.

With the Mazu statue and the casino issues, the peninsular problems of Islamic extremism have made it to the shores of the two nations across South China Sea.

To the people of Sabah and Sarawak, welcome back to Dar-al-Malazi!

So, my final question is: what are we paying the salaries of muftis, ustaz officials and professors in Islam for?

(Prof Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at a local university and his writing reflects his own personal opinion entirely.)