COMMENT | Does Madani state condone preacher's act?

”Religion is at its best when it makes us ask hard questions of ourselves. It is at its worst when it deludes us into thinking we have all the answers for everybody else.”

- Archibald MacLeish

COMMENT | We must ask ourselves why Islamic preacher Firdaus Wong uploaded that video of how to enable minors to lie to their families, subvert religious rituals (prayers in toilets), empower teachers to transmit religious dogma to minors under their tutelage and make it very clear that religious morality trumps legal requirements.

Let us not kid ourselves. In the uploaded video, Firdaus makes it very clear that all this is not theoretical. He admits that he has done this before and the methods he imparts are borne out of practical usage and not something that he thought out in the spur of the moment.

This means that there are minors who are deceiving their families, engaging in modified religious ritualism and enabled by teachers who think that religious morality trumps their obligations to look after the well-being of the minors under the charge.

Not to mention, if Firdaus is to be believed, practising Muslims who he has shepherded as minors, into the religion of the state by deceiving their families.

Ordinarily, minors dabbling in religious experimentation is...