In Islam, the Holy Quran is the supreme source of knowledge. To a Muslim, the Quran and the hadith are absolutely sacrosanct. Nothing proffered in the holy texts can be questioned. They are inviolable. They bear the essence of all wisdom divined to mankind by the almighty and the great prophets of the faith. No questioning or professment of doubts by mere mortals can or will be tolerated. Period.

Whereas a non-Muslim has no inherent qualms about questioning any aspect of Islam. To him, to question is a natural reaction to a subject of which he is not a part of. And so questions about Islam and its practices, he has aplenty. Under normal circumstances such questions are pondered over by the outsider but are never verbalised aloud. But that rule of politeness and nicety ceases to apply when a religious party like PAS projects itself as a benevolent ruler worthy of everyone's support, including the support of even the non-Muslims. And matters become even more complicated and serious when the same party proclaims its intentions of introducing Islamic laws if it comes to power.

And so questions meant previously to lie buried in the confines of a non-Muslim's heart would inevitably find their way into mainstream dialogue. For the sake of examples, let us consider a few:

How is the right of a Muslim male to marry four wives justified in this age? In earlier days due to frequent wars, there was an acute shortage of men to women and so this practice of a man marrying more than one wife was encouraged. But how is it relevant in today's world where man to woman ratio is almost equal, and women constitute a major portion of many a country's workforce (47 percent in the case of Malaysia).

Why are most Islamic nations not able to catch up with the rest of the world in education, economics, sports, inventions, governance, civil society or for that matter in any other field or measure of worldly success.

After all, one of the manifestations of religion is its ability to bring about deeper focus and discipline to man. And any man applying that ability of focus and discipline to everyday life, is bound to be a winner in the field of his choosing. Yet, this reality seem to apply more to non-Muslims than to Muslims. The citizens of non-Islamic countries appear to be faring far, far better in almost all fields of human endeavour. Why? How come?

Now, the all important question is this - can a Muslim (even a liberal moderate) or more importantly an Islamic party like PAS stomach-in such questioning by non-Muslims? If so, for how long? Within that answer lies the reason why PAS will not be able to win over the non-Muslims. PAS will never be able to accept such probing questions from non-Muslims for any length of time. On the other hand, without answers and clarifications to an avalanche of such questions, the non-Muslims will find it hard pressed to understand PAS and its policies properly.

Given this, Islam and PAS will continue to be misunderstood by the non-Muslims as they do now. Consequently, the real life scenario that would play out come election time (any election, now or in future) would be this: the non-Muslim would vote for the status quo and stick with the known devil that BN is than go out of the way to vote for an unfathomable religious-centred entity like PAS.