Going through the hate mail that I receive on a fairly regular basis, I have come to the conclusion that many, if not all, of those who have taken offence against what I have been writing lately share a number of common misconceptions about Islam; religion in general and the meaning of secularism in particular.

That such a consensus of misunderstanding could have arisen in our society is not the result of some infernal plot hatched in the dark by some unseen cabal of mysterious "Islamic fundamentalists".

Despite the numerous pathetic and botched attempts by certain sections of the mass media to present a distorted picture of the country about to be taken over by some "fundamentalist menace", Malaysia is not on the verge of collapse and the country is not about to be taken over by local Talibani.

(Although I do not doubt that the local hot-heads would be more than happy to do so if they had half the chance and, more importantly, the competence to organise something bigger than a tea party.)

The sad and painful reality is that much of what passes as Islam and Islamic discourse or thinking in the country at present is depressingly shallow and leans more towards stereotypes and cliches. This is true for the Islamists of the opposition as well as those of the ruling establishment.

The demagogues of PAS and the local Islamist movements have undoubtedly played a major role in demonising the West as the evil "secular threat" threatening to corrupt the hearts and minds of the young in the country, but they are certainly not the only ones to do so.

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the resurgence of Islamism in the country, and leading the assault have been the Islamist thinkers, demagogues and Islamocrats of the state who man the various government-sponsored religious offices, departments, ministries, universities, colleges and think-tanks.

It was not PAS and the ideologues of the Islamist party who were solely responsible for raising the stakes in the Islamisation race in the country: the establishment's own Islamist intelligentsia and Islamocrats were also responsible.

While PAS leaders have always played to the gallery and promoted their Islamisation programme unashamedly with no apologies (in this area, at least, we cannot accuse them of hypocrisy), those who headed the various government-sponsored Islamic think-tanks and research centres did their own share of damage through their writings on Islam, secularism and other such topics.

By the late 1990s, the leaders of Umno and PAS alike were issuing blanket knee-jerk condemnations of the West in the most unreflective manner, accusing Western culture and civilisation of everything under the sun - from encouraging free sex to sodomy and homosexuality.

It is hardly a surprise then, that so many Muslims in the country have such a shallow and twisted understanding of other cultures as well as their own.

My intention here is not to waste my time (and yours) by engaging in a pointless debate with those who prefer to speak to each other within the same discourse, about the same things in order to come to the same conclusions.

I feel that the time has come for me to repeat some of the most basic and fundamental premises and arguments that I have been putting forward all along - for my sake and yours - so that I will not be misunderstood or misrepresented in the future.

These are among the more salient points that I have been trying to raise all along, with the hope that it will give cause for us to pause and reflect upon our own assumptions and the subject-positions we take:

Islam is not a "pure" religion

Time and again, those who rant and rave against the evils of modernity and secularism have argued that Islam is a "pure" religion that is "new" or "unique"; that it is a self-contained and self-referential discursive economy and that Islam represents a break from other religions and ways of life in the past. The same people tend to claim that the coming of Islam led to an entirely new and unique epoch in itself.

Even a novice student of Islamic history will be able to tell you that the Prophet Muhammad never claimed that Islam was a new or unique religion.

Indeed, quite the opposite: the Prophet proclaimed that he was sent to deliver the final revelation and to complete the transmission of the creed that began with the prophets of the past, dating back to Jesus, Moses, Solomon, David and Adam.

Islam was not so much a new religion but rather the final testament after the earlier revelations. It is for this simple reason that we Muslims, until this very day, hold on to the customs of the past that date back to the time of the Jews and Christians.

Those Muslim males who have enjoyed the singularly unique and unforgettable experience of circumcision have our Jewish brothers to thank as this ritual (which is not compulsory, contrary to what many Malays may tell you) dates back to the Jewish era, along with many "Islamic" punishments - such as stoning for adultery - that are still being carried out today.

The arrival of Islam did not occasion an irreversible break with the past either. There was never an immaculate separation from the pre-Islamic era in the Arab world for much of what was there was readily accepted as part of the Semitic tradition.

For centuries, life during the so-called "Golden Age" of Islam was replete with heterodoxy and cross-cultural inter-penetration. This was true of the Arab world as is with the non-Arab Muslim world as well.

Contrary to what the local Talibani may tell you - after reading too much of Maudoodi's hyperbolic writings - the early Islamic era was one where the socio-cultural frontiers of the Muslim community and the non-Muslims constantly overlapped, not only because of they were all "people of the book", but, more importantly, because the understanding of Islam itself was quite different then.

This brings me to my second point:

Islam is not a communitarian label

These days, so much of what passes as Islamist discourse is littered with phrases, such as "we Muslims"; "the Muslim community", "the Muslim world", etc.

Labels, such as these, are convenient markers of identity and they serve our immediate purposes in the short-term, but we need to remember that Islam is not a communitarian label and being a Muslim means more than being a member of some kind of club.

Being a Muslim, as the Prophet explained, meant that one was cognisant of God and aware of a divine presence in the universe. This in turn meant that one had to obey the natural, God-given rules and laws of the universe. Submission to the will of this divine Other was, and is, the essence of Islam itself.

It was for this reason that the early Muslims had no problems with dealing with people of other religions. For them, being in a state of true belief already meant that one was submitting to God, and thus, a Muslim in both practice as well as abstract terms.

Today, being a Muslim means being part of a particular community with its particular dress code, food, language and culture. Our local Talibani recruits who want everyone to dress, speak and eat like them represent a further degradation of the collective understanding of Islam in the contemporary Muslim world, where religious identity has become conflated with communal identity and communitarian concerns.

Talking about communalism and communitarian concerns brings me to my third and final point.

The frontiers of Islam must remain open

Despite all the talk about how universal and inclusivist Islam is (which is true, I would insist), the fact remains that the Islamists' own reading of Islam remains a specific and exclusivist one.

This is due to the fact that Islam (like Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism) has been so politicised of late and turned into an ideological tool and marker of collective political identity. Thus we arrive at the paradoxical situation where the Islamists of the country claim that they want democracy and equal rights but will not concede the same cultural rights to others.

They speak of the tolerance of Islam, but forget to mention the intolerance of Muslims who refuse to live with non-Muslims on university campuses and refuse to allow non-Muslims to listen to pop music of their choice.

The use of Islam as a marker of identity and tool for collective political mobilisation also means that much of this political activity has been based on essentially communal concerns. The Islamists' rallying call of "Islam in danger" has now become commonplace in the country.

It seems that the Islamists and Islamocrats can only mobilise the Muslim masses as long as there is some perceived threat to the Islamic community, real or imagined. This is why so much of the local Islamic discourse is full of outlandish claims that the enemy without is preparing to wipe out us Muslims and are sowing the seeds of destruction as we speak.

Over the past few months, I have come across all kinds of hysterical and paranoid nonsense in the Islamist websites of the country, ranging from claims that the label Coca-Cola (read backwards like all Satanic messages) carries an encrypted insult against God and the Prophet to the claim that the Malaysian government is deliberately bringing into the country "decadent Western pop groups" to break the will of the Islamists and weaken the moral fibre of the youth in the country (making them vulnerable to further secularisation, of course).

That so much gibberish can come out of one discursive system shows precisely how complex, overdetermined and pliable Islamic discourse really is. That such a system of discourse and thought can lend itself to so many outlandish and ridiculous interpretations tells us much about how religious discourses operate in general.

The over-abundance of concepts like "Islam", "iman", and "jihad" will always leave the discursive boundaries of Islamic discourse open to those who wish to use it to suit their own purposes.

On the plus side, all this shows how complex and deep Islam really is.

For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the relevance of Islam and Islamic discourse in our daily lives is something that cannot be underestimated or ignored. But we can also learn a great deal from this discourse and we can try to rescue it from the grip of the extremists, conservatives and communitarians among us.

Islam remains too important to be left to Muslims alone. If there is one thing that I would like to see happen in this country of ours, it is the opening up of the discursive frontiers of Islam so that it will never become the exclusive monopoly of religious bigots, demagogues and ideologues from either side of the Umno-PAS divide.

Islam is also my religion, and it might even be yours without you knowing it. Our goal should be to keep the boundaries of Islam, Islamic thought and the Islamic community open, even if the Talibani want to lock it up and throw away the key.