The other day I was at a family friend’s BBQ in Kuala Lumpur with a number of Matsalis (white people), Indians, Chinese and Muslim Malaysians, when the subject of yoga came up — specifically Malaysia’s top Islamic body banning Muslims from practicing yoga last month. Of the people at the BBQ, the Muslim Malaysians were the ones who practice yoga at least once a week, along with a few of the Matsalis. They see yoga purely as a way to relax and get some good exercise, which fits into their daily regime of prayer as their jobs do. Many Malaysian Muslims enjoy a healthy lifestyle of exercise, and yoga has become increasingly popular with Malaysian residents over the years.

But the Malaysian Bumi Putra ruling government made an attempt in November to strip away their exercising rights. Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council believe that yoga, with its Hindi origins, is affecting Muslims’ religious journey with Islam. They say since it has its connections with Hinduism, no Muslim should be practicing yoga, as it is seen by some as a spiritual encounter and meditation.

Spiritual experiences aside, the Malaysian National Fatwa Council say the main reason they want to ban yoga is that it is done in the mornings, which is when call to prayer is. They say it inhibits people from getting to their morning prayer. However, most Muslims who practice yoga say they are easily able to get to their call to prayer and still do their yoga classes.

After the BBQ, I walked to the local shops and had a look at the magazines. There were a fair range of genres available, however, without even looking, I could see six different yoga magazines sitting on the shelf right out in the front of the shop. So why would a country full of diverse cultures and religions — but with a 65% majority Muslim Malay population — try to ban yoga and at the same time allow the sale of so many different yoga magazines in many different retail outlets? Well they did ban trousers on women in October…

Although yoga is of Hindi origins, it should and can be enjoyed by people from any religion.

Yoga instructors in Malaysia are mainly Indian and of Hindi religious views, however they run two different types of class. A normal yoga class which consists of different yoga positions and breathing exercised, and a more advanced class consisting of more deep meditation and much more intense breathing exercising. Some people doing the advanced class say you go into a sort of trance while you do the positions.

The yoga fatwa stirred up quite a bit of controversy in Malaysia, not the least because a sizable chunk of the population aren’t Muslims. The Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badaw, declared within a week that yoga was okay for Muslims as long as they don’t meditate, after the nine rotating ruling sultans of Malaysia publicly criticized the Fatwa Council for not consulting them first.

Yesterday the Council said the yoga fatwa wasn’t binding. That’s probably a good thing, or I believe the Malaysian government would have had a yoga uprising on their hands.

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