Azzam Seyed Mohamed Sarooj of Eravur asks an interesting and thought provoking question: "Does Islam insist on polygamy?" (The Island, 9/5)

But polygamy is allowed, at least by both Islam and Buddhism, because like in the Holy Quran, there is not a single utterance of the Buddha in the Tripitaka (Buddhist Canon) where it is said that a Buddhist must be monogamous. Every king in Buddhist history had a harem where he had plenty of wives. If the ‘Pansil’ precept relating to sex (Kamesu Michcha Chara) was interpreted as not more than one wife, all the Buddhist kings must now be frying in hell! In fact that ‘pansil’ precept which every Buddhist recites day in and day out, sometimes more than once a day, does not prescribe what kind of sex is allowed and what kind is disallowed. When unmarried boys and girls recite it, even they do not know what it means. The translation of it is ‘I shall refrain from incorrect sex’. Then what is correct sex for an unmarried person who recites it? Why should children recite ‘pansil’?

Polygamy was common in the Middle East even before Islam. Wives remained in their father’s households. Elite women enjoyed considerable power and prestige - Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, for example, was a successful merchant - but the majority of women in other cases were on a par with slaves without political or human rights. In primitive Arab society, female infanticide was common before the dawn of Islam. The Holy Quran strictly forbade the killing of female children and rebuked the Arabs for their dismay when a girl was born. Women had been among the Prophet’s earliest converts, and their emancipation was a project that was dear to his heart. The Holy Quran also gave women legal rights of inheritance and divorce.

On one occasion, for example, the women of Medina complained to the Prophet that the men were outstripping them in the study of the Holy Quran and asked him to help them to catch up. This he did. One of their most important questions was why the Holy Quran addressed men only when women had also made their surrender to Allah. The result was a revelation that addressed women as well as men and emphasized the absolute moral and spiritual equality of the sexes.

Many Buddhists do not read the Buddhist cannon just as many Muslims do not read the Holy Quran. By the way, I do not belong to any organised faith but I read.