Shakespeare and Islam shape life for roving Anwar

He castigated Muslims who only seem to agitate about human rights violations committed against other Muslims.

"Where are the Muslims campaigning for the freedom of Burma's opposition leader, our sister Aung San Suu Kyi? Or must we wait for her to adopt Islam before we help her?"

Anwar was accompanied for the first part of his Australian trip by his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Ismail, a medical practitioner who has now become the family's most active politician. During his last public appearance before imprisonment, Anwar surprised his wife by telling supporters of his Reformasi movement: "If anything happens to me, I want Azizah to take over."

Before his internment on charges including sodomy - an allegation, says Azizah, designed to undermine Anwar's Islamic credentials - Anwar's wife was known for her softly-spoken manner. She was elected to Parliament in 1999, and continues to hold her seat.

Anwar himself is left with profound physical and psychological scars from his jailing. In July 2004, on the eve of his release, Malaysian journalist MG Pillai reported Anwar's doctors as saying he faced "imminent paralysis, neurological, kidney and urinary failure". He has begun a multimillion-dollar civil action against former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed but still jokes about his prison experience.

Anwar now sees himself as a bridge linking the Islamic and Western worlds and is excited about what he calls the "great wave of democratic Islam" sweeping such countries as Indonesia and Turkey.

Anwar's goal of building bridges abroad is admirable. But perhaps a more pressing need is for him to build bridges between faiths and ethnicities within Malaysia itself.