Like leftists, Islamists don’t actually want to live under the laws they force on other people. Just ask the Mullahs of Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood, who want Sharia law, but behave in ways that are not in keeping with its tenets. But that’s okay. They are the enforcers.

And yet, in Indonesia, one enforcer ended up being one of the enforced.

An Indonesian man – who worked for an organisation that helped draft strict adultery laws – has been publicly whipped after being caught having an affair with a married woman.

Mukhlis bin Muhammad of the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU) was flogged 28 times.

The woman he had the affair with was caned 23 times.

Mukhlis is from the deeply conservative Aceh region, the only place in Indonesia which practises the strict Islamic law, Sharia.

The 46-year-old is also an Islamic religious leader. He is the first religious leader to be publicly caned in Aceh since Sharia law came into force in 2005.

The MPU advises the local government and legislature on drafting and implementing Sharia law in Aceh.

It happens rarely not because Islamic leaders are moral. But because they push on the wheels of power.

Why did Mukhlis end up on the wrong side of the whip? I would suspect, because he offended someone higher up in the hierarchy.