Cahaya’s Rants

I find it amusing to read the emotional responses of some Malaysian Muslims to the syariah court’s decision to allow Siti Fatimah Tan, a Chinese convert, to renounce Islam. (re Malaysiakini news) Siti Fatimah converted to Islam when she married an Iranian because in Malaysia a non-Muslim marrying a Muslim has to convert to Islam. But Siti Fatimah converted to Islam not out of conviction but out of necessity. She remained a Buddhist after the conversion and never practised Islam.

One blogger even compared the Syariah Court’s decision to legalizing apostasy! If only that was true! People like Lina Joy will no longer have to go into hiding. This particular blogger went on to quote a fatwa that called on the apostate to be executed if he/she does not repent in three days after being brought in front of a Qadi. This blogger also blamed the Malay Muslim political parties and Muslim politicians for failing to speak out against this apostasy case.

Another blogger is frustrated and blamed everyone especially Penang’s Islamic Council and Siti Fatimah’s ex-husband for failing to ground her in the Islamic faith. One blogger even called the decision a dark and tragic day for Islam.

Others wonder if this decision will bring a deluge of such cases. What if indeed it resulted in a deluge? The non-Malay who is longer practicing Islam should be able to leave Islam without being forced to “rehabilitate” or even punished for apostatizing.

Datuk Ahmad Zahid, minister in charge of religious affairs in the Prime Minister’s Department said “there was no law at the federal level to bar a convert from renouncing Islam”. Since that is the case presently, one hopes that it will stay that way.

I don’t think there is anyone who might see this case as a light at the end of the tunnel, as one blogger puts it, for cases involving Malay Muslims who have left Islam. That is , however, not to say that there have not been cases of Malay Muslims who have successfully renounced Islam in the past. But then again, those cases were before the requirement to state one’s religious status in one’s identity card. Nobody had to go to that unnecessary hurdle.

Nowadays people like Lina Joy have to either live a double life or in hiding for fear of some zealot taking it upon himself to execute them for apostasy.

Good luck to Tan Ean Huang on her new life free of the burden of being called a Muslim when she has never been one.