Malaysiakini.com(http://www.malaysiakini.com)
Issues of conversions we cannot ignore , 21 August 2009
by JJ Ray
Something is seriously wrong when it comes to issues of conversion to Islam. Time and again, we read of families who find themselves at a gridlock when news of their loved ones having embraced Islam is broken to them.
In desperation, these families turn to courts to fight for the right to bury their supposedly converted relatives according to the original religion professed.
The latest case is that of deceased film-maker Mohan Singh who the Selangor Islamic Religious Council claimed converted to Islam in 1992.
Mohan's family vehemently denied any knowledge of him turning Muslim but in the end he was accorded a Muslim burial.
His family, shocked by the news, took legal action only to have the High Court confirm his conversion and that it had no jurisdiction over the case.
Malaysia's dual court system for civil matters has only complicated matters. The non-Muslims turn to secular courts while Muslims seek recourse in syariah courts.
The country's syariah courts are against the civil courts taking on conversion cases involving non-Muslims. And the civil courts seem least interested in taking on the challenge of handling such cases.
Mohan's case is certainly not new, but hopefully the last. While religious preference cannot be controlled, what must be accepted is the fact that people do leave one religion for another in search of inner peace.
Perhaps that is what Mohan did too, but he was too scared to share that revelation with his family. Like Christians, the Sikhs too are very staunch believers of 'one religion fits all'.
Fear of an 'outside' religion
Article 11 of the Federal Constitution supposedly guarantees freedom of religion but while this again is a 'licence' of sorts for a 'muallaf' (converts to Islam), it is no way a 'privilege' to be used and abused.
What, however, has become a problem is the way individuals are converting to Islam without informing their families of this very important decision.
In this regard, a question must be asked of the families concerned – would they give their blessings to a loved one should she or he decide to convert to Islam? If not, why? Is their refusal worth the heartache they are to endure later on, in the event the loved one were to secretly become a 'muallaf'?
Call it fear or lack of tolerance for an 'outside' religion, relatives of a convert end up nursing bitterness with the religious authority involved for influencing the deceased to embrace Islam.
It's no different for Mohan's family. They are left to deal with the anguish of accepting the truth that their loved one had turned to Islam for some reason or another.
News of such conversions and the subsequent body claim for burial according to Muslim rites has caused damaging racial tensions in the country.
If Islam is viewed with deep hostility, then really the responsibility lies with the muftis and other Islamic scholars to shed positive light on the religion.
Non-Muslims have not forgotten the declaration by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 2001 that Malaysia is an Islamic state.
Just how did Mahathir come to this conclusion? Was his proclamation sensitive to the sentiments of non-Muslims? But having two thirds majority in Parliament, Mahathir supported by a show of arrogance gave no thought to the feelings of non-Muslims in making the declaration.
Even the proposed Inter-Faith Commission in 2005 was subjected to a lot of flak from conservative Malay groups who felt insecure about the move, thinking that the commission would undermine the religion.
The then premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succumbed to pressure and decided to put on hold the draft bill for the commission.
In 2008, protesters forced the Bar Council to abandon a conference concerning religious conversion, accusing it of making an effort to challenge the official status of Islam in this Muslim-dominated country.
Should they be allowed to reconvert?
Similar news was reported in June 2008 - the husband of a Malaysian woman, Wong Sau Lau, contested a notice from the Islamic Council that his wife had converted to Islam and be buried according to Muslim rites.
More such news surfaced when the Syariah Court declared a Buddhist man, Gan Eng Gor, a Muslim and be buried the Muslim way.
His family insisted that Gan had never converted to Islam, saying he had suffered two strokes and could not speak at the time of the alleged conversion.
It is sincerely hoped that such cases will raise the much needed questions on why people convert and why they decide to opt out and how best to deal with such issues without allowing the ego to erode any sense of understanding and acceptance of the truth.
In this latest case, the deceased quit being a Muslim but the Islamic religious authority was still bent on declaring him as one.
If Mohan or the previous such converts realised Islam was no longer a way of life for them, should they not be released from the title of Muslim and be allowed to return to their previous non-Muslim lives?
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