In multi-ethnic Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion but freedom of religion is guaranteed under the constitution, recent developments regarding apostasy for Muslims are posing challenges, not only for religious freedom in the country, but for democracy in general.
Malaysia bills itself as a democracy, and according the constitution, it is - despite the fact that former premier Mahathir Mohamad deemed it an Islamic state in 2001. Here, the majority Malays are born Muslim and changing religions is all but impossible for them. Cases of aspiring apostates are handled by Sharia rather than civil courts, and according to the Koran, which states that no Muslim should assist another out of the religion, conversion to another faith is grounds for death.
What is seen by some as an issue of freedom of religion is viewed by others as an abuse of freedom. "You can talk about your religion freely, just don't try to convert," said Azizuddin Ahmad, secretary general of the Muslim Youth Group of Malaysia (ABIM). He said many Muslim apostates were led astray not by the virtue of the faith they were converting to, but by the concept of freedom.
Islam is arguably the most democratic of all religions. An essay titled "The Truth about Islam" states that in Islam, "All persons are equal before God; goodness is the only criterion of worth." But in Malaysia, jurisdiction of civil courts and Sharia courts is sometimes unclear, and when this happens the religion's democratic nature is compromised.
It is illegal, for instance, for the Bible and other Christian materials to be printed in the national language, Bahasa Malay. Proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims is also forbidden (though the reverse is okay). And proselytizers have been put away under the Internal Securities Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial.
Authorities have begun to crack down on converts, restricting their activities in order to prevent them from introducing Malays to Christian doctrine. Appeals for conversion usually sit unheard, and many would-be apostates don't live to see their conversion officially recognized. As one religious scholar put it, "In Malaysia, there's a way into Islam, but no way out."
A question of religious freedom
In Malaysia, Muslims are bound by certain laws that non-Muslims are not; laws regarding alcohol consumption, sexual relations and marriage, for instance. Certain states are known to enforce these laws more than others.
Muslims also get some preferential treatment. According to the US government's International Religious Freedom Report for 2003, "It is official policy to 'infuse Islamic values' into the administration of the country."
Non-Muslims sometimes face difficulties in obtaining licensing and state funding for their places of worship; Hindus have had difficulty getting government funding for their temples and there have been instances when the government has denied Hindu groups permission to use school classrooms after school hours for meetings. Members of the Buddhist community have also complained of the lengthy process involved in getting permits to build their temples.
In some areas, such as Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur, one can find mosques next to churches next to Indian and Buddhist temples. But non-Muslims still live in a country whose new Islamic-themed administrative capital houses a prominent mosque but no other house of worship; a country that since the early 1980s has become increasingly Islamized - inspired first by the Iranian Revolution and Mahathir's former charismatic deputy Anwar Ibrahim, who founded ABIM and joined Malaysia's most powerful political party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in the 1980s; and then by government attempts to out-Islamize the hardline Parti Islam seMalaysia (PAS). PAS made substantial progress in 1999 parliamentary elections but suffered badly in its rematch with the ruling National Front (BN) coalition in March.
The tide of these developments has posed challenges for non-Muslims and apostates, said lawyer Lee Min Choon, "but they are not paralyzing". Lee said he believes the government's religious policy is, generally, conducted with the best of intentions. "The government doesn't have a program to create difficulties for other religions. They want peace for all religions."
That has been the tricky part. Malaysia is home to various ethnicities and religions, with sizable Indian and Chinese minorities, many of whom embrace Hinduism and Buddhism respectively, and indigenous tribes in the east on the island of Borneo, where Christianity is widely embraced. These groups often grumble about "Malay/Muslim bias". But then the government can't afford to be seen as anti-Muslim.
Let the courts decide
This point was made last week, when Malaysian courts handed down two decisions that centered on freedom, equality, apostasy and religion. Both were expected to resolve much but may, in the end, prove to settle very little.
The first case involved a married Hindu couple. The husband converted to Islam in 2002 - no problem there - but what drew national attention to the case is that according to the wife, her husband also converted their two children to Islam, without her consent. The marriage has since ended, but when the wife filed for custodial rights with a civil court, it ruled that only a Sharia court could decide on her children's custodial rights because they are Muslim. In April, a Sharia court upheld the children's conversion and awarded custody to the father.
According to Noor Aziah Mohd Awal, a law professor at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, "Any case dealing with Muslims goes to Sharia court." But the mother could not testify in Sharia court because she is not Muslim. Sharia law is prescribed by the Koran. Many Muslim countries have courts set up to apply this law - in family and religious matters - to the lives of Muslims; interpretation, however, is sometimes a point of controversy.
On July 20, however, a high court granted custodial rights to the mother (and actual custody to both parents). This, said Noor Aziah, sets a precedent that civil courts should decide on custodial cases involving a Muslim and non-Muslim parent. But it doesn't resolve which court should preside over cases involving children who have been converted to Islam without mutual consent of their parents.
"The law needs to be amended," Noor Aziah said, "whereby both parties can go to the same court." She suggested that such a court include one Sharia-court judge, one civil-court judge and a non-affiliated chairman.
Although this latest case is cause for celebration, "division of jurisdiction was only partially resolved", said Shad Salem Faruq, professor of law at the University of Technology MARA. "It appears religion was abused by one party, and may be again, and that's not in the spirit of Islam."
In a separate case last Wednesday, the Malaysian Federal Court ruled that four Muslim apostates did not have the absolute right to renounce their faith of Islam, in effect suspending "one's right to choose his religion", the appellants' lawyer, Haris Mohamed Ibrahim, told Asia Times Online.
In 2000, the appellants were charged for attempting to renounce Islam two years earlier and were sentenced to three years in jail for contempt of court. The four apostates declared that the Sharia courts didn't have jurisdiction over them because they were no longer Muslims. They were originally charged with "deviant practices" inconsistent with the teachings of Islam, and the court decided that because they were still technically Muslims at the time in question - their appeals for apostasy had not been granted - they would be charged as Muslims.
"We hoped the courts would resolve problems individuals are facing," Ibrahim said, "but the court declined to answer a landmark issue."
According to Faruq, the decision clashes with the international view that freedom of religion should be universally granted. And the issue of whether multi-ethnic Malaysia, should cater more to Islamic or international standards of law, is all but certain to remain a hot point of debate here.
So far, the government has appeased the various communities enough to prevent large-scale race- and religious-fueled violence - though at the expense of respect, interest and meaningful interaction between the various communities. Race and religion are taboo subjects here, and there's a lot of pent-up rage.
Hands off our Muslims
This is all the Malay-headed government is trying to say. More specifically, said Faruq, it is Christian proselytizing the government is most worried about. Malaysia, where Muslims make up 60% of the population, is also home to substantial Hindu and Buddhist minorities (6% and 20% respectively). "But Hinduism and Buddhism historically have had less of a tradition of proselytizing than Christianity," Faruq said.
Although Christians comprise around 9% of the population, it is illegal for certain Christian material to be printed in the national language, and some states restrict Christians from using the Malay language for certain religious terms, such as "Allah" (God), lest Muslims be confused.
Despite the obstacles, some Christian proselytizers are busy. Reverend Kumar (not his real name) said it's still fresh in his mind the night the ISA police rattled his front gate in the middle of the night. The warning was clear, though it has not stopped Kumar. "I am not afraid," he said. "My work is God's will and I have a worthy cause to fight for. [Malays] have a right to find Jesus."
His evangelical church has 12 branches throughout Malaysia and 30 affiliates. Kumar estimates that 100 Muslims are converting to Christianity every month in Malaysia. He says there has been a marked increase in interest since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. "In the kampongs [villages] more people have opened their hearts to our message, and more people are coming to see us," he said.
Christian groups estimate that there are 30,000 Malay converts in Malaysia. Some Muslim groups put the figure much lower, but then, say non-denominational observers, most converts are said to live in secrecy for fear of harassment from the government, family and fellow Malays.
One Malay convert and former ustaza (Muslim religious teacher), now a colleague of Reverend Kumar, recalls being ejected from her family for five years for converting to Christianity. Her family has since forgiven her, but she and her children continue to be harried by the authorities. Because she is Malay, her son was born Muslim and forced to adopt a Muslim name. In school, despite his protests that he is a Christian, he is forced to sit through Islamic studies, as all Muslims are required to do.
In her opinion, "The [authorities] have begun to really clamp down on converts." She has had her run-ins with the ISA police. Her phone was tapped recently. Last year, five religious-police officers came to her home and insisted that she stop her activities.
Her activities, she said, included assisting drug addicts and battered women in rehabilitation centers. She is now forbidden to do so.
Part of the assisting, though, included introducing Malays and other non-Christians to Christian doctrine. She admitted to parking herself at a McDonald's wearing a Muslim headscarf to introduce Muslim schoolgirls to the Malay-language Bible more effectively.
In Kuala Lumpur, boys who are a part of Reverend Kumar's proselytizing movement frequent mosques. And in the cramped lobby of Kumar's headquarters a magazine headline reads, "Storming the Enemy's Stronghold". The first paragraph explains, "Within the 10/40 window [referring to the area stretching roughly from the Middle East through India, China and into Southeast Asia] lie 62 of the least evangelized nations on this planet." Put another way, this area is viewed by some zealots as the last stronghold preventing Christian global dominance.
With proselytizing of this nature, one is left to wonder, is the Malay-led government rightfully fearful or just plain paranoid?
Christians justify proselytizing
Some Christian groups say the government has become more zealously Islamic. Some local governments are known to prevent the construction of any buildings above four stories so the dome of the mosque can be seen from afar. Procession was banned in at least one instance because it conflicted with Muslim prayer time. Said an assistant to Reverend Kumar, "These gestures are causing some hard feelings."
As is likely of Christian proselytizing. Proselytizers of any stripe tend to feel justified in their actions, rationalizing them as a form of salvation leading others astray from darkness. Meanwhile, these people are often blinded by their desire to control. But some Christian proselytizers in Malaysia feel further inspired by the fact that Malays are born Muslim; thus they feel Muslims' declared faith is often not a form of embrace but subjugation.
"The Muslims who come to see me to be delivered think the religion treats them as second-class citizens," said Reverend Kumar. "They say they don't know what to believe in, they've just been told to believe in it. They feel empty, and they just follow. They come here because they want something more real."
A hard task ahead
Reverend Kumar will be hard-pressed to convince most Muslims in Malaysia of the superiority of his faith, just as most Muslims here find little success in converting Christians. Yet it is an undertaking that the zealous rarely tire of, even though it rarely leads anywhere, other than to trigger fear and resentment.
Christians have reputedly used some back-handed tactics to convert others. In addition to those mentioned above, they also have been known to sponsor picnics and retreats for non-Muslim children, even offering them gifts.
"Many of these groups are well funded and they've had some success in convincing some people, like lower-caste Hindus, that entering Christianity is a way up the social ladder," said law professor Faruq. However, he added, some Muslim groups, such as Jamait-e-Islamiya and Dakwah, have also aggressively proselytized in Malaysia. Muslim and Christian missionaries often do battle in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. Many of the indigenous tribes there were converted to Christianity during the rule of the Brooke Family - known as the White Rajahs - in the 19th century, although substantial numbers remain unconverted. This goes for the orang asli (original people) in Peninsular Malaysia as well, and Muslim and Christian missionaries - presumably aware of the status that's at stake: Christianity being the world's largest religion and Islam the fastest-growing - have been known to importune them.
Dzulkifli Achmad, director of the Research Center of PAS, is concerned about the net effect.
"There's a need in Malaysia for more mature, mutual respect," he said. "I used to seek to convert, but I no longer have the drive. When you think of the unique fabric of this society, it is in our interest to enhance mutual respect. It is very important for Malaysia's solidarity to appreciate other truths. Proselytizing is a form of disrespect. It is the beginning of the conflict."
Several groups of various denominations say the biggest impediment to addressing grievances has been a lack of dialogue among the various faiths, as the government has not only effectively sold the masses on the belief that race and religion in Malaysia are just too sensitive to discuss, it has also denied permits for several inter-faith dialogues. It hasn't exactly promoted better understanding among the faiths either.
For instance, Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, about Jesus' last hours, will begin showing here soon, but only Christians will be able to view it. Non-Christians will be weeded out in the ticket line according to their national identification cards, which state one's religion.
To Nora Murah, a legal officer with Sisters in Islam, the decision contradicts the Prophet Mohammed's teachings. "The Prophet embraced diversity and inclusiveness," she said.
So, too, did Jesus, Christians would opine. But in the time that's lapsed since those two great men walked the Earth, millions have grappled to follow in their footsteps, invariably falling short, usually far short - sometimes shorter than non-believers - and often enough at the expense of their "brothers" and "neighbors", as Malaysia can attest.