High Court declares Selangor-born woman ‘not a Muslim’, says her unilateral conversion to Islam at age four invalid
The High Court decided that the civil courts was the right place for D to go to as it has the powers to decide on cases involving those who were never a Muslim, and decided that D had the legal standing to file this lawsuit and was not someone who filed repeated lawsuits without merit. — Picture by Miera Zulyana
KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 — The High Court has declared a 35-year-old woman — born in Selangor to a Hindu father and an initially Buddhist mother — to be not a person professing the religion of Islam, ruling that her unilateral conversion to Islam at the age of four by her Muslim convert mother was invalid from the start.
The Selangor-born woman had said her case is not about apostasy or leaving the faith of Islam, but was instead about her never being a Muslim in the first place.
This woman, identified only as D to protect her privacy, was born in November 1986 to a non-Muslim couple married under civil laws via the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976. Her late father was of Indian ethnicity, while her mother is of Chinese ethnicity.
D will be turning 36 this year. She has spent the last eight years going to the courts to seek a declaration that she is not a Muslim, in order to have the National Registration Department (NRD) remove the word “Islam” from her identity card.
The facts in this case
Based on court documents sighted by Malay Mail, the mother in an affidavit said D was raised as a Hindu, with D continuing to live with the mother after the latter separated from the Hindu husband in around 1991.
The initially Buddhist mother said she decided to convert to Islam while waiting for the divorce proceedings with her initial husband to be concluded, as she intended to marry a Muslim man after the divorce.
On May 17, 1991 which was when D was months away from turning five, the mother went to the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) with the child.
The mother said she was told by a Jais officer that D would have to be converted to Islam to ensure that she has continued custody of the child, adding that the officer had also said D would be able to choose her religion once she turned 18.
The mother said she uttered the Kalimah Syahadah twice — or the declaration of belief for Islam — adding that her child D did not utter this and was unaware and did not understand what was happening.
In that same year, the mother received her conversion card that recorded her as having converted to Islam.
Jais on August 28, 1993 issued to D — who was just months away from turning seven years old — a conversion card, which recorded her as having been converted on May 17, 1991. This conversion card retained D’s original name but replaced her father’s name with the words “binti Abdullah” (commonly given in Malaysia for situations such as converted Muslims).
The mother’s divorce with D’s father was finalised in 1992, and the High Court also granted the mother care and custody of the child. D then continued living with her mother, including after the mother married a Muslim man in 1993.
The mother said she did not inform D’s father about the child’s purported conversion and that he died in 1996, also telling the court in the affidavit that D continued to practise the Hindu religion and did not practise or profess the religion of Islam while staying with the mother.
In her affidavit, D herself said her mother and her stepfather allowed her to continue to practise and profess the Hindu religion, saying she frequently visited her father’s family and prayed in Hindu temples and celebrated Hindu festivals with them, and that she never professed the religion of Islam or adopted Islamic beliefs such as only eating halal food or pray according to the Muslim faith.
D explained that she wanted to remove the label “Islam” on her identity card as she never professed the religion of Islam, and around 2011 (which was when she was already an adult) decided to do so but said her application was rejected by the NRD.
Having read news reports of the Federal Court’s 2007 decision in the case of Lina Joy who was also seeking to remove the word “Islam” from her identity card, D said she then decided to go to the Shariah courts. D said she did not know then that the Shariah courts have no jurisdiction over her.
[In the Lina Joy case, a Malay woman named Azlina Jailani who had renounced Islam succeeded — on her second attempt — in getting the NRD to change her name on the identity card, but found that the new identity card carried the word “Islam” and her original name on the reverse side.
This came after a change in government regulations in 2000 — without her knowledge — that was made to apply retrospectively to her October 1999 application for a new identity card, with the new rule requiring Muslims to have their religion printed on their identity cards. In her application form, she had stated her religion to be Christianity.
Forced to make a third application in January 2000 to seek the removal of the word “Islam” and her original name from the identity card, the NRD rejected this by saying Lina had to provide a Shariah court order that stated her as having renounced Islam.
Lina challenged this via a lawsuit filed in the civil courts, but the High Court in 2001 and the Court of Appeal in 2005 in a majority decision rejected her bids.
The Federal Court in a majority decision by two judges on May 30, 2007 also rejected Lina’s challenge by saying that the NRD was entitled to impose the requirement of having a Shariah court order of apostasy in order to delete the word “Islam” from an identity card and that the NRD had correctly construed its powers under government regulations when imposing this requirement. The other judge on the panel had disagreed and said Lina should be entitled to have an identity card without the word “Islam”.]
As for D, she had on December 12, 2013 filed a lawsuit in the Shariah High Court in Kuala Lumpur — as she was living there then — to seek a declaration that she is not a Muslim. The Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council (Maiwp), which was named as respondent in D’s lawsuit, then filed a counterclaim for her to be sent for counselling.
The Shariah High Court on April 7, 2014 ordered her to attend “counselling” by the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) twice a week for a four-month period (as it adopted the procedure in Negri Sembilan laws of having a person intending to renounce Islam to undergo counselling first to reconsider Islam as their religion before the Shariah court decides on their renunciation application, if that person does not “repent” as advised). D said she had maintained at the end of several counselling sessions that she was not a person professing Islam.
The Shariah High Court on July 20, 2017 rejected D’s application to be declared a non-Muslim, with the Shariah judge giving the opinion that she is clearly a Muslim as her identity documents show her religion to be Islam and as her name is a name commonly used by Muslims.
D then filed an appeal on August 1, 2017 to the Shariah Court of Appeal — which dismissed her appeal more than three years later on January 12, 2021. A three-judge panel in this case also concluded D is a Muslim, after having highlighted various points such as D’s identity card containing the word “Islam” and asserting that the records showed that she was allegedly validly converted to Muslim and with her conversion card officially registered (in the year when she was aged seven).
KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 — The High Court has declared a 35-year-old woman — born in Selangor to a Hindu father and an initially Buddhist mother — to be not a person professing the religion of Islam, ruling that her unilateral conversion to Islam at the age of four by her Muslim convert mother was invalid from the start.
The Selangor-born woman had said her case is not about apostasy or leaving the faith of Islam, but was instead about her never being a Muslim in the first place.
This woman, identified only as D to protect her privacy, was born in November 1986 to a non-Muslim couple married under civil laws via the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976. Her late father was of Indian ethnicity, while her mother is of Chinese ethnicity.
D will be turning 36 this year. She has spent the last eight years going to the courts to seek a declaration that she is not a Muslim, in order to have the National Registration Department (NRD) remove the word “Islam” from her identity card.
The facts in this case
Based on court documents sighted by Malay Mail, the mother in an affidavit said D was raised as a Hindu, with D continuing to live with the mother after the latter separated from the Hindu husband in around 1991.
The initially Buddhist mother said she decided to convert to Islam while waiting for the divorce proceedings with her initial husband to be concluded, as she intended to marry a Muslim man after the divorce.
On May 17, 1991 which was when D was months away from turning five, the mother went to the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) with the child.
The mother said she was told by a Jais officer that D would have to be converted to Islam to ensure that she has continued custody of the child, adding that the officer had also said D would be able to choose her religion once she turned 18.
The mother said she uttered the Kalimah Syahadah twice — or the declaration of belief for Islam — adding that her child D did not utter this and was unaware and did not understand what was happening.
In that same year, the mother received her conversion card that recorded her as having converted to Islam.
Jais on August 28, 1993 issued to D — who was just months away from turning seven years old — a conversion card, which recorded her as having been converted on May 17, 1991. This conversion card retained D’s original name but replaced her father’s name with the words “binti Abdullah” (commonly given in Malaysia for situations such as converted Muslims).
The mother’s divorce with D’s father was finalised in 1992, and the High Court also granted the mother care and custody of the child. D then continued living with her mother, including after the mother married a Muslim man in 1993.
The mother said she did not inform D’s father about the child’s purported conversion and that he died in 1996, also telling the court in the affidavit that D continued to practise the Hindu religion and did not practise or profess the religion of Islam while staying with the mother.
In her affidavit, D herself said her mother and her stepfather allowed her to continue to practise and profess the Hindu religion, saying she frequently visited her father’s family and prayed in Hindu temples and celebrated Hindu festivals with them, and that she never professed the religion of Islam or adopted Islamic beliefs such as only eating halal food or pray according to the Muslim faith.
D explained that she wanted to remove the label “Islam” on her identity card as she never professed the religion of Islam, and around 2011 (which was when she was already an adult) decided to do so but said her application was rejected by the NRD.
Having read news reports of the Federal Court’s 2007 decision in the case of Lina Joy who was also seeking to remove the word “Islam” from her identity card, D said she then decided to go to the Shariah courts. D said she did not know then that the Shariah courts have no jurisdiction over her.
[In the Lina Joy case, a Malay woman named Azlina Jailani who had renounced Islam succeeded — on her second attempt — in getting the NRD to change her name on the identity card, but found that the new identity card carried the word “Islam” and her original name on the reverse side.
This came after a change in government regulations in 2000 — without her knowledge — that was made to apply retrospectively to her October 1999 application for a new identity card, with the new rule requiring Muslims to have their religion printed on their identity cards. In her application form, she had stated her religion to be Christianity.
Forced to make a third application in January 2000 to seek the removal of the word “Islam” and her original name from the identity card, the NRD rejected this by saying Lina had to provide a Shariah court order that stated her as having renounced Islam.
Lina challenged this via a lawsuit filed in the civil courts, but the High Court in 2001 and the Court of Appeal in 2005 in a majority decision rejected her bids.
The Federal Court in a majority decision by two judges on May 30, 2007 also rejected Lina’s challenge by saying that the NRD was entitled to impose the requirement of having a Shariah court order of apostasy in order to delete the word “Islam” from an identity card and that the NRD had correctly construed its powers under government regulations when imposing this requirement. The other judge on the panel had disagreed and said Lina should be entitled to have an identity card without the word “Islam”.]
As for D, she had on December 12, 2013 filed a lawsuit in the Shariah High Court in Kuala Lumpur — as she was living there then — to seek a declaration that she is not a Muslim. The Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council (Maiwp), which was named as respondent in D’s lawsuit, then filed a counterclaim for her to be sent for counselling.
The Shariah High Court on April 7, 2014 ordered her to attend “counselling” by the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) twice a week for a four-month period (as it adopted the procedure in Negri Sembilan laws of having a person intending to renounce Islam to undergo counselling first to reconsider Islam as their religion before the Shariah court decides on their renunciation application, if that person does not “repent” as advised). D said she had maintained at the end of several counselling sessions that she was not a person professing Islam.
The Shariah High Court on July 20, 2017 rejected D’s application to be declared a non-Muslim, with the Shariah judge giving the opinion that she is clearly a Muslim as her identity documents show her religion to be Islam and as her name is a name commonly used by Muslims.
D then filed an appeal on August 1, 2017 to the Shariah Court of Appeal — which dismissed her appeal more than three years later on January 12, 2021. A three-judge panel in this case also concluded D is a Muslim, after having highlighted various points such as D’s identity card containing the word “Islam” and asserting that the records showed that she was allegedly validly converted to Muslim and with her conversion card officially registered (in the year when she was aged seven).
D has spent the last eight years going to the courts to seek a declaration that she is not a Muslim, in order to have the National Registration Department remove the word 'Islam' from her identity card. — Picture by Shafwan Zaidon
The legal struggle continues
Having started her journey at the age of 25 in 2011 to have her identity card reflect her religious identity to be non-Muslim, D had gone through a fruitless seven-year-long process from age 27 to 34 in her bid to obtain a confirmation from the Shariah courts that she is not a Muslim.
D then turned to the civil courts, saying in court papers that the Shariah courts actually did not have any jurisdiction over her to begin with, as her purported conversion without both parents’ consent was illegal and invalid and as she was never a person professing the religion of Islam. She also explained that she did not know which courts’ jurisdiction applied to her when she filed her initial case in the Shariah courts.
On May 10, 2021, D filed a lawsuit via originating summons in the civil High Court in Shah Alam, naming the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) and the Selangor state government as the two respondents.
In this lawsuit filed in the civil High Court, D sought for a court declaration that she is “not a person professing the religion of Islam”, listing the reasons as including the consent of her father never being obtained for her conversion to Islam as a child and having never uttered the kalimah syahadah.
The other reasons she listed were that the consent of both her father and mother were required for any conversion to take place, and her assertion that she was born a Hindu and had only professed and practised the Hindu religion at all times.
What the High Court decided
The High Court in Shah Alam on October 12, 2021 heard D’s lawsuit where she was represented by lawyers Surendra Ananth and Nurul Hidayah Mohd Azmi, while Mais was represented by Majdah Muda and the Selangor state government represented by assistant state legal adviser Nur Irmawatie Daud and Husna Abdul Halim.
On December 21, 2021, the High Court granted D’s application for a declaration that she is not a person professing the religion of Islam, and dismissed Mais’ counterclaim which had sought to declare D a vexatious litigant.
The legal struggle continues
Having started her journey at the age of 25 in 2011 to have her identity card reflect her religious identity to be non-Muslim, D had gone through a fruitless seven-year-long process from age 27 to 34 in her bid to obtain a confirmation from the Shariah courts that she is not a Muslim.
D then turned to the civil courts, saying in court papers that the Shariah courts actually did not have any jurisdiction over her to begin with, as her purported conversion without both parents’ consent was illegal and invalid and as she was never a person professing the religion of Islam. She also explained that she did not know which courts’ jurisdiction applied to her when she filed her initial case in the Shariah courts.
On May 10, 2021, D filed a lawsuit via originating summons in the civil High Court in Shah Alam, naming the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) and the Selangor state government as the two respondents.
In this lawsuit filed in the civil High Court, D sought for a court declaration that she is “not a person professing the religion of Islam”, listing the reasons as including the consent of her father never being obtained for her conversion to Islam as a child and having never uttered the kalimah syahadah.
The other reasons she listed were that the consent of both her father and mother were required for any conversion to take place, and her assertion that she was born a Hindu and had only professed and practised the Hindu religion at all times.
What the High Court decided
The High Court in Shah Alam on October 12, 2021 heard D’s lawsuit where she was represented by lawyers Surendra Ananth and Nurul Hidayah Mohd Azmi, while Mais was represented by Majdah Muda and the Selangor state government represented by assistant state legal adviser Nur Irmawatie Daud and Husna Abdul Halim.
On December 21, 2021, the High Court granted D’s application for a declaration that she is not a person professing the religion of Islam, and dismissed Mais’ counterclaim which had sought to declare D a vexatious litigant.
1. I thought there is no compulsion in islam. What happened? Die, die cannot escape from islam's clutches?
ReplyDelete2. Muslims like to express, inshallah (God Willing). So inshallah, if God wants her to be a muslim, she would willingly recite the sahadah. Meantime, leave her alone. I say to these muslim bigots "Have more faith in your Allah".
Don't let the blardy Northern state Lebai mufti know who she is. Will harass non stop to show his Muslim credentials.
ReplyDelete