Opinion: Why is it legal for Muslims to convert non-Muslims but illegal for non-Muslims to convert Muslims?

Opinion: Why is it legal for Muslims to convert non-Muslims but illegal for non-Muslims to convert Muslims?


4 Mar 2025 • 10:00 AM MYT



TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Focus M / Al Jazeera


A couple of days ago, a couple of foreign missionaries, likely Mormons, were found to be trying to spread their beliefs at a People’s Housing Programme (PPR) .


I believe they were Mormons, because the Mormon church of Malaysia was quick to disassociate the local Mormon church from the actions of these foreigners.


The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism, which is the loose umbrella group that speaks for the non-Muslims in Malaysia, always came out hard to denounce the actions of these foreign proselytisers. MCCBCHST went so far as to call for the pair to be deported and banned from returning to Malaysia.


Contrastingly however, when the Islamic preacher Zakir Naik openly gave a speech to persuade Muslims to convert the non-Muslims in Malaysia, or answer to their god in the afterlife for their lapse, the silence from the Muslim community was deafening.


Zakir, is also a foreigner, and what is more, he is a fugitive of the law, who has been given refuge in Malaysia because he is wanted by the authorities in his home countries for crimes ranging from money laundering to promoting hate speech.


Zakir also was given a gag order in 2019 by the police, to ban him from giving speeches in Malaysia, because his overzealousness in spreading his beliefs, was causing restlessness and anxiety to arise in the non-Muslim segment of the Malaysian population.


However, no one was asking Zakir to be deported back to his home country and banned from returning for openly seeking to convert those from the non-islamic persuasion to Islam. Not only did he not receive any rebuke, let alone punishment, it was the authorities that would later backtrack when pressed, and claim that the gag order given to Zakir in 2019 is no longer applicable.


Now if you were to ask yourself, why are there a different standards applied for the Mormon missionaries as compared to a Muslim missionary like Zakir, the answer will actually hearken back to the constitution.


Our constitution, the highest law in the country, explicitly prohibits the conversion Muslims to other religions, but is silent on the subject of the conversion of people of other faiths to Islam.


It is stated quite clearly in article 11 of the constitution, that State and federal law “may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam” (boleh mengawal atau menyekat pengembangan apa-apa doktrin atau kepercayaan agama di kalangan orang yang menganuti agama Islam), but nowhere does it say that the propagation of Islam to persons professing other religion is equally prohibited.


Now you may ask why did our constitution, the supreme and sacred law in the land, make this omission? Was it a deliberate decision or a result of an oversight?


Well, the answer to this question likely has to do with the nature and origin of our constitution itself.


You see, our constitution was not made by enlightened thinkers after pondering deep and long in the nature of human condition and conditions for their salvation.


Instead, it was chiefly made by colonial officers from the vestiges of a colonial empire in the dying days of its existence.


It is not a coincidence that none of the framers of the most important and sacred founding documents of Malaysia were Malaysians. Instead, our constitution, which originated from the Malayan constitution, was drafted by the the Reid commission, which was composed of a bunch of colonial officers from all over the British colonial empire, with names like Lord Reid (United Kingdom), Sir Ivor Jennings, (United Kingdom), Sir William McKell (Australia) , Hakim B. Malik (India) and Sheikh Hakim Halim bin Abdul Hamid ( Pakistan).


I, for one, certainly doubt that the reason why the framers of our constitution was made up entirely of colonial officers from other parts of the British colonies around the globe instead of local Malaysians was a coincidence or because Malaysians at the time did not have the capabilities of framing such an important document as a constitution. In my point of view, the reason that our constitution is made of colonial officers, is because our constitution was likely drafted to satisfy the requirement of our former colonial masters more than it was to serve the people of Malaysia.


You see, at the time that our constitution was drafted, the British Empire was in its sunset years. Although it was part of the alliance that won World War 2, it had suffered immensely in the years that the war had ensued. The global mood for decolonisation and independence would also cause communism to gain traction in many parts of the colonial nations, which sought to overthrow the colonial powers via violent and revolutionary means.


Being weakened, faced with uncooperative locals and facing the threat of violent overthrow by the communists, the British colonial empire had then decided to cut its losses, by granting most of its former colonies independence, with the intentions of protecting the British colonial interest in their former colonial territories through neo-colonialism.


Our constitution is thus largely a hodge-podge job, created at the last minute by cutting-and-pasting from multiple sources , by a cohort of people who had loyally served the colonial empire all over the globe and had zero experience living in malaysia , for the purpose of crafting a compromise, that will allow the British to retreat from its colonies and lick its wounds in peace, while securing its prospects and interest in its former colonies after when they are gone.


Concepts such as the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy were introduced by our constitution into our way of life, not because the British wanted us to have a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. If the British wanted us to be as free and dignified, they wouldn’t have waited until the tail end of their rule to introduce their concept of governance to us. The British likely introduced such concepts as parliamentary democracy into our way of life only before it left, because that was its way of ensuring that it could still influence us and secure its interest in our new nation, and prevent the influence of communism from taking hold.


While our founding fathers did negotiate with our former colonial masters for the interest of our people, they probably only did so as how we would bargain with a street vendor.


When you bargain with a street vendor, the street vendor will start the negotiation by asking for a 100 ringgit. You will counter him with an offer of 20. He will then make a fuss about your offer before countering you again with 80. You will demur and say that you will give him no more than 40, and he will finally concede by saying that he will give it to you for 45.


When the bargaining is done, you will leave satisfied, thinking that you got the better deal because you were willing to pay 80 for what you want, while the street vendor will likely also think that he got the better of you, because he was willing to give you what you wanted for 20.


In other words, our sacred and supreme constitution is likely a document that was crafted with the mindset of a street bargain.


Rather than enlightened ideas that were distilled from thousands of years of human wisdom, our constitution can more aptly be described as a bargain, that all the stakeholders agreed to, because they assumed that they got a better deal, at the expense of the other stakeholders involved.


While we might not know what exactly did the non-Muslim bargainers got for the non-Muslim population and why they thought they had gotten a better deal, we know that this is likely how they thought, because this is the only explanation as to why our constitution has such obviously lopsided arrangement as prohibiting the conversions of Muslims into non-Muslim religion, while tacitly allowing for the conversion of non-Muslims into Islam.


If I were to guess, I will guess that they probably thought that getting jus soli citizenship rights for the largely immigrant non-Muslim population in return for conceding the lopsided religious conversion law was a great compromise, so they just went with it, without really giving too much thought about the implications of their concession to future generations.


So in conclusion, the next time that we non-Muslims feel aggrieved that we are being treated unfairly on account of such lopsided laws as the religious conversion laws, we should know that the reason why this is the case, is because our nation was founded on the basis of bargaining, rather than because it was created by a deep an enlightened longing, to create a nation that will provide the best possible conditions for humanity to reach its highest potential.


If we are a product of enlightenment, then we can talk about what is right, fair, good, meaningful and worthwhile.


But considering that we are likely just the product of a bargain, we should just be satisfied with what we got, and not compare what we got with what the people that we bargained with got. We should just accept that in bargaining, things will never be equal or fair. You just have to take what you got and learn to be happy with what you have, even if the other side is the one that got the better deal.