It seems to The Islamoholic that the issue of apostasy, with a focus in this country, does not seem to ever end. I am pretty sure that such cases are not isolated, it is just that it was never blown out of proportion like it has today. I have personally heard of stories of how Muslim women, usually from the Indian Muslim community, apostatise to Hinduism. I know that a high number of Muslim women apostatise to Christianity in order to marry Christian men.
Anyway, that is not the point.
Al-Jazeera recently featured a segment on their show about the case of Siti Fatimah, a Muslim woman who apostatised to Hinduism and assumed the name Revathi. You can see the video below.
Here we have in the show the Liberal Islam camp championing the issue as though it is a human rights one. When I saw that, I remarked to myself, “Gosh, that b**h Zainah Anwar, she sure does not know when to shut up, does she?” It boggles the mind as to why these Liberal Islam heretics seem to believe that the Western concept of human rights should trump Islamic laws and the hadiths of the Prophet (P). After all, the issue here is about apostasy, and not about custodianship of the child.
Personal note: While I do not think that putting the apostate into rehab is going to do any good (and in that respect, the religious authorities sure are doing a bad job out of it…hello, has anyone thought of dumping Lina Joy into the rehab centre as well?), I have to admit that due to the lack of legislature on apostasy from Islam in this country, that is the best that the religious authorities can do. Establishing the rehab centre for apostates and deviant practitioners is after all pretty much pushing the limits of the law where the matter is concerned. I cannot say that I am for this practice but neither am I against it.
The crux of the matter remains that Siti Fatimah, a Muslim, chose to apostatise from Islam and converted to Hinduism, married a Hindu man (who most likely seduced her into doing this) and this marriage is, by Islamic law, invalid. Therefore the authorities decided to act on the matter and place the woman at the rehab centre in Ulu Yam while the daughter comes under the custody of Siti Fatimah’s mother (and the child’s grandmother). That is the whole story, as I understand it.
However the Liberal Islam folks are playing up the issue and stoking confusion among the non-Muslims, harping on the issue of the child being separated from the mother, how heart-wrenching it is, etc. Such silly arguments are red herring arguments, they sidestep the issue and blurred the fact that Siti Fatimah is an apostate, she is a criminal under Islamic law. I trust that the wisdom of the authorities would not allow the poor child to be abandoned and left for without care, although I do question the way this was handled.
In any case, it is of no business to the non-Muslim to be commenting about the issue in the first place. Let the Shariah court decide on the matter, it is perfectly within their jurisdiction. If anyone is not happy with their decision, they can contest it. End of the story.
They succeeded in Turkey but I will be damned if they will succeed in Malaysia. In Turkey the secularists had wiped out all vestiges of Islam from public space and society, preferring instead to rely on a kufaar way of life. This is what will happen to Malaysia if Muslims remain apathic and allow them to have their way.
And I say to them: over my dead body.