YeinJee's M'sian Voices

The remains of a 74-year-old man whose widow and seven children had no knowledge of his conversion to Islam was released on Thursday (Jan 24) to the state Islamic religious council for burial following a Syariah Court ruling. [Thestar]

Gan Eng Gor, or Amir Gan Abdullah, was deemed to have converted to Islam last July, according to the state Islamic religious council and his eldest son, who is also a Muslim.

Gan’s other family members however denied this, stating that the deceased had suffered a severe stroke in 2006 and was immobilized, mentally unsound and could not speak.

My condolences to the family. It is sad enough to lost a family member, and this entire saga has made life more difficult for the family members.

I guess the first question that needs to be answered is how Gan was converted at the first place. Does a converter required to have proper conscience to convert to Islam?

As far as I know, a person could be converted to become a Muslim by reading a declaration, something about Allah being the only God and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. I assumed in Malaysia, a religious council officer would need to be there when the declaration is made.

What else do we have beside a testimonial from a religious council officer that someone has converted to Islam? What would happen if that particular officer is a crook or has some agenda of his own… does that mean that the family would have no chance to challenge his one-sided words?

Sadly, this is not an issue of whether such cases are being referred to a Syariah Court or Civil Court… it is about a huge flaw in religious practices and the lack of governance to prevent any wrong doings among religious officers in our country.

It doesn’t matter if this particular case was judged at the Syariah Court or Civil Court; the Gan family would need to produce solid evidence that the deceased had no intention and/or capability to convert to Islam. If they could have produced that, I doubt the Syariah Court would be barbaric enough to ignore their plea.

On contrary, if they could not produce enough proof, a Civil Court would have produced the same ruling that the deceased was an Islam and to be buried as a Muslim, same as what the Syariah Court has produced.

Malaysia’s law makers need to work on finding a solution from preventing any wrong or unlawful conversion at the first place. It would be an uphill task, but it must be done; otherwise there will be more and more similar disputes, and these cases are not doing any good for our national unity at all.