FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

SEMESTER III, SESSION 2012/2013

DAWAH & COMMUNICATION

AAA 1013
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
APOSTASY IN MALAYSIA

GROUP MEMBERS :
ZULFADLY BIN ZAKARIA (1112321)
MARTINA BINTI ALI (1110759)
EMMY AZURA BINTI AHMAD SADALI (1112324)
NUR RUSYDA BINTI MOHAMAD RAFEE (1112332)
LECTURER : MISS NOOR AMANI MOHAMED HUSSIN
DATE SUBMISSION : 19/12/2012

CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PROBLEM STATEMENT

DEFINITION & VIEWS OF APOSTASY

CASE

FACTORS LEADING TO APOSTASY

o PREACHERS WEAKNESSES
o SECULARISM
o CHRISTIANIZATION MISSIONARY

THE ROLE OF DAIE IN SOLVING APOSTASY ISSUE

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful to

Allah SWT and His

Messenger Muhammad SAW, we

successfully finished the task given. First and foremost, we would like to
thank to our lecturer and our supervisor of this task, Dr Solah Mohamad
Zaki and Miss Noor Amani Mohamed Hussin for the valuable guidance and
advice. They inspired us greatly to work in this task. Their willingness to
motivate us contributed tremendously to our task. We also would like to
thank them for givong us some example and views that related to the
task. Besides, we would like to thank the authority of Islamic Science
University of Malaysia (USIM) for providing us with a good environment
and facilities to complete this project. Finally, an honorable mention goes
to our families and friends for their understandings and supports on us in
completing this project. Without helps of the particular that mentioned
above, we would face many difficulties while doing the topic chosen which
entitled Apostasy in Malaysia.

INTRODUCTION
For Dawah and Communication group project, we have decided to choose the topic about
apostasy. We narrowed the range of our research to the Malaysia context only as we want to
find the real situation in our country.
Apostasy in Islam is the rejection in word or deed of one's former religion by a person who
was previously a follower of Islam. So, in our group project we included the views about it
and we mentioned the cases that had happened in Malaysia. We also agreed to discover the
factors that lead to apostasy because we want to know the real reasons that contribute to the
increasing number of Muslims facing this problem. Last but not least, we tried to come out
with the solution to this issue.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Apostasy cases in Malaysia can be said as a result of several major factors. They may
distinctively vary with each other but inconspicuously turned out to be resulting in the main
contributing factors that explains why we have so many apostates today in Malaysia, and
counting. For example the practice of a secular system in so many ways in our country slowly
breeds doubt to unaware, lack of Islamic exposure Muslims out there, thus later on triggers
the idea of converting to the other religion.

DEFINITION & VIEWS OF APOSTASY

Apostasy in Islam is usually defined as the rejection in word or deed of one's former religion
by a person who was previously a Muslim.
Al-Quran verse that include about apostasy
This is some of the verses of Quran that describes the prohibition from Allah to the Muslim,
from deviating towards Islam.
Or do you intend to ask your Messenger as Moses was asked before? And whoever
exchanges faith for disbelief has certainly strayed from the soundness of the way. (AlBaqarah 2:108)
They ask you about the sacred month - about fighting therein. Say, "Fighting therein is
great [sin], but averting [people] from the way of Allah and disbelief in Him and
[preventing access to] al-Masjid al-Haram and the expulsion of its people therefrom
are greater [evil] in the sight of Allah . And fitnah is greater than killing." And they
will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion if they are able.
And whoever of you reverts from his religion [to disbelief] and dies while he is a
disbeliever - for those, their deeds have become worthless in this world and the
Hereafter, and those are the companions of the Fire, they will abide therein eternally.
(Al-Baqarah 2:217)
Whoever disbelieves in Allah after his belief... except for one who is forced [to
renounce his religion] while his heart is secure in faith. But those who [willingly]
open their breasts to disbelief, upon them is wrath from Allah , and for them is a great
punishment; (An-Nahl 16:106)
And whoever desires other than Islam as religion - never will it be accepted from him,
and he, in the Hereafter, will be among the losers. (Al-Imran 3:85)
From all the verse of Quran above, we can conclude that Allah wrath for those who are
apostate in Islam religion.

Hadith about apostasy

In hadith stated here, its explain that the punishment for those who are apostate from Allah
religions.
1 ) Narrated 'Abdullah:
Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be
worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In
Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who
reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims."
Sahih Bukhari 9:83:17
2 ) Narrated 'Ikrima:
Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event,
reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as
Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I
would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his
Islamic religion, then kill him.'"
Sahih Bukhari 9:84:57

By referring to the hadith, we can conclude that the punishment for those who are
apostate is they should be killed.

CASE
The Lina Joy case1
Lina Joy was born in Malaysia into a Muslim family. At birth, she was given the name
Azalina binti Jailani. In 1998, however, she decided to convert to Christianity. She announced
her intention of marrying a Christian man. Under the Malaysian Law Reform (Marriage and
Divorce) Act 1976, she would not be able to contract such a marriage unless her new status as
a non-Muslim was recognised.
For these reasons, Azalina applied to the Malaysian National Registration Department (the
NRD) to change her name on her identity card to a Christian name. She was successful in
having the name changed to Lina Joy. However, in the year 2000, amendments, which came
into force retrospectively, were made to the National Regulations. The amendments required
that the identity cards of Muslims should state their religion. Therefore, when Lina Joy
received her new identity card, reflecting the change of her name, the word Islam still
appeared on her card. This defeated the purpose of applying for a change of name.
Effectively, it stood as a barrier to her marriage.
Lina Joy therefore applied to the NRD in 2000 to have the word Islam removed from her
identity card. The NRD rejected her application.
Lina Joy contested the policy of the NRD in the High Court of Malaysia. She raised the
administrative law point that, in law, the National Regulations did not, and should not, require
an order or certificate of apostasy. More importantly, she argued that the NRDs insistence on
its policy infringed her right to freedom of religion under the Malaysian Constitution.

1
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/speeches/fundamental_human_rights_and_religi
ous_apostasy.html

FACTORS LEADING TO APOSTASY

Were highlighting six identifiable major factors why this issue has failed to be curbed. They
are :
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)

Doesnt have a strong Islamic background

The spread of poverty and need of money
Uncensored streams of media
Religious institution problems
The practice of secularism
Christianization Missionary

1. Doesnt have a strong Islamic background

This might be not noticeable for most people who take Islamic education for granted, but the
effects are gravely serious.
As knowledge about Islam should be implemented from childhood times, the
ignorance of some unaware parents out there about this matter shall become the reason why
their children might someday turn out to question Islam and have some doubts about their
faith.
Some of these kind of parents does not give a serious attention to Islamic education to
their children, such as didnt send them to al-Quran recitation classes, fardhu ain classes etc.
They might think that those are not really important classes, or just prioritizing on the other
curricular classes, but as a children, those classes are crucial to feed themselves with Islamic
education and strengthen their faith about what are they believe in.
For example, the class of al-Quran recitation or learning how to read al-Quran is the
extremely important to be given to children because that would be their guide for the rest of
their lives as a devoted Muslim. Without it, chances are they will grow up to be a Muslim
with a vacant heart. They have nothing to hold their faith in their hearts, thus would probably
resulting in the idea of doubting Islam.
Other than that, those unaware parents might have sent their children to non-Islamic
schools, instead of Islamic schools. This is also a very unwise decision because by not having
their children schooled in a Islamic school, their children will grow up in a non-Islamic
environment, and by time they will feel that they are more comfortable to be like that. An
Islamic environment, by which, means that an environment where the implementation of
Islam and Islamic values are there such as a school with surau, Islamic classes and lectures,

solat jamaah, religious talks etc, is really important to the children for the sake of
strengthening their Islamic roots.

2. The spread of poverty and need of money

We cannot deny the fact that there are Muslims out there that are born and raised in a
poor condition. Some of them are really poor and desperate; they couldnt even afford to buy
food or to have a shelter.
Regarding that, there exists organisations that claim that the sole purpose of their
groups are to help those homeless, unemployed and poor people and provide them with their
basic necessity like food, shelter etc. But God knows some of them are not genuinely that
decent; there lies an evil plan behind that lures behind the mission, which is to approach them
Muslim and slowly guide that to deviate from Islam.
Those organizations are not a lie, for it is really happening out there. Particularly,
these are organisations that stands under the church, or a Christian missionaries movement, in
which their one and only purpose is to approach Muslims and lure them to convert and
become a Christian. These movements, discreetly moving under the name of charity cases
and to help those who are needy, but truthfully aims to lure the unfortunate Muslims to
fulfilling their worldly needs at the cost of their Islamic faith.
These organizations provide shelters for them, food and even money to start a
business, but in return they are obligated to follow certain courses that will slowly deviate
them from Islamic teachings.
In shelter houses things will be much easier for them to accomplish what they desire,
because nobody would ever know what activities that they run inside there, or what are the
things that they do the vulnerable Muslims.

3. Uncensored streams of media

Medias are one of the most powerful tools that can be effectively used to influence
people. In light of this IT age, there are tonnes of media out there, such as TV, radios, social
networking, video streaming, chat forums, Internet etc., but were going to narrow down the
scope and focus to the effect of Internet.
In Malaysia, Internet censorship for religious matters is not applied, and as a result
some irresponsible people out there takes advantage of the it and abuse it to spread false
words to Muslim in Malaysia.
Take a good look into one of the most popular Internet social networking in the world,
Facebook. Facebook has become a medium for some people to insult Islam and gather exMuslims, or apostates in Malaysia via groups. Vulnerable Muslims such as adolescent and

teenagers or those who can be easily influenced are exposed to these threats, and they might
even fall for it.
As an example, there is a Facebook group named Ex-Muslims in Malaysia that have
thousands of followers and growing, gather around and talk about their new lives as a nonMuslim. Some of them even posted statements that are extremely blasphemous, such as the
insult to Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) etc. These will somehow become a medium to recruit
or to find vulnerable Muslims to be brainwashed, so that they will convert to the other
religion.
Other than that, there are also websites that functions as the groups in Facebook, that
is to gather all the ex-Muslims in Malaysia, and to find more members. One of the example is
http://apostatesinmalaysia.wordpress.com/

Figure 1 : The webpage of the website. You can see that it is openly states that it offers a
safe place for those who trapped in Islam in Malaysia

4. Religious institution problems

Limitations of the state religious authorities and Syariah courts and long duration in
order to address apostate problems and other problems as well lead to the apostasy. Indeed
they have their own authority however they have certain limitation due to the Malaysias
rules whos uphold the constitutions of Malaysia more than the other rules. If the rules are
against to the federal constitutions indirectly it will be cancelled. Islam position as the official
religion and its special position in Malaysia should be taken into consideration in order to
overcome apostate problem especially the issue about the right to freedom of religious.
Besides, the other religious institutions should care about the apostate issue. JAWI, JAIS,
JAKIM and all the religious institutions should conduct monitoring against NGO-NGO
Christian whos actively move to the Malay teenagers to join them and apostate.

5. The practice of secularism

Secularism is defined as principle of separation of government institutions, and the
persons mandated to represent the State, from religious institutions and religious dignitaries.
In the other words, secularism is a system that applies that Islamic education, or
matters and the other worldly matters should be put apart. A well example of the practice of
secularism in Malaysia is the system of curriculum in schools, the fine line between SMK(A)
and SMK and the issue of court system in Malaysia that is separated into two; Syariah Court
and Civil Court. But in our case we are going to take a look into the system of schools in
Malaysia.
In primary schools Islamic knowledge subjects such as Fardhu Ain, is not taken as the
subject that is obligatory, as the other subjects such as Science, Mathematics and English
Language. This, though is not the issue, but it will makes the student to become less
conscientious in studying those subjects and more inclined to focus on the other subjects.
In the other curriculum subjects in schools, the element of Islam is not stated and not
implemented at all. For instance, take a look into the Science text book. Science in schools
basically are all about the fundamental knowledge about the things around us; air and what it
contains, night and day phenomenon, the formation of rains etc., and it states the step-by-step
details about the processes that triggers all the phenomenon. By this the children would just
see that all those things would only relate to Science, and have nothing to do with Islam.
They would only think that Science and Islam are fully apart.
This are obviously violating the fact that the Science is actually in Islam itself, and
there are a lot of verses in the Holy al-Quran that stated about Science and all the processes,
but in a secular way of school, those things would remain untold. The children would then,
ponder into questions regarding Islam and Science like, How are Islam supposed to be right
all the way if it only applies to some of the things but not Science?

5. Christianization Missionary
Nowadays, problem of apostasy that happened to the Muslim in Malaysia
become worse. What is sad is that most affected are the teenagers who
are less educated religious, although some of them were supplied little
knowledge of the religion, but it cannot defenses them from be a victim of
apostasy. Based on research, inter-faith choice to be adopted by the
Malays (apostasy to another religion) is Christianity, Hinduism and
Buddhism, in which Christian religion is the religion of the most active
compared with other religions because it involves the movement
organized by international missionaries, while apostasy to Hinduism and
Buddhism only through a marriage and romance at random.

History has showed how Christianization evolution in Malaya since 1511

AD during Portuguese colonialism. If we look at Kota Melaka we will find
there are a lot of churches are painted red. That is a cornerstone of
Christianity in Malaysia. In Malacca Town there is a grave late archbishop
of Malacca stands proudly in Afamosa. However, the process of
Christianization in Malaya less successful until Malaya's independence in
1957 AD. But right now, Christianization come back to influence more
Muslim to joined their religion.
Today Islamic generation not provided a solid shield of faith, more Islamic
teenagers more constrained western culture. This phenomenon is used by
Christian preacher to attract Muslim teenager apostasy. Based from
observation, many people claimed themselves as a Muslim but they do
not practice their attitude and behavior as a Muslims. In effect, the faith of
Muslims started to collapse.
Bernama report quoted from the magazine The Minaret issue Islamic
Center California preacher say make Malaysia one of the target countries
for a propaganda movement called "Window 10/40", as Malaysia is one of
the country lies between latitudes 10 and 40 on the map the world
(source: Daily News, Feb. 4, 1997).
Even in an Utusan Malaysia report dated February 3, 1997, the Johor
Islamic Religious Department in conjunction with the Ministry of Interior
had seized 250 titles of books on Christian doctrine in the Malay
language. These books use titles like Temple, Divine Revelation and
Identifying messenger. At first glance the title, the title seemed Islamic
religious books, this is one of their tactics to try to attract Muslims to read
these books.

This figure showed the two sectional Bible (Biblical), from the book of
Exodus (Exodus) and clause 3 of the book 'Ezekiel' (Ezekiel) clause
2. Scripture (Bible) uses the Arabic terminology such as "Allah" as the
name of the Lord, "priests" to priests and several other terms such as

"prophet", "angel" and others. These terms can actually confuse the
Muslims. Bible was published by 'The Bible Society of Malaysia' postal
address. 2, Jalan SS 20/10, Damansara Kim, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Darul Ehsan
There are a few ways that used by Christian preacher to preaching
Muslims. The way is interview, the preacher will interview Muslim people
and their usually focus on job seekers. Preachers will spend eating and
inviting place to stay also make promise to give a job. After that, the
preachers gently invited to be cross prayer. After prayer, the poor Muslims
will be given a black water (holy water). After 1 week they cannot hear
Azan and read Alfatihah. The Holy water is peculiar to Muslims.

THE ROLE OF DAIE IN SOLVING APOSTASY ISSUE

Spread the true words of Islam

The preachers must tell the society that Islam is rahmatan lil alamin which means
Islam is the religion for all range of people. Islam is not for pious person only and
everybody can practice Islam. They also have to state Islam is the religion that
provides forgiveness to Muslims even they committed the sins so many times. This is
because Muslims have Allahs Love and Kindness.

Stop judging people

Daie should advise people and become the role model by not simply judge people
from their action. Even though ones had committed a huge sin like murdering people
or adultery, the preacher cannot labeled them as kafir or anything else.

Allow people to ask and think

In order to make people embrace Islam with clear understanding the preachers need to
allow them to ask and think what they learn. The common saying that the faith will be
faded away if we ask a lot must be eliminated when spreading Islam. When people are
allowed to keep asking and thinking they will understand and closer to God as stated
in Holy Quran.

Creative dawah
Dawah through media such internet, newspapers, magazines, television and radio is
believes to give a huge impact to people. This is due to the close bonding between

society and the media. Media is said to have the power of information that is the right
to inform, to tell stories and to communicate between the producers and audiences
without limits.2

Help the poor

By improving the zakat institution poor in distributing the money to poor will help to
control the apostasy issue as poverty and need of money are some of the factors
leading to it.

Overcome the bureaucracy problem

The court cases have to be settled quickly. The long period of solving the case makes
people far away from religion. Besides, the application of zakat should be ease to
apply.

CONCLUSION
As the conclusion, preachers should do a lot of work to spread the values of Islam by
overcome the internal problems. If Christians and Jews can work very hard to spread their
religion, why the Muslim preachers always accuse and blame others in this issue. We cannot
blame them for walking too fast as we are the one who walking slowly.

REFERENCES

Al-Quran

Lemire, S., Article : ISIM 20 Apostasy and Islamic Civil Society in Malaysia, Leiden
University

C. K. Wang , Religion And The Judiciary In Malaysia,Charleston,2001

Mohd Aizam MasOd, Apostasy Is Not Human Rights, Aqidah Division,Jakim

Research Department

Marina Munira Abdul Mutalib, The Nature Of Islamic Da'wah And Christian Mission
In A Multi-Religious Society - A Comparative Study In The Malaysian
Context22,2004, University of Brimingham

Farhan bt Yusuf, The Propagation of Dakwah in Multimedia Era, 2004, Islamic

Science University of Malaysia

Aminah bt Yusof, The Role of Electronic Media In Spreading Islamic Da'wah; A Case
Study At Kuala Lumpur, 2004, Islamic Science University of Malaysia

2 Aminah bt Yusof, The Role of Electronic Media In Spreading Islamic Da'wah; A Case
Study At Kuala Lumpur, 2004, Islamic Science University of Malaysia

http://www.rahmanbashri.com/2012/08/ayat-al-quran-tentang-murtad.html

http://www.wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Apostasy

http://quran.com/2

www.renaissance.com.pk

http://islamweb.net

http://worldwatchmonitor.org

http://apostatesinmalaysia.wordpress.com/

http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/speeches/fundamental_human_rights_and_religious
_apostasy.html