“I’m perceived an enemy of Islam because I love my faith deeply, eager to protect it from abusers”

 

THEY call me an enemy of Islam. They think “Nik Elin” is a dangerous, secular liberal lawyer on a personal mission to destroy the religion.

Let me tell you the absolute truth: that is the most painful, inaccurate label anyone could ever put on my name.

Anyone who truly knows me knows my real character. I am a happy go lucky, fun person. Yes, I am stubborn and I speak my mind plainly. Perhaps that raw honesty works to my detriment at times. But I am absolutely not anti-Islam.

On the contrary, I love my faith deeply and my true purpose is to protect and defend it. I want to protect Islam from the very people who use and abuse Islam to attain total control and power over us.

I want to defend it from those who weaponise the religion to secure power and force others into absolute submission. In reality, it is these extreme actors who are sabotaging the genuine beauty and intellectual depth of Islam.

Luckily, we still have our Federal Constitution to protect us. But now they are threatening to take that protection away from us and rule us by terror and fear. They want to amend the constitution and take away the very fabric of human rights.

‘Don’t be fearful of Nik Elin, the lawyer’

If you love Islam, stand with me. Be the voice of progressive change so that our faith is never defined by fear, intimidation, or extremism. Islam is peace. Islam is entirely about love, mercy and compassion. It is about peaceful coexistence and universal justice.

I am simply a Muslim who wants a stable future where our faith inspires rather than strikes fear. Forced belief is a complete contradiction, it is a fundamental oxymoron.

By creating rigid modern laws that never even existed during the time of our beloved Prophet, we are acting lebih kuah dari sudu (an equivalent of “more Catholic than the Pope).

We cannot tolerate legal frameworks that completely criminalise critical thinking. Differences of opinion should be celebrated as a divine blessing, not punished.

Lawyer Nik Elin Zurina Nik Rashid (seated, third from left) with political analyst/influencer Liyana Marzuki

Look at the moral decay in our society right now. Why is this happening? Because of the intense systemic pressure to conform to only one narrow, rigid version of Islam.

Our faith explicitly demands that we think for ourselves. In Quran Surah Al Anam 6:116, Allah warns us not to blindly follow the masses because the majority can lead you astray from the true path.

I dream of a future where Islam does not need to be forced upon us by state legislation but lives naturally within our hearts.

My life motto is anchored in Quran Surah An Nisaa 4:135 which commands us to stand up firmly for justice as witnesses to Allah even if it goes against ourselves, our parents or our closest kin.

So please, stop being afraid of Nik Elin, the lawyer. We should only fear Allah.

I invite all of you to look past the political noise and return to the true, beautiful way of Allah. Let us be guided by the divine wisdom found in Quran Surah An Nahl 16:125:

Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction and argue with them in a way that is best.

If you believe in an Islam rooted in wisdom, compassion and true justice, I invite you to join me and be a voice for that change. 

Kelantan-born Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid is a Malaysian lawyer who made headlines for successfully challenging the constitutionality of several state-level Syariah criminal provisions in Kelantan.

Alongside her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman, she filed a legal challenge at the Federal Court of Malaysia in May 2022 against the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment 2019.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT

- Focus Malaysia.