No apostasy applications in 10 years

There has been no apostasy applications by Muslims, including converts, through the Syariah Court over the past 10 years, the Dewan Rakyat was told today. 

 

In written reply, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Jamil Khir Baharom there were, however, applications for the court to determine the religion of those in possession of birth certificate, identity cards or conversion certificates with "confusing" data.

 

"The Syariah Court will consider the application to ascertain the religion of a application in situations where there are confusion in the registration of names in states such as Sabah and Sarawak where they Muslim sounding names but were not Muslims," he said.

 

Jamil said this in reply to a question by Dr Ko Chung Sen (DAP-Kampar) who requested for the number of Malay-Muslims who have left Islam over the 10 years and the number of non-Muslims who had embraced Islam.

 

To Ko's second question, Jamil said this question should be referred to state Islamic authorities, because such data was under their purview, as according to the Second List set out in the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution.

 

"In this context, for the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, according to the records of the Federal Territory Islamic Department (Jawi), the number of people who embraced Islam between 2008 and 2012 are 4,520," said Jamil.

 

This revelation by the government might discredit claims by some groups who have claimed that Christian groups are actively trying to convert Muslims.

There are only two states in Malaysia - Negeri Sembilan and Pahang - which has laws governing apostasy.