I told you Malaysia has to tighten up religious conversion!

Don't say I never tell you. Didn't I say that Malaysia needed to tighten up religious conversion practices in order to avoid incidents like the one below? Read my previous blog here.

Applying the principles I mentioned in my blog to the case below, the conversion should be declared invalid. Both the illegally converted father and his even more illegally converted son should revert to their previous religions and remain subject to the civil court.

The father had no right to do the following:

• unilaterally end his marriage to his non-Muslim wife by converting without divorcing her first.
• unilaterally convert his son without the express agreement of his wife.

Instead, we see the civil court displaying its spinelessness for all to see again. Abdicating it's duty and powers so that it is not embroiled in another religious law dispute with the syariah court. I hope to god... any god... yours or mine, that the Appeals court has more common sense and more courage.

And wherefore is the responsibility and common sense of the religious authorities?

• How could they accept the conversion of a man who is still married to a non-Muslim wife?
• How could they accept the conversion of a child when they knew that the child's mother still had custody of the child and had not given her agreement?
• How could they not see that this was a blatant and audacious attempt for an irresponsible man to gain custody of his children from an enstranged spouse by manipulating and mocking Islam?
• How can they now, let him get away with it?

In the interest of fairness to all parties (the allegedly Muslim father, the non-Muslim mother and the poor children), this case needs to decided in a civil court. And once the court has made it's decision, the father can always convert again (... properly this time, do you hear, Jabatan Agama Islam?).

Wouldn't this be a better indication of his sincerity toward Islam? When there are no extraneous factors that might pose undue corruption to his decision to embrace Islam eg. in order to manipulate Islam and the Syariah court to wrest custody of the "muslim" children from his non-muslim wife?

Below are the excerpts from the article in NST online in order to give you some background to the case:

A Hindu businessman who converted to Islam has been given the green light to have his civil marriage dissolved at the Syariah Court to obtain custody of his three-year-old son.

Mohd Harris Ibrahim, who is also representing Subashini, said Aziah’s decision revolved around the jurisdiction of the civil court and the Syariah Court. "We are waiting for the judicial commissioner to come out with a written judgment."

The couple were married on July 26, 2001, and have two sons, Dharvin Joshua, 3, and one-year-old Sharvind.

Shafi, who was known as T. Saravanan, and his son Muhammad Shazrul Dharvin Muhammad Shafi (Dharvin Joshua) embraced Islam on May 18 this year.

The following month, Shafi started proceedings to dissolve the marriage and obtain custody of Shazrul.