easy to get in, hard to get out

poor lina joy, a christian. once, she was azlina jailani, a muslim. huh? now she’s a christian? who say so? no way! her identity card says that she is still a muslim. the court decided that for her.

i wonder how… i mean like what the procedures are when one wants to convert to islam? any criteria or do we need to take up some course or something? or we just let known our intention and that’s it… we are in? i don’t know. i’m ignorant in this area but from what i read in dhimmi watch, it is easy to convert to islam.

i know for us catholics, to become a catholic is a gradual process. there are many stages one has to go through, of which we refer to it as ‘rite of christians initiation of adults‘ (RCIA in short). this RCIA stage normally takes 12 months. during the period of inquiry (the initial stage), one has to attend classes once every week. altogether there are 5 main stages.

since i am talking about converting, i remember the post from percolator of the mudpond. the letter from our bishops on conversion to islam appeared in the catholic paper, the herald some weeks ago. i did thought of putting it up but i have some nagging doubts in me whether to put it up or not, but since now percolator had put it up, good! i can also put it up here… but like percolator, not before i put in a disclaimer! you know lah, many places we seen this before – ‘not for muslims’ or ‘for non muslims only’, so…

FOR NON MUSLIMS ONLY… click on ‘more’ to read further!

Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord,

If you convert to Islam, there are important changes in your legal status and what you can or cannot do.

Your conversion to Islam will be registered with the Religious Deaprtment and the National Registration Department, both of which are computerised so access to this information is available throughout the country.

Under Syariah enactments of most of the 13 states of Malaysia;

Conversion back to your former religion is either

a) not allowed under the law, or b) a criminal offence which means that you may be fined, whipped, detained or imprisoned under most State Islamic laws.

If you are under 18 years of age, you require your parents permission to convert to Islam. Your identity card will record your conversion to Islam.

Therefore, even if you are no longer practising, you may be fined, whipped, detained or imprisoned for violation of Syariah laws such as praying in Church, eating in public during fasting month, “khalwat”, etc.

You cannot marry a non-Muslim. If you decide to divorce and attempt to convert out of Islam, you will lose custody of your children because they are Muslims.

Upon death, your non-Muslim relatives will lose their rights to any property, money etc, that you want to leave to them. The corpse of a convert to Islam will be taken away from his or her non-Muslim family for Islamic rites and burial even if you have not been a practising Muslim for many years.

In the event that your spouse converts to Islam, you may have no right to either your children or your spouse’s property.

We know that certain Christians who convert to Islam for whatever reason, are not aware of or do not consider seriously the implications of such conversion. Hence the need to inform you.

By this, we are neither against Islam nor freedom of religion, which is guaranteed for all Malaysians in article 11 of our Constitution which gives the right to an individual to choose freely his or her religion.