What did Porky Pig do wrong ?

In Yahoo News and today’s Today, I read about this Malay lady over the bridge that wanted her gov’t to officially document her conversion from Islam to Christianity by changing her identity card (story is reproduced below, courtesy of Yahoo & Reuters). If this lady is in Afghanistan, her fate might not be the same as her lucky Afghan compatriot, Abdul Rahman, who is now safely practicing his religion while eating pizzas.

Her gov’t is supposedly answering to her lawyer today. At this sensitive time and age, such matters are not altogether unheard of; except that its usually very hush-hush; that is until now. Coz according to today’s Today, the ruling should be out today.

This case will be a litmus test and a significant milestone in Islam and to the world as Malaysia is a "secular" country with a largely Muslim population that professes to taking up a moderate Islamic stance, in spite evidence of growing trends, reviving interest in Islam, suggesting a move towards an Islamic State.

Let’s wait and see.

While chatting about the above with my moderate muslim colleague, I brought up the topic of pork and Islam. Being a moderate muslim, her view was that this issue was a health issue provided for in the Quran for muslim to follow as expounded in the following links :

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060614131638AANi5dv
http://www.webziner.com/islam/whypork.htm
http://www.brain.net.pk/~medimind/unlawful_edibles_in_islam.htm
http://www.islamicaweb.com/archive/t-36107
http://www.whyislam.org/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3300
http://www.beautifulislam.net/health/pork_forbidden.htm

Amusingly in the Christian Bible and Jewish Torah, pork is also mentioned as a forbidden food source. So what happened to Christians and these Lost People ?

If you read all the above links, there is another view that pork or alcohol or gambling are prohibited just only because the Koran / Muslim God / Prophet says so and the reasons behind this ban does not matter. It is simply the Muslim God’s view….. Interesting example of blind faith... but hopefully not that wide spread else where.

Doubt that I will give up meat anytime soon though.
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Sunday August 13, 8:43 AM

Malaysia braces for ruling on Islam conversion

By Jalil Hamid and Liau Y-Sing

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Malaysia is expecting a court ruling any day now that could shake society to its foundations: does a Muslim have the right to convert to another faith?

A Muslim by birth, Lina Joy decided to become a Christian, marry and raise a family. But in Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion, this is an affair of state, not conscience.

The 42-year-old has asked the Federal Court, the country's highest civil judicial authority, to acknowledge her decision to convert to Christianity and is now awaiting a verdict.

Whatever the outcome, the decision could pose a headache for a government that is trying to meet the demands of the majority Muslim population and the sizeable minority of non-Muslims.

"The fundamental question in Lina's case is whether Muslims in this country can convert?" said political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda.

It's a tricky legal question in multiracial, multi-religious Malaysia. Ethnic Malays, who make up just over half of Malaysia's 26 million people, are deemed Muslims from birth.
Azlina Jailani was one of them. She was brought up as a Muslim but at the age of 26 she decided to become a Christian.

In 1999, the National Registration Department allowed her to change the name in her identity card to Lina Joy but the ID entry for her religion remained as "Islam".

Until the entry is deleted, she cannot legally marry outside the Muslim faith. The legal wrangling began when she took the department to court over the anomaly.

Joy could not be reached for comment.

Constitutionally, freedom of religion is guaranteed. But in reality, conversion out of Islam comes under the ambit of sharia or Islamic courts. And under sharia law, renouncing the Islamic faith is punishable by fines or jail. It isn't an option.

'POLITICAL DYNAMITE'

Muslims who leave Islam end up in legal limbo, unable to register their new religious affiliations or to legally marry non-Muslims. Many keep quiet about their choice or emigrate.

A court victory for Joy could be explosive.

"It's political dynamite. It will create instability," Abdul Razak said. "For decades, the position of Malays and Muslims have been guaranteed.

"It will open the floodgates. Now you see Malays are going to convert and the government sanctions that. Definitely there will be a huge backlash and PAS is going to town with it."

Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), the country's biggest Islamic opposition party, agrees.
"It will be a bad precedent," PAS deputy chief Nasharuddin Mat Isa told Reuters. "It will create some uneasiness in the Malay community. It could lead to demonstrations."

The influential Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia, the Muslim youth group once led by former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, wrote a letter asking the Federal Court to dismiss the appeal.

"Allowing Malays to leave Islam automatically will erode the status, the rights and the privileges of Malays," it said.

But a ruling against Joy could also inflame opinion among non-Muslims, who are already aggrieved over what they see as the gradual encroachment of Islamic law into civil society.

"If they rule against Lina Joy, the whole question of religious liberty -- the freedom of conscience, choice, expression and thought of an individual -- will be greatly affected," said Wong Kim Kong, secretary-general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia, which represents about two-thirds of Malaysia's roughly 4,000 churches.

But he agreed that a court victory for Joy could spark a Muslim backlash. "This group may sow discord or even create public disorder that will result in greater polarisation of the races and religion in the country," Wong said.

For Islamic scholars, Joy cannot win.

"If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem," said Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, senior fellow at Malaysia's Institute of Islamic Understanding. "

And people may then question its completeness, truthfulness and perfection."

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An afterthought.

With the world as it is today, Islam is wrongfully stained from inhumane acts by Religious Fundamentalists who misuse their religion for one reason or another. Compound with the fact that Islam is some sort of a closed culture, many misperceptions and mis-understandings will be propagated among non-Muslims and Muslins themselves until it is too late for any reconciliation.

As much as it is for non-Muslim to use their brains to think through falsehood, Muslims should take actions to educate others about their faith before all Muslims are viewed as fundamentalist and actually turn out as one.

Essentially, this is a clash of Ideologies. Whilst there is no magical pill to solve all human to human problems, in my humble opinion, since the Cold War can actually end, there is no reason this couldn’t. That is unless the reconciliation takes too long and the whole world is already ravaged by war then. Hee Hee…