Questions about Islam from Fatt Monk to MAHAGURU58.

Hello Mahaguru58,

I'm already a regular visitor of your Mahaguru58 blog. I read it like newspaper everyday, and your content is always up to date and very interesting.

Hurray for Pakatan Rakyat!!! Keep it up!!

I must salute you for your initiative to start this new blog with regards to the education and more importantly the perception of Islam.

I find that the main stream media has failed to not only explain and educate Islam in a open way to the Non-Muslims but also a big portion of the Muslim community as well.

I really hope your blog will reach out to more people in Malaysia and have everyone understand Islam better.

I'm a Non-Muslim Malaysian working overseas for many years and have had the opportunity to meet Muslims from many different countries.

I have to say, that the perception of Islam I got before leaving Malaysia and after meeting all these foreign Muslim people is very different.

So, I'd like to post some questions here and hope that you can help with clarifying it.

1.When someone embraced Islam but after sometime, decided to quit, is this allowed by Islam?

From my foreign Muslim friend, this is not a problem.

Islam is a free religion, and if a person stops believing in Islam, they have the right to quit.
There's no point forcing someone to believe in Islam.

However, I have the perception that in Malaysia, when someone try to quit from Islam, they are put into a rehabilitation center to try and "bring her back to the right path"?

• For e.g the Revathi issue? Can you please clarify on this?

2.If a person is born into a Muslim family, does the person have the choice of quitting Islam and join another religion?
3. If a person embraced Islam, why is it that in Malaysia you are forced to change to a Muslim name?

From what I understand from my foreign Muslim friend, there's no such enforcement in Islam.

4. Is it true that a Muslim can marry only another Muslim person?

What I understand from my foreign Muslim friend is that any Non Muslim can marry a
Muslim (It doesn't matter whether it is a male or a female.)

But the Muslim person must explain the benefits of Islam to his or her spouse. Of course, over time the spouse will hopefully be converted to Islam.

5.However, is it true that it is the right of the person to choose whatever religion he or she wants even though they are married to a Muslim person?

These are few of the different views I have between the perception of Islam in Malaysia and Muslims from different countries.

Thanks in advance for clarifying this. Some of the questions might be due to my wrong perceptions.

Please clarify and correct me.

If you think this is not too sensitive, can you please post this on your blogs to benefit others?

Fatt Monk.

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First and foremost, I'd like to thank you sir for emailing me these questions.

I have been getting some ribbing from Sister Aliya that I have been preaching and that would soon bore people to death as there are too many sites online doing just that!

Anyway, if I were to wait for questions to be posed to me first before I write anything in response, I might just end up dropping dead before unloading here all that I have acquired and learned about Islam in my lifetime?

We can never tell, can we?

Life is so unpredictable that out of the blue, before we realize it, our time is up and there's just no delaying our departure by even a split micro second?

So, forgive me for being preachy but that's exactly what I have and am destined to do?

Well, here are my answers to the first of Fatt Monk's questions. I will answer them one by one, per dedicated article, Insya Allah.

1.When someone embraced Islam but after sometime, decided to quit, is this allowed by Islam?

Dear Brothers & Sisters reading this,

Islam is the culmination of the complete revelations of Allah the Almighty, our Lord and Creator who has been sending to us Mankind more than 124,000 Prophets and Messengers over Time starting with the creation of Adam Alaihis Salam, our Father who was also a Prophet right until the very last and Final Messenger and the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad Sallalahu Alaihi Wassallam ( May peace be upon him).

The Declaration of Faith in Islam constitutes denying any other forms of imagined deity or deities save for attesting that Allah is the Only God worthy of worship and declaring that Muhammad is the (Final) Messenger of Allah.

A person who after being a Disbeliever @ Kaffir, decides to embrace Islam without being forced or compelled to in the first place and after studying the basic principles of the faith or after years and years of in depth studies about Allah, His Prophets, The Do's & Don'ts in Islam decides with a clear, rational knowledgeable state of mind and in full awareness embraces Islam and accepts Allah the Almighty as his or her Lord and testifies to Muhammad being Allah's Messenger is deemed to have entered into a Covenant with Allah and is forbidden to break such a bond.

I stated before a full house crowd of Malaysians from all walks of life, ethnicity and creed at the DAP organized 'After Lina Joy Forum' at the Hotel Armada in Petaling Jaya last year that 'Islam is not like a country club membership which one enters and leaves as one pleases?'

The moment that you declare that you willfully and rationally accept No other God but Allah the Most Supreme as your Lord, you are forever obliged to not break your bond with Him, God Almighty!

You do not acknowledge Allah as your God and then make an about turn and walk out on Him!

This is Allah, God Almighty we are talking about?

Not a fellow human being or any other creature that Man is known to have betrayed and abused the trust or friendship over and over again through the Sands of Time?

The punishment for such an act of 'Apostasy' is very severe.

We are talking about the maximum penalty that an apostate from Islam has to face as the ultimate consequences of his or her crime of denying Allah as his or her Lord.

You can read about the details for such a punishment here in the Wikipedia.

I have scanned the particular Hadith (Sayings of the Holy Prophet Muhammad SAW) with regard to the case where he states that the blood of a Muslim (male and female) who has testified that 'There is no other God but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Messenger' cannot be shed except in 3 cases:

1. Where the Muslim has killed someone willfully (not as an act of self defence but as an act of intentional homicide out of rage, spite, hatred, enmity, etc.)
   
2. A married Muslim (male or female) who has committed adultery @ illegal sexual intercourse with one who is not his or her married partner.
3. The one (Muslim) who turns renegade from Islam (apostates) and leaves the group of Muslims ( the Ummah) by innovating acts of heresy, innovations and other unlawful new things into the Islamic religion.
   

Please click on to the scan here and read it in a larger view. Do take note that there is a typographical error in the translation above with regard to the 1st clause : 1. Life for life ( in cases of 'international' murders without right - which should read ' intentional'.

To answer the question as to whether someone who has come to embrace Islam and declared or testified that There is No Other God but Allah and declared Muhammad as to being the (Final) Messenger of Allah is allowed to leave the faith of Islam, the answer is NO.

The Islamic authority is to first advice the said apostate and help to show him or her as to the errors of his or her way and to guide the said apostate back to the Truth of Islam 3 times as in the act of holding the apostate in official custody and after 3 failed attempts to put the apostate to death.

This is not my ruling or any other humanbeing but the decree of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala Himself as the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alaihi Wassallam never issued forth any rule or command until he gets the revelation from Almighty Allah through the intermediary of the Archangel Jibreel Alaihis Salam @ Gabriel (peace be upon him).

So to all would be Muslims, my advice to you is to fully understand that when you come and make a covenant with Allah to take Him as your Lord and accept Muhammad as His Messenger, you do not have a choice to break such a covenant and expect to get away just like that?

The repercussions of turning yourself away from your Lord is not something simple.

Islam is not a faith to be played around with?

It is the birthright of those who can see the virtues of being a Muslim and gain Allah's Mercy and Protection but it does not take any affront to His Majesty as something forgivable.

You either enter into Islam wholeheartedly or stay out of it as a Disbeliever?

The Choice is yours. Hope that answers your question, brother.

* I will write about the Revathi case in the next article.

May the Guidance of Allah be upon us all. Ameen.

I will answer the next question in the following article.

Insya Allah @ God Willing.