马来西亚穆斯林脱教的法律问题及其影响

The Legal Dispute of Muslim Apostasy and Its Impacts in Malaysia

穆斯林脱离伊斯兰教一般被称作"叛教"(Murtad)。穆斯林学者对叛教的法律处分方式有不同的主张:一些学者主张穆斯林一旦脱教或叛教就应被处以死刑;少数学者主张应将叛教纳入"酌定刑法"(Ta’zir)的范围,视情节的轻重加以处罚;还有一些学者则主张穆斯林叛教者不应被处分。本论文针对马来西亚处理叛教规范的演变过程及其影响作一些文献梳理,藉此来检验马来西亚对穆斯林脱离伊斯兰教的处理情况。

Muslims scholars have different opinions toward the sin of apostasy in Islam, many Islamic scholars believe that the apostasy is a statutory crime in which the only punishment is death penalty while other scholars consider apostasy as rather a religious sin, although certain degree of punishment is also imposed for such behavior, the punishment of apostasy is placed in Ta’zir punishment in which the degree of punishment should be varied according to the seriousness of the sin. However, some liberal scholars even oppose to imposing any punishment on the sin of apostasy as they believe such punishment should be imposed by God rather than ordinary human since one’s religious belief is immeasurable.Since British colonial period, apostasy in Islam has been a criminal offense in Malaysia. From independent onward, the Malaysian Islamic legal institution has enacted several provisions to regulate the behavior of blasphemy or defamation against Islam. Since 1984 the degree of punishment on defamation against Islam is more severe as Muslims who intent to convert to others Religion may face the severe punishment. Since then, Muslim who tends to convert to other religion has to apply the legal permission from Islamic court to exclude himself from the scope of jurisdiction of Islamic law. As a result of legalization on Muslim conversion cases, several legal disputes in religious conversion of Muslim have come to the surface and became nationwide discourses.The study explored several controversial apostasy cases of Muslim individuals which happened after the enhancement on the legalization of Malaysian Islamic personal law in 1990 s. It shows that most of the apostasy cases occurred in converted Muslim who chose to return to their original belief, while only a few cases related to Muslim by birth. A substantial of evidences prove that Malaysian Islamic court permits the converted Muslim to renounce their Islamic belief in which many of them are Chinese Muslim. On the contrary, conversion of Muslim by birth are strictly forbidden as no single case been permitted by Islamic court during last two decades. One of the major reasons was as all of the Malays are legally Muslim by birth, the Malaysian government forbids any conversion case of Malay Muslim to maintain the Malay Muslim hegemony within a multiethnic framework. By analyzing four legal conversion cases of Muslim, the study also concluded several dilemmas faced by Malaysian Muslim in a multi religious environment.