Month: January 2022

Federal Court Rules Against Unilateral Conversion of Children into Islam

Mais loses final appeal to restore five kids’ unilateral conversion to Islam, Federal Court upholds Indira decision where both parents’ consent needed

Kuala Lumpur 26 Jan 2022

The Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) today failed in its final court bid to reinstate the 2015 conversion of five young children to Islam when they were aged in the range of around three and nine years old.

A three-judge panel in the country’s highest court chaired by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat unanimously ruled in favour of the mother and dismissed the application for leave to appeal filed by both the Mais chairman and the Mais registrar of muallaf or Muslim converts.

In reading out the decision, Tengku Maimun pointed out that Section 117 of the Administration of the Religion of Islam (Selangor) enactment clearly stated that both the mother and the father must agree to their children’s conversion.

“This is our unanimous decision. The application does not meet the threshold of Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act for leave to be granted.

“The issue before us has been settled by the decision of this court in M. Indira Gandhi’s case. The courts below were therefore correct in following Indira Gandhi.

“Further the provision of Section 117 of the enactment is very clear that a person who is not Muslim may convert to the religion of Islam if he is of sound mind and attain 18 years or if he has not attain, the mother and father must consent to the conversion.

“The application is therefore dismissed,” Tengku Maimun said.

The court also awarded RM30,000 as costs to the mother. Continue reading “Federal Court Rules Against Unilateral Conversion of Children into Islam”

Integrating Faith and Knowledge

I. Introduction

James Orr, in The Christian View of God and the World, maintains that the Christian worldview is compelling because it provides a coherent and unified view of life. Christianity as an integrated worldview embraces all disciplines of knowledge and provides stability of thought and directions to Christians seeking to navigate through new intellectual challenges posed by advancement of knowledge in the modern world.

Christian integration of faith and knowledge is based on the following premises: Continue reading “Integrating Faith and Knowledge”

Christian Annexation and Transformation of Pagan Learning: From Augustine and Boethius to John Calvin

I. Augustine: Putting Pagan* Learning to Right Use

CHAP. 40. Whatever has been rightly said by the heathen, we must appropriate to our uses

60. Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it. For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they themselves were not making a good use of [Exod. 3:21, 22; 12:35, 36]; in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Continue reading “Christian Annexation and Transformation of Pagan Learning: From Augustine and Boethius to John Calvin”