In cases of religious disputes, the civil judiciary has mostly bowed to the Shariah courts even though the Constitution does not say which has the higher authority.
Now, this is in a country that is supposedly a demonstration of a successful example of Muslim law operating within a Democracy. In recent weeks we've seen the threat of martial law in Turkey, in response to a Muslim majority turning the country over to Sharia law.
In Egypt, Christians are tortured, threatened with death, massively discriminated against, even raped by Muslim extremists-- the Muslim Brotherhood-- trying to intimidate them into converting to Islam. Apparently, if a Muslim rapes a non-believing woman, that automatically converts her to be a Muslim.
Another Malaysian, woman, 26 years old, tried to commit suicide last week because the court's ruling made it highly unlikely that she could convert from Muslim to Hindu, so she could marry her boyfriend. Marriage to Muslims by non-Muslims is not allowed.
But Islam, unlike Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, has its own complete legal system. This model seems to, in the real world, compete with secular government. It takes the excesses of religious extremism to another level. Instead of trying to gain increasing influence over the existing government, Islamic extremists have a system ready to go so they can envision REPLACING the government. It seems that since this model has been foisted upon Afghanistan, it has set an example and given inspiration to Islamic extremists.
Now that the genii is out of the bottle, it may be impossible to put it back. If it can be put back, I'm not sure who can do it. The most recent Republican debate suggests that the new right wing spin is that Islamofascism is the real threat that America faces, that the war in Iraq is a war to stave off that assault upon the west.
But one could argue that killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims, as the US has done in Iraq is not a good way to make friends and get Muslims thinking that democracy is a good thing.
One thing that IS likely, when the USA exits Iraq, is that at least parts of it will be taken over by Sharia law-- probably the Shiite part, since that is the most extremist. Of course, USA right wingers, especially those of evangelical Christian leanings, will see this as a massive defeat of "Democracy." But I wonder if they will be responding as Christian fundamentalists or advocates for democracy. Since they've been so willing to allow violations of all kinds of privacy rights, freedoms and habeus corpus, I'll guess the former.
Yet, the democracy the Bush admin has clearly put in place in Iraq is heavily inclined to go the way of Afghanistan and Iran-- theocrat Sharia ruled.
Like every other faith, Islam has great potential to do good, to provide meaning and solace for it's followers. But also, like every other faith, there is the potential for abuse. It is likely that the way to minimize the abuse in all the extremist versions of faiths that threaten the peace and progress of this planet is to recognize them as threats to freedom, recognize that the answer is not to violently attack them, but to expose them and provide alternatives for the people who are drawn to them.
One thing is clear... telling people that they cannot change their faith from Muslim, or that they must ask Sharia courts that consider leaving the faith a crime, is contrary to democracy and clear evidence that the democratic intentions of the founders of Malaysia have been betrayed by religious zealots or cowards in the court, who were afraid to face their mullahs and imams.
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