ABSTRACT
Religious conversion is a controversial issue in Malaysia. This chapter evaluates how the appellate courts deal with Malaysia's delicate religious (and ethnic) fabric by studying three leading cases involving child conversions and custody battles. It focuses on the lingering legal difficulties arising from the inability to resolve crucial questions on the boundaries of religious freedom and the Syariah jurisdiction in the Malaysian constitutional context. The chapter demonstrates that the courts have struggled to manage crucial questions implicating religious as well as legal pluralism. It then sketches the facts of the three cases, and turns to an evaluation of these cases by addressing three issues: the constitutional right to religious freedom; the civil–Syariah jurisdictional battles; and the position of Islam as the religion of the Federation. The chapter concludes by proposing three different ways to contextualize how and why the legal contests on child conversions and custody battles have turned out the way they have.
