SHE'S NEVER A MUSLIM

Enough said.
The emails and sms are a good indication of what's on most people's minds.
To the non-Muslims, it's seen as a triumph.
To the Muslims, it's seen as a challenge to Islam, and the indication that something's not right.
Now they're saying it's giving an opportunity for Muslims to be renounce Islam, especially people who like Tan Eng Huang @ Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah, converted to Islam in order to marry a Muslim man. And for those ignorant of the case, she didn't marry a Malay Muslim; she married a foreigner, an Iranian who was not a practising Muslim himself. And when he abandoned her (most probably after gettign what he wanted) she was left to fend for herself without any help or guidance from fellow Muslims?

In my opinion, Tan Eng Huang as not a Muslim. She has never been. While she professed to be one, she had never lived a life of a Muslim. She had never believed in Allah Subhanallah Wa'Taala, never prayed to Him, never fasted, among other things. She had continued to pray to the Tao gods, eat pork, and continued to live exactly the same way she had been before 'reciting the syahadah'. So how could anyone say that she was a Muslim?

I do wonder however, how she could so easily be pronounced a Muslim at the Penang Religious Council. For one who had gone through a lot of trouble to be recognised by the same council, I wonder if she was actually tested about her knowledge of Islam before she was announced as a Muslim. Wasn't she supposed to tested about her knowledge of fardu ain before she could be issued a convert card? (Sorry, my past post about the lengthy bureacratic tapes I had to undergo http://pukullima.blogspot.com/2007/12/panjangnya-tape.html is written in Malay, not itme to translate yet) Or was it because her future husband was an Iranian Arab, the supposedly holier than the average Muslim Malaysian that she was immediately announced as one without having to go through the procedure?

I'd say stop pointing fingers at everyone else. Muslims especially those in Penang and who know about her conversion to Islam have to bear the responsibility of failing to guide her for nine years before the court allowed her to revert to her original faith. So start taking care of the Muslim converts around you, find out who they are, their whereabouts, their needs and whether they really understand what being a Muslim really means. Instead of blaming Muslim converts who do may be too busy managing their young families or live far away to attend religious classes at the two venues run by an ustazah from the MAIPP as stated by the MAIPP officer, try offering yourself to teach the converts about Islam and to read the Quran. The council should do more to help Muslim converts after this, instead of pushing the blame to everyone else.

Moreover, it is futile to be angry, to scold and blame the NGos like MACMA and PERKIM that might have never known that the woman had actually converted to Islam before the case was brought to court. Muslim converts do not get immediate memberships to PERKIM and MACMA; they have to apply. Most converts don't. It's too much hassle and some do not like the regulations imposed on the converts such as being forced to wear the baju kurung or to waer the tudung each time they attend the classes.

Stop blaming and start contributing. It is His will that this happens so that we may learn a lesson. It's time to make positive changes so that Tan Eng Huang's case is the one and only.