Religious Officials, Reasoning Style, and Controversies

STATE AND FEDERAL RELIGIOUS COUNCILS AND DEPARTMENTS have institutionalized sharia family and criminal laws. The implementation of these laws remains somewhat variable across the states of Malaysia, given that they are directly under the administration of state-level religious councils.

I made a visit to JAKIM during October 2010 hoping to interview an official from the religious law department. From Kuala Lumpur International Airport I caught the local train to the Putrajaya/Cyberjaya stop, a remote station surrounded by a patchwork of roads and open fields, from which buses and taxis head to federal government buildings in Putrajaya and private universities and high-tech firms in Cyberjaya. My taxi driver, a young Indian man, sped around the winding paved roads traversing the fields beneath the pulsating subtropical heat.

“When is the Thaipusam festival this year?” I asked him, trying to break the chilly silence.

“I think it begins in late January this year,” he answered with a softening demeanor.

When we arrived at the enormous campus of administrative buildings, my driver asked the Malay security guards where the JAKIM office was located. Before dropping me off, he passed me his card and suggested I call him later if I needed a ride back to the station. I thanked him, figuring I probably would, there being no convenient mass transit out there. Inside, one of the guards at the information counter, a Malay woman, directed me to the religious law department of JAKIM, where I was to ask for Ustazah Hamidah. After exchanging my New York State driver’s license for a visitor’s pass, I took the elevator to the eighth floor.

Hamidah’s receptionist invited me to take a seat, and after a few minutes, a young Malay woman wearing a light tan and orange baju kurung (long skirt and matching tunic) with matching tudung (headscarf) emerged from an adjoining office space and sat down on the couch across from me. She was Hamidah. She asked me politely in English how she could help me. I presented her my letter of introduction from USM (Universiti Sains Malaysia), my Malaysian academic sponsor, and explained that I was conducting a research project on sharia in Malaysia. Hamidah took me inside the large human resources area to an internal reception area, having realized that I was a professor from the United States and not a student working on a thesis. She called one of their officials to speak to me, and while we waited for him, she gave me information about JAKIM in order to determine which departments would be most appropriate to assist with my research topic. Hamidah thought sharing the JAKIM reports with me would not be of much help, since they are written in Malay.

“Actually our report books are not in English so it is difficult for us to show for you,” she said apologetically.

“You mean they are in bahasa Malaysia?” I queried using the Malay term for Malaysian language.

“Yes, in bahasa Malaysia.”

“I can also read bahasa Malaysia,” I said in Malay.

“You can?” she said excitedly.

“Yes, I can. I read lots of books in Malay.”

“Okay, wait for awhile, and I will get them for you.”

She returned in a few minutes with three telephone-book-size JAKIM annual reports covering the years 2007–9. Hamidah was curious about how an American anthropologist could be so competent in Malay. Malay language is an important symbol of Malay-ness and is recognized as the official national language, which reinforces Malay identity as the preferred racial category. I explained that I had learned the Malay language in small university classes in the United States led by Indonesian graduate students.

“So these are all our annual reports. You can have a look at this. This is from 2009.”

She paused for moment while I looked through the most recent report, and then asked about the title of my research project. I explained that my research proposal, titled “Sharia Discourses in Malaysia,” encompassed sharia enactments as well as the way sharia is implemented, forms of dakwah, and so forth. Hamidah went to speak to some of her coworkers about my research project while I examined their annual reports. After about five minutes she set up a computer on the small table in the reception area and started a video overview of JAKIM for me to watch. A Malay man speaking English narrated this presentation with easy-listening jazz occasionally playing in the background. It described the history of JAKIM, its objectives, and various divisions and sections. Near the end of the video, Hamidah brought an official from the halal certification section to speak with me. He was a Malay man in his late thirties wearing a white Islamic cap (kopiah) and a bright smile that exuded strong religious convictions.

“Assalamu‘alaikum,” he said greeting me.

“Wa ‘alaikumsalaam,” I replied.

“Kayfa halak, how are you?” he asked, saying the same thing in Arabic and English.

“I’m doing fine, thank you.”

“I’m Zainul.”

“I’m Professor Daniels from Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.”

“My friend said you can speak Malay,” he stated with a tone of excitement in his voice.

“Yes, I can speak Malay,” I said, responding in Malay language.

He chuckled with delight. “Subhaanallah [Glory is to Allah].”

“I took several classes with Indonesian students who were studying for their graduate degrees in the US.”

“Somebody from UKM [the Malaysian National University] called me and said they had a friend coming to visit from the US.”

“I’m affiliated with USM and Dr. Farid from the Islamic Studies Department—”

Hamidah interjected, providing information about her coworker, “Actually, he has already done his master’s degree in Islamic studies on murtad [apostates].”

“I’m quite interested in the issue of murtad and the variety of laws dealing with them in various states in Malaysia,” I said, hoping for some information on what he found in his thesis.

Chuckling and smiling confidently, he asked, “So what can I help you with?”

“I’d like to ask [you] about the implementation of sharia in Malaysia.”

“I can answer questions about this topic, but if you use my name in your research, they will ask who is this giving these views.... I work with certification of halal and investment in Islamic businesses.”

“Actually, he is also an expert in sharia law, but I think he does not want to talk... about it,” Hamidah interjected, acknowledging his broad background in Islamic studies. “Let me bring you to the Islamic law department.” Hamidah went to call downstairs on the seventh floor to make sure some officials in the Islamic law department were available to meet with me today. After confirming the appointment, she returned with a JAKIM souvenir bag, helping me to place the three annual reports inside. Zainul and I continued our discussion for a short time on the couch in the reception area.

“Islamic law in Malaysia is on the state level and is not federal, that is the problem,” Zainul stated.

“Yes, that’s what I noticed looking in the different states. I went to Negeri Sembilan... to the sharia court, and they had different enactments and laws. There are some similarities, which I want to ask someone about, but there were also differences.”

“This is our problem. It comes from the British colonial system, warisan daripada sistem penjajahan.” Zainul repeated this apparently disturbing historical fact in Malay, adding emphasis. His comments imply a cultural model of sharia that envisions a broader scope for Islamic law beyond the confines of the secular format inherited from the British colonial era.

Hamidah informed us it was time to go downstairs for my appointment. Zainul and I made a few polite parting comments and I followed Hamidah. We arrived in the Law Division (Bahagian Undang-undang), a wide rectangular space with several cubicles for office clerks situated in the interior and large offices for upper-level civil servants around the sides. Hamidah took me to the office of Zawati binti Yusuf, a federal counselor. Two other women, Aisha and Haryaty, who are lawyers in the legal division, also joined us. They were all wearing baju kurung and tudung of various hues. Hamidah and another office intern, a young man studying communications at an Islamic university, attended this interview and group discussion as well. Zawati informed me that the head of their department was not there today because he was making a presentation at the Parliament. I introduced myself to the group and began asking questions.

JAKIM’s offices in the Putrajaya government complex

“How does sharia fit into the aims and general goals of JAKIM?”

“Actually sharia law in Malaysia is a state matter, and in Malaysia we have fourteen states. Every state has its own enactment, and all the laws that we drafted for sharia we make sure are in line with hukum syarak.

The relationship between Islamic law and the constitution has been at the center of many charged debates and sociopolitical struggles. Liberal pluralist and human rights activists argue that the constitutional principles of religious freedom, equality before the law, and the federal authority of civil courts severely constrain the scope of sharia laws. They believe that sharia laws only apply to Muslims so long as they don’t contradict civil laws and liberal rights. On the other hand, political Islamic activists argue for a sharia-based constitution that would in effect scrap the current constitution. For them, the supreme law of the land is the Holy Qur’an. Recently there has been a rising chorus asserting that there are no constitutional obstacles to the extensive implementation of sharia laws, including the controversial hudud penal code. This JAKIM federal counselor expressed the moderate position of passing sharia codes that fit within the prevailing secular format.

“But even with that sort of restriction, there’s still a lot of variation in the laws of each state, because it is not very tight. There is still some leeway for the laws to be different. For instance, I went to Negeri Sembilan and picked up their book of laws for Islamic family law and also for criminal law. There were lots of similarities but also some differences from state to state. And, then, from what people tell me, there is adat perpatih in Negeri Sembilan, so I don’t know to what extent the hakim [judge] would also take into account ideas of local Malay adat perpati,” I continued.

“For Negeri Sembilan, it might be different, because they have their own adat and the laws that pass... the state legislative assembly also... must be assented by their ruler. But in the wilayah [Federal Territories], all the laws must be passed by Parliament through the Cabinet instead of in the state assembly. It is only a little different in Negeri Sembilan because they have their own adat and their ruler has a certain level of power.”

“But, then, one of the objectives of JAKIM is to standardize the laws from the different states. How is that process working?” I asked.

“In JAKIM we try to uniform all sharia laws that are practiced in the states. We try to make one modern law. After we discuss [it] at a federal level, we also invite states to join the discussion, before we draft a law; and after we... draft the complete law, we circulate it to all the states and it is up to [them] to decide to adopt the law or not. As the federal government, we did not interfere at all to force the states to implement the law.... We just circulate and it depends on them, because the Islamic matter is under the state power, so we have no power to force them to adopt the federal law in their state.”

Islamic jurists and legal counselors working in the Prime Minister’s Department of the federal government strive to formulate one modern law through deliberation and consultation. Such processes of standardization, bureaucratic rationalization, and corporatization have been seen as features of Malaysian modernity in which “symbols and idioms of Islam” are commonly invoked for legitimacy and dealing with various kinds of change (Peletz 2013, 624). However, concepts such as nusyuz (disobedience) and murtad are not just symbols and idioms, but complex notions partially constitutive of diverse cultural models of sharia. Moreover, some of the discourse from Zainul, Hamidah, and other civil servants of the Islamic bureaucracy who were socialized during the ongoing religious resurgence, suggests they are committed to models of sharia that contrast with the moderate models of the secular political elites. Thus, processes of standardizing and managing Islamic laws, as well as productions of Malaysian modernity, are fraught with internal cultural tensions and possibilities. Islamic tradition and modernity as well as processes of Islamic resurgence and bureaucratic rationalization are intimately intertwined (cf. Peletz 2002, 2013).

I went on to say, “But the federal laws that are passed in the Federal Territories like Kuala Lumpur, are they like a model for the laws to be implemented in the other states? I noticed that the general outlines of the sharia laws are largely consistent and the same across the states. But there are some variations in Islamic family law? Can you speak about the progress in the way Islamic family laws are being standardized across the states?”

Zawati looked to the other two lawyers in her department to address this question. One of them, Aisha, said, “Actually all the provisions in the sharia law, the substantive, the general content of the laws, are the same, but the differences are more in terms of the procedural matters, some differences in how they want to implement the procedure and enforce the provision in their state. The content of the provision is quite similar across the states.”

Changing the topic, I said, “I spoke to a professor who is affiliated with Sisters in Islam (SIS), and she told me that group is trying to change some of the implementation of sharia laws. They think that some of them are unfair for the rights of Muslima [Muslim women]. How has JAKIM been working on dealing with some of their concerns in family and even in criminal law, considering that they apparently supported Lina Joy and her right of religious freedom?”

The Lina Joy case is one of the most highly publicized conversion (or apostasy) cases. It involved a Malay woman, born into a Muslim family and given the name Azalina binti Jailani, who later applied to the National Registration Department (NRD) to change her name and religion. She said she had renounced Islam for Christianity and intended to marry a Christian. Eventually she was allowed to change her name in the official government registration, but the NRD informed her that in order to change her religion they required an order from the sharia court. In 2001 the High Court Malaya, Kuala Lumpur decided that because she is Malay and Malays are Muslims according to Article 160 of the Federal Constitution, she cannot renounce her Islamic religion. Subsequently the Court of Appeal, in 2005, dismissed her appeal on the grounds that “her renunciation of Islam was not confirmed by the Syariah Court or any other Islamic religious authority” (Abdul Aziz Mohamad 2007, 141), a decision the Federal Court upheld in 2007. This case received so much media attention in Malaysia and around the world that mere mention of her name evokes strong emotions and opinions. In Malaysia the “Lina Joy case” has become a polysemous symbol, given various meanings within divergent cultural models of sharia.

Haryaty, the other lawyer sitting on the side, remarked, “Well, the first thing we know is that Sisters in Islam is a feminist movement. So, basically, most of what they are fighting for is based on feminism. Yes, they do believe that some sharia laws discriminate against women, but [those sharia laws] actually don’t. And the way we counter the Sisters in Islam is that sometimes we have a discussion and we do invite them, in terms of when we want to regulate some laws, and we do have a discussion with them.... They are basically a feminist movement, and we hardly take a suggestion from them to insert into the sharia law.”

“Apparently they were the only Muslim organization that supported the Lina Joy sort of argument,” I replied. “They joined with several mostly non-Muslim NGOs like Aliran and Suara Rakyat, but they do argue... that they are a feminist organization, but they are Muslim women, and they want to have total equality between men and women. They argue that the Qur’an and Sunna needs to be reinterpreted in line with their goals and they find some support... in their reinterpretations of Qur’an. They have a feminist orientation, but they’re saying they are Muslima struggling for equality and fairness, and surely Islam is a fair and just religion.... There is definitely a basis in many respects for equality between men and women in the Qur’an, in my view, but I don’t understand exactly what they’re talking about in terms of total equality, and is that consistent with the revelation we have received from Allah Subhaana wa Ta’ala [the Glorified and Most High]? What are some of your views about that?”

Zawati, beaming across her large wooden desk, responded, “Actually, when you talk about equality in Islam it is not like if a man got one that a woman should also get one. The terminology of equality in that context must not be treated like that. As an example, we can look at the issue of inheritance, and we can say that the man should get two and the woman should get only one. Islam makes it like that; we cannot say that it is unequal for women. But we have to see why the Qur’an put it this way.... Men have the responsibility to maintain their families, and that is why Allah revealed in matters of inheritance that men should get two and the women should get one. But the Sisters in Islam, as an example, put it in another way.”

Gender equality means something different for these women than for the Sisters in Islam. They don’t believe that equality implies symmetrical allocations or that what goes for men goes for women. Instead, they look to what Allah has decreed in terms of rights and responsibilities to men and women and try to understand them as an overall system that organizes this domain of social life. Their concept of equality stems from a cultural schema of sharia that includes the notion that Allah has sent down hukum (laws) in the Qur’an for people to apply in the world.

“Yes, they do,” I said, agreeing with Zawati’s statement about SIS. “They argue that historically that was based on a context in which men were providing most of the nafkah [economic support] and women were not working the way women are working now. They’re saying that there are changed conditions. Many more women now are able to provide support for the family... or at least to help... and so they’re arguing that can be reinterpreted now within the new context. I think that is their... methodology, that we have to consider the different context. But, of course, then that relates to the issue of the division of property when couples are divorced. They argue that from their research in some of the states there are some hakim who are actually dividing the property and calculating the wealth that women have provided... when they divide the property. They say this is not fair if it is the man’s responsibility to provide the nafkah but the women’s wealth she produced from her own work is included in the property to be divided.”

“So far I don’t think we have cases in which... men get the property of the wife unless the property is a joint property,” Aisha said. “The judge only divides the property if it is joint property... but if the property is from what the wife worked for, the judges will not give it to the husband upon divorce. There are no cases in which the judge does this.”

“Let’s say they bought the house together, then the judge will calculate how much the wife contributed to it.... The joint property is divided according to sharia family laws.... The wife does not get to take the husband’s retirement savings, and it is the same the other way around.”

I considered how this contrasts with the way family courts handle divisions of marital property in the United States. In New York State, for instance, the funds accrued in both spouses’ retirement accounts over the course of the marriage are divided fifty-fifty upon divorce. Shifting the topic to international human rights, I asked the government sharia experts about some of the human rights concerns of NGOs about women and Muslims in general, particularly in regard to Article 11, and the argument that the implementation of Islamic laws contradicts the universal standards of human rights that have been agreed on at an international level.

Aisha responded directly, saying, “Internationally, the freedom of religion can only be practiced by those who are non-Muslims. For Muslims there is no such thing as freedom of religion.... The intention of the Parliament when they regulate such laws is to give the non-Muslims freedom to practice whatever religion they want, but not for the Muslims. And we, in every state, [are restricted from promoting] other religion to Muslims. It is a crime to persuade Muslims to commit... apostasy. Yes, we have the Article 11 movement, which is led by Professor Shad Faruqi, but he is actually... In Malaysia we practice the Shāfi’ī school of law, but some of those who join this movement follow the Ḥanafī school of law or Shia.”

I was taken aback by the claim that Muslim supporters of the Article 11 movement were deviating from norms of Shāfi’ī jurisprudence in Malaysia, but I did not want to interrupt her. Aisha didn’t complete the sentence about Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi, a professor of law and supporter of SIS, but it appears she wanted to say that he is a Ḥanafite or Shiite. While Ḥanafites are considered followers of one of the four schools of jurisprudence within the fold of Sunni Islam, Malaysian religious officials have deemed Shiites to be a deviant sect and followers are occasionally arrested for offenses related to ‘aqidah (proper religious beliefs).

Elaborating further on their position, Zawati stated, “I think that Article 11 gives freedom of religion to all persons, but it is not absolute freedom. Because we have to follow laws that guide us, as cited in the Lina Joy case, if she intends to convert out of Islam she must follow the procedures. She must go to the sharia court and get a declaration that she is no longer a Muslim. So, in that case, the judge can perform an ijtihād [religious interpretation based on scriptures] whether to give her counseling or to take her back to Islam. But if there is no other way, and we fail to take her back as a Muslim, then maybe the judge can decide after that that she is no longer a Muslim. But we have to follow the laws. If you want to convert out, you have to go to the court. We cannot simply declare that we are no longer a Muslim, because it will cause a more chaotic situation in Malaysia.”

“But from the non-Muslim point of view... they often complain that if they want to marry a Muslim, they have to convert under the law,” I interjected. Then there are issues of conversion that happen in the midst of marriages. Apparently there was an Indian mountaineer who converted to Islam and his wife did not know. He passed away, and of course he had to get a proper Islamic burial, [but] I think his family was Hindu. These are some of the issues that many... non-Muslims are concerned about, that violate what they perceive to be their rights.”

Moorthy Maniam alias Mohammad Abdullah, a former mountaineer, had converted to Islam before his death in 2005. His widow, Kaliammal, wanting to provide Hindu last rites for him, challenged the conversion. Before the civil court heard her plea, the Federal Territory religious department obtained an order from the sharia court giving them the right to provide Islamic last rites for her deceased husband (Netto 2007). Cases like this, contested and labeled “bodysnatching” by liberal rights activists, occur frequently in Malaysia. On the other hand, there are cases in which sharia courts have decided that Malaysians “born as Muslims” were not Muslims at the time of their death.²

Zawati responded right away to this issue: “As you said a problem arises when, as an example, a party has a civil marriage and then one of the couple converts to Islam. From here a lot of problems [arise], and we also have not been able to settle them in terms of the legality of marriage, because we have two laws governing the marriage of these persons. One [law is that] according to civil marriage, the non-Muslim party has the capacity to make a petition for divorce [but the Muslim party does not]. Although, in Islam, we know when one of the parties converts to Islam automatically the marriage will be dissolved.... But in the civil law it’s stated like that. It can’t be like that, where only the non-Muslim party has the capacity to petition for divorce. In our Islamic family law, we have a different provision, that the sharia court has the power to certify that the marriage has been dissolved.”

I asked about what law takes precedence in a case where one party converts to Islam and the other remains non-Muslim.

Aisha interjected, “The current law is that in three months after the conversion a non-Muslim wife can apply for divorce.... It is up to the wife to apply for the divorce. But according to sharia law, after one pronounces Islam automatically the marriage is dissolved.”³

“But what if she doesn’t? Can the husband go to the sharia court and get a declaration?” I asked, expressing confusion at how this can be worked out.

“That is the problem that arises now in Malaysia,” Zawati said with a brief chuckle expressing frustration. “Because of the dual system, we [have] a problem. The civil law says like this and the sharia law says like this.” She explained that they are conducting research and working to amend the laws to make these conversion cases easier to resolve.

Haryaty added, “If the [non-Muslim] wife does not apply for the divorce, then the marriage would go on.”

“So the civil marriage would go on? If the man wanted to marry a Muslima, wouldn’t they have to get a formal order from the sharia court [confirming] that the former marriage was dissolved?”

“The sharia court can’t produce the proper order to say that the civil marriage is dissolved or not, because the sharia court has no power to declare that the civil marriage is dissolved when a person converts to Islam.”

“So then they could issue a new marriage agreement for that Muslim man to marry a Muslima, right?”

“Yes, that is correct. That is the problem now because of the dual system, and each law states it in a different way. We try to harmonize between the civil and the sharia to settle the problem because there are lots of persons that convert to Islam, but we cannot cater for their past marriages because the sharia court has no jurisdiction over the non-Muslims,” Zawati said, summing up the current impasse and ongoing effort to work things out between the two court systems.

Continuing on this topic, I stated, “So it seems... that the civil court used to be considered the higher court... and you have people like Karpal Singh saying that it should always be the ‘high court’ and that Malaysia should never be an Islamic state. But what do you think now? Are the sharia court and the civil court on the same level now in terms of the procedure and the kind of power that the different courts have?”

Zawati chuckled again, expressing her discontent, and stated, “I think the civil and sharia courts actually have their total independence as courts. But because all the laws [were] drafted in Malaysia, we are bound to follow the Federal Constitution. The Federal Constitution converts the power to state [and] federal [levels], and [specifies] what laws they can regulate. It is hard to say. But I don’t think the sharia court is not independent, still bound to follow the civil court... they have their own jurisdiction.”

Aisha added, “In my own personal opinion, there is no such thing that the sharia court is higher or lower from the civil court. I believe that both stand on their own and both have their own powers. As it states in the Federal Constitution, in Article 121(1A), the civil court and the sharia court shall have separate jurisdiction and both stand on their own. Maybe in terms of management we will say that the civil court has a higher style as compared to the sharia court, because the sharia court covers most of the Muslims, and every state in Malaysia has their own standing and same rank with the civil court. They both issue binding decisions in Malaysia.”

Given the extant overlapping jurisdictions of civil and sharia court cases involving non-Muslim and Muslim parties, political and police forces are faced with resolving situations in which both legal systems issue competing decisions. When a civil law marriage dissolves due to the conversion of one spouse to Islam, both court systems are implicated in resolving an interfaith child custody battle. In addition, the new Muslim convert may unilaterally convert the children to Islam or at least change the official registration of their religious status. Therefore, whether the offspring are Muslims or non-Muslims is a further complication. The civil court is involved because the marriage was originally between two non-Muslims, but the sharia court also becomes involved due to one spouse’s conversion to Islam. For instance, S. Deepa, a Hindu woman, and Izwan Abdullah, a Muslim convert, disputed the custody of their two children, a nine-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, whom Izwan converted to Islam. In 2013 Izwan received an order from the Shariah High Court of Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, awarding him custody of their son, whom he took from his mother to live with him. However, in April 2014 Deepa received an order from the Seremban High Court awarding her custody of both children, which was subsequently upheld in the Court of Appeal. Although the civil court ordered the police to return the six-year-old son to Deepa, the inspector general of the police refused to side with either the civil or the sharia court, claiming to be caught between the two legal systems (Malay Mail Online 2014a). Amid growing public attention and controversy, prime minister Najib Razak called on the parties in child custody cases with competing civil and sharia orders to seek judgments from the Federal Court and to accept the decision rendered by the highest civil court (Malaysiakini 2014). It is telling that the prime minister did not direct the parties to seek a binding decision from the highest sharia court in the state of Negeri Sembilan, the Shariah Court of Appeal. While the apparent stalemate between the civil and sharia court orders indicates that Malay authorities were interpreting Article 121 of the constitution to mean that the sharia courts and the lower civil courts have an equivalent level of jurisdiction when Muslims and non-Muslims are involved in family law cases, the prime minister’s practice of pointing the parties toward the Federal Court suggests that it has authority not only over the lower civil courts but also over the state-level sharia courts. His practice embodies a cultural model of sharia in Malaysian society.

“How about the variations in the polygamy laws? Have they been standardized across the states?” I asked, shifting the topic again.

“Yes, in terms of polygamous marriage, we have standardized all the provisions and the states have adopted the provisions in their enactments. I don’t think there is much difference in terms of polygamous marriage. The provision clearly states that if a man wants a second marriage, he must come to court with his current wife, future wife, and the parents-in-law, and in this forum the judge will decide whether the man has the capability to get married to another wife.... The content of the provision is similar with all the states because they have adopted the provisions from federal law.”

Aisha clarified, “Most of the states have the same provisions. Out of all the states in Malaysia, eleven states adopted the provision from federal [law].”

They asked me about the topic of my previous research in Malaysia. I described my earlier project in Melaka, focusing on ethnic and religious diversity, and some of my work in Indonesia. I thanked them for their time and their responses to my questions, and they gave me a copy of the 1999 enactment on wakaf (religious endowments) and wasiat (Muslim wills) in Selangor.