exclusive Conversions from Islam are minimal and nowhere near the 100,000 figure bandied around by some religious leaders, said a researcher.

Based on official data obtained from the state syariah courts, religious departments and the National Registration Department (NRD), the number of conversions are only in the hundreds.

Dr Mohd Azam Mohd Adil, a law professor at the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), said that the NRD recorded 750 applications between 1999 and July 2003 to change names - from Muslim to non-Muslim - in the identity cards.

Of these, only 220 were granted throughout the five years. Most of the applicants were converts to Islam, said Azam.

However, actual numbers of apostasy - those who who file an official application to leave Islam in the courts - are much lower, about 100 between 1994 and 2003 among the country's 10 million Muslims.

The law professor said the state with the highest number of recorded conversions, Negri Sembilan, saw only 16 cases of apostasy approved by the syariah courts in that period.

Azam ( left ) had compiled the data (up until July 2003) for his PhD thesis - a comparative analysis of Malaysia's civil and syariah laws on apostasy - which was submitted last year to the law department of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

According to Azam, over the nine-year period in which he had obtained official data, there were only 84 applications by Muslims to seek declaration by the Negri Sembilan syariah courts for the renunciation of Islam.

"Of these, 16 applications were granted, 29 were rejected, and the remaining 39 'kept in view'," he said when met at UiTM's Centre for Islamic Thought and Understanding yesterday.

Interestingly, Negri Sembilan is the only state in Malaysia that has provisions under its Administration of Islamic Law Enactment 1991 (amended in 1995) that 'allow' the conversion of Muslims from Islam.

The enactment was further amended in 2003 to shorten the time period - from 90 days to 30 days wherein the applicant is counselled and advised to recant his renunciation - and Azam believed there had since been no drastic rise in Negri Sembilan of apostasy cases.

Cases in Sarawak

Sarawak also has a relatively high number of applications to renounce Islam, but these are mostly recent converts from other religions who seek to convert out of Islam, said Azam.

However, applications for declarations to renounce Islam are not recorded by the Sarawak syariah courts because the state - like all states in Malaysia except Negri Sembilan - does not have provisions in its syariah laws for such cases to be handled by judges.

Nevertheless, the practice in Sarawak has been for applicants to go directly to the state's Islamic Affairs Department, which certify their conversions from Islam upon determining that the person "irreconcilably seeks to renounce the religion".

"These documents certifying that such person is no longer a Muslim are considered valid by the NRD, which under the National Registration Regulations 1990 (amended 2001) could accept such declarations only from either the state syariah courts or the Islamic affairs departments," said Azam.

The other states likewise have recorded up to 2003 either no applications at all or very small numbers of applications to renounce Islam, said Azam.

Kedah, for example, recorded only two court applications - one verbal, the other written - to renounce Islam, said Azam. These were rejected on the grounds that there are no provisions for such applications to be heard.

The federal territories, between early 2001 and August 2003, recorded 12 cases.

"Up until 2001, if there was an application, they just ignored it or rejected it," said Azam.

However, after 2001, apostasy applications in the federal territories were at least 'accepted' by the Syariah Judiciary Department and codified alongside such cases as custody and divorce cases.

The 12 applications, however, were dismissed by the syariah judges on the grounds that the Administration of Islamic Law (Federal Territories) Act 1993 contained no provisions for its judges to decide either for or against such cases.

In Penang, up until 2003 there were no records in its syariah courts or religious department indicating there had been any formal applications to renounce Islam.

While there were "several" cases filed in the civil courts, said Azam, these were thrown out because they ruled they had no jurisdiction over a matter that was under the powers of the syariah courts.

Where apostasy is criminalised

The five states of Pahang, Perak, Malacca, Sabah, and Terengganu criminalise apostasy by imposing fines not exceeding RM3,000 and/or imprisonment of not more than two years.

Up until 2003, Perak syariah courts had recorded only two cases of apostasy, said Azam. The apostates were charged and convicted.

Azam said that there were no records of formal application of leaving Islam in all the other remaining states, possibly because it is not recognised and the harsh penalties against apostates.

According to him, Pahang's syariah laws contain the harshest sentences where, upon conviction, an apostate is liable to a fine not exceeding RM5,000 and/or imprisonment of not more than three years, and possibly six strokes of the cane.

On top of its criminalisation of apostasy, Sabah has rehabilitation centres for the counseling of Muslims seeking to apostasise.

Malacca and Kelantan, similarly, have rehabilitation centres for apostates. None of them, however, have been gazetted.

Selangor has a rehabilitation centre in Ulu Yam meant for members of sects categorised as 'deviant' by the Islamic religious authorities.

However, Azam did not have statistics of non-Muslims embracing Islam as this was not part of his research.

Call for restraint

Azam said the official numbers he had compiled shed some light on the nature of the problem of apostasy in Malaysia.

He also said public figures should refrain from making statements on sensitive issues that were not based on credible evidence and facts, while groups and members of the public have to ascertain the veracity of such news before taking action.

"The numbers thrown around in SMSes and Internet that 100,000 to 250,000 Muslims seeking to convert is simply not true. Where is the evidence of such numbers? We have to go by data and cannot rely on hearsay," said Azam.

The professor was commenting on the incident in Ipoh, Perak, where hundreds of Muslims had gathered last Sunday in front of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes after news spread by short-messaging system (SMS) that 600 Malays were to be christianised led by national mariner Azhar Mansor.

The widely-spread SMS, which also implicated Perak mufti Harussani Zakaria who had earlier claimed that 100,000 Malays had become Christians and 100,000 more were applying to do so, turned out to be untrue.

The church was in fact conducting a holy communion ceremony for 110 children of Indian origin that day.

Azhar had since denied that he planned to convert out of Islam, while Harussani had been summoned by Perak's Sultan Azlan Shah for a meeting on the matter.