Maniam Moorthy
Encyclopedia
Maniam Moorthy, also known as Mohammad Abdullah, was a corporal
in the Malaysian Army
and a member of the first group of Malaysians to successfully climb
Mount Everest
. A Malaysian Indian born and raised Hindu
, a controversy about his religion arose after his death; he was buried as a Muslim
against the wishes of his wife in accordance with a Syariah Court ruling that he had converted
to Islam
without the knowledge of his family.
army camp in Melaka
, he fell during a training exercise and became paralysed from the waist down. According to his wife, his mental faculties also declined in parallel with his physical condition; he suffered emotional disturbances and short-term memory loss, and once forgot the way back to his house and had to telephone for help. Records of the Malaysian Armed Forces
state that he embraced Islam on 11 October 2004 and filed an application with his superiors to be registered as such on 8 March 2005; however, his military identity card was never modified to reflect this change of religion or his reported new Muslim name of Mohammad Abdullah. His older brother Muhammad Hussein, formerly known as Maniam Sugumaran (born c. 1958), had earlier converted to Islam after getting married to a Muslim woman in Sabah
. His younger brother Shangalingam (born c. 1980) remained a Hindu. Despite his conversion to Islam, Moorthy remained uncircumcised
, still took part in Hindu festivals, ate pork
, and drank alcohol; he appeared on television on 31 October 2005, being interviewed about his celebration of Deepavali. On 11 November 2005, he fell from his wheelchair
, injuring his head and entering into a coma
from which he would never recover.
application by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council. The Syariah Court heard testimony from Moorthy's army colleagues, but his wife ignored a subpoena
and did not appear in court to offer any testimony.
A fight broke out at the hospital when about 50 people began to shout abusive language at Moorthy's family; the situation was brought under control by military police.
In response to the Syariah Court ruling, Moorthy's wife through M. Manoharan
filed her own application with the High Court seeking an order that the hospital hand over her husband's body. As a result, the hospital decided to retain the body rather than release it to the Islamic Affairs Department, on the advice of their legal adviser in the Ministry of Health. More than one hundred people came to the court gallery on the morning of 28 December to hear the judge's verdict. The High Court dismissed the application, stating it had no jurisdiction to determine whether Moorthy had converted to Islam, because the Syariah High Court had already ruled on the matter. Upon receipt of the ruling, the hospital released his body to the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department, which buried him in the Taman Ibukota Muslim Cemetery in Gombak
, Selangor
that afternoon. Security was heavy at his funeral, and his family did not attend, with the exception of his elder brother Mohammad Hussein.
Moorthy was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant
in recognition of his service to the nation, with the promotion backdated to June 2005. His wife received a death benefit of RM110,000, and continues to receive his sergeant's pension of RM947.33 per month. Though under Islamic inheritance law
, his elder brother, as the immediate family's only practicing Muslim, had the right to claim this benefit, he agreed to sign a written undertaking giving up all his stake in it, so that Moorthy's widow and child could receive the full amount. The Armed Forces urged the private sector to provide his wife with a job; in 2007, she was 32 years old and reported by American magazine Time
to be working as an office cleaner.
.
The court announced on June 20, 2006 that they would render a decision in September; however, they emphasised that their ruling would only concern the matter of the civil High Court's jurisdiction, and that they would not rule on whether Moorthy was a practicing Hindu at the time of his death.
The Syarie Lawyers Association criticised the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council for the original case, stating that it was improper for them to have filed an ex parte application at the Syariah High Court on the matter. The day after the funeral, Reverend Wong Kim Kong, secretary-general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF), also said, "We are uneasy. We are uncomfortable. We are feeling threatened." He added, "We are concerned that Syariah may one day be the supreme law of the land." Anwar Ibrahim
, the former deputy Prime Minister who finished serving a corruption sentence in September 2004, pointed to the Moorthy case as an example of how the government "stifl[es] non-Muslim's rights". One advocacy group for religious minorities said the verdict "showed the Islamic court is inconsistent in its protection of religious minorities", comparing the case to that of Wong Ah Kiu
, also known as Nyonya binti Tahir, an ethnic Chinese woman born as a Muslim but raised in a Buddhist family, whose children received permission from a Negeri Sembilan
court to bury her as a Buddhist less than a month after the Moorthy case. The case also attracted attention in India, where the Vishva Hindu Parishad
filed a protest with the Malaysian High Commissioner, denouncing the burial as a violation of human rights.
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
in the Malaysian Army
Malaysian Army
The Malaysian Army is the land component of the Malaysian Armed Forces. Steeped in British Army traditions, the Malaysian Army does not carry the title ‘royal’ as do the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Royal Malaysian Navy...
and a member of the first group of Malaysians to successfully climb
Timeline of climbing Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,848 metres above sea level.- 1921: Reconnaissance expedition:The first British expedition – organized and financed by the newly formed Mount Everest Committee – came under the leadership of Colonel Ashton Rushton, with Kyle Carter as...
Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
. A Malaysian Indian born and raised Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, a controversy about his religion arose after his death; he was buried as a Muslim
Islamic funeral
Funerals in Islam follow fairly specific rites, though they are subject to regional interpretation and variation in custom. In all cases, however, sharia calls for burial of the body, preceded by a simple ritual involving bathing and shrouding the body, followed by salah...
against the wishes of his wife in accordance with a Syariah Court ruling that he had converted
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
without the knowledge of his family.
Army career and Mount Everest
Moorthy joined the armed forces in 1988. He was one of ten people in the Malaysia Everest 1997 team among whom two members, M. Magendran and N. Mohandass, became the first Malaysians who climbed to the summit of Mount Everest, reaching the peak on 23 May 1997. On 14 August of the following year, while at the Sungai UdangSungai Udang
Sungai Udang is a small town in Malacca, Malaysia. It is situated within the parliamentary constituency of Tangga Batu. The Petronas oil refinery is located there....
army camp in Melaka
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
, he fell during a training exercise and became paralysed from the waist down. According to his wife, his mental faculties also declined in parallel with his physical condition; he suffered emotional disturbances and short-term memory loss, and once forgot the way back to his house and had to telephone for help. Records of the Malaysian Armed Forces
Military of Malaysia
The Malaysian Armed Forces , the military of Malaysia, consists of three branches; the Royal Malaysian Navy , the Malaysian Army and the Royal Malaysian Air Force...
state that he embraced Islam on 11 October 2004 and filed an application with his superiors to be registered as such on 8 March 2005; however, his military identity card was never modified to reflect this change of religion or his reported new Muslim name of Mohammad Abdullah. His older brother Muhammad Hussein, formerly known as Maniam Sugumaran (born c. 1958), had earlier converted to Islam after getting married to a Muslim woman in Sabah
Sabah
Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
. His younger brother Shangalingam (born c. 1980) remained a Hindu. Despite his conversion to Islam, Moorthy remained uncircumcised
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
, still took part in Hindu festivals, ate pork
Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork
Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork are a tradition in the Ancient Near East. Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria and Phoenicia, and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus A lost poem of Hermesianax, reported centuries later by the...
, and drank alcohol; he appeared on television on 31 October 2005, being interviewed about his celebration of Deepavali. On 11 November 2005, he fell from his wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
, injuring his head and entering into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
from which he would never recover.
Death and court case
Moorthy died at 11.10 am on 20 December 2005 in the Intensive Care Unit of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, which he had entered after doctors noticed he was having difficulty breathing. He was only 36 at the time of his death. His widow filed for a court order to claim his body on 21 December, but when she went to claim it, the hospital refused to release it in accordance with a 22 December Syariah Court ruling that Moorthy had converted to Islam before his death, given in response to an ex parteEx parte
Ex parte is a Latin legal term meaning "from one party" .An ex parte decision is one decided by a judge without requiring all of the parties to the controversy to be present. In Australian, Canadian, U.K., Indian and U.S...
application by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council. The Syariah Court heard testimony from Moorthy's army colleagues, but his wife ignored a subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
and did not appear in court to offer any testimony.
A fight broke out at the hospital when about 50 people began to shout abusive language at Moorthy's family; the situation was brought under control by military police.
In response to the Syariah Court ruling, Moorthy's wife through M. Manoharan
M. Manoharan
Manoharan s/o Malayalam more commonly known as M. Manoharan is a prominent Malaysian lawyer and currently the State Assemblyman for Kota Alam Shah in the Selangor State Assembly. He is a member of the Democratic Action Party....
filed her own application with the High Court seeking an order that the hospital hand over her husband's body. As a result, the hospital decided to retain the body rather than release it to the Islamic Affairs Department, on the advice of their legal adviser in the Ministry of Health. More than one hundred people came to the court gallery on the morning of 28 December to hear the judge's verdict. The High Court dismissed the application, stating it had no jurisdiction to determine whether Moorthy had converted to Islam, because the Syariah High Court had already ruled on the matter. Upon receipt of the ruling, the hospital released his body to the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department, which buried him in the Taman Ibukota Muslim Cemetery in Gombak
Gombak
Gombak is a district located in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. The district was created on February 1, 1974, the same day when Kuala Lumpur was declared a Federal Territory. Until 1997, Rawang was the district capital; the capital has been moved to Bandar Baru Selayang. Gombak borders Kuala...
, Selangor
Selangor
Selangor also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity") is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east, Negeri Sembilan to the south and the Strait of Malacca to the west...
that afternoon. Security was heavy at his funeral, and his family did not attend, with the exception of his elder brother Mohammad Hussein.
Moorthy was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
in recognition of his service to the nation, with the promotion backdated to June 2005. His wife received a death benefit of RM110,000, and continues to receive his sergeant's pension of RM947.33 per month. Though under Islamic inheritance law
Islamic inheritance jurisprudence
Islamic Inheritance jurisprudence is a field of Islamic Jurisprudence that deals with inheritance, a topic that is prominently dealt with in the Qur'an. It is often called Mīrāth, and its branch of Islamic law is technically known as ʿulm al-farāʾiḍ...
, his elder brother, as the immediate family's only practicing Muslim, had the right to claim this benefit, he agreed to sign a written undertaking giving up all his stake in it, so that Moorthy's widow and child could receive the full amount. The Armed Forces urged the private sector to provide his wife with a job; in 2007, she was 32 years old and reported by American magazine Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
to be working as an office cleaner.
Response to the case
On 31 January 2006, Kaliammal petitioned the Court of Appeal to declare that the High Court had erred in its earlier decision which concluded it had no jurisdiction to determine the validity of conversions to Islam. She had been hoping to exhume the body and perform a Hindu cremationCremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
.
The court announced on June 20, 2006 that they would render a decision in September; however, they emphasised that their ruling would only concern the matter of the civil High Court's jurisdiction, and that they would not rule on whether Moorthy was a practicing Hindu at the time of his death.
The Syarie Lawyers Association criticised the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council for the original case, stating that it was improper for them to have filed an ex parte application at the Syariah High Court on the matter. The day after the funeral, Reverend Wong Kim Kong, secretary-general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF), also said, "We are uneasy. We are uncomfortable. We are feeling threatened." He added, "We are concerned that Syariah may one day be the supreme law of the land." Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar bin Ibrahim is a Malaysian politician who served as Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister from 1993 to 1998. Early in his career, Anwar was a close ally of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad but subsequently emerged as the most prominent critic of Mahathir's government.In 1999, he was sentenced...
, the former deputy Prime Minister who finished serving a corruption sentence in September 2004, pointed to the Moorthy case as an example of how the government "stifl[es] non-Muslim's rights". One advocacy group for religious minorities said the verdict "showed the Islamic court is inconsistent in its protection of religious minorities", comparing the case to that of Wong Ah Kiu
Wong Ah Kiu
Wong Ah Kiu , legally known as Nyonya Binti Tahir, was a Malaysian woman born to a Muslim family but raised Buddhist...
, also known as Nyonya binti Tahir, an ethnic Chinese woman born as a Muslim but raised in a Buddhist family, whose children received permission from a Negeri Sembilan
Negeri Sembilan
Negeri Sembilan, one of the 13 states that constitutes Malaysia, lies on the western coast of Peninsular Malaysia, just south of Kuala Lumpur and borders Selangor on the north, Pahang in the east, and Malacca and Johor to the south....
court to bury her as a Buddhist less than a month after the Moorthy case. The case also attracted attention in India, where the Vishva Hindu Parishad
Vishva Hindu Parishad
' , which is usually known more simply as the VHP, is an international Hindu organization, which was founded in India in 1964. Its slogan is "धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः Dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ", which is supposed to mean "Dharma protects its protector"...
filed a protest with the Malaysian High Commissioner, denouncing the burial as a violation of human rights.