What Kelantan S Upended Sharia Push In Malaysia Reveals About Pas Islamist Politicking

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PAS had the opportunity to push forward with its Islamist agenda when it joined Muhyiddin’s rise to power after a mess of a political coup in 2020. Though they were in office for two years, there was not a single mention of the plan.
(SCMP) – Around a thousand Malaysians last Friday expressed outrage and shed tears as they gathered outside the country’s federal court, at a rally organised by Kelantan leaders ahead of a landmark ruling that rendered the state’s expansion of sharia law unconstitutional.
It was the usual spectacle associated with demonstrations organised by Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) – especially ones that involve the Islamist party’s policies.
Their supporters vehemently decried attempts to undo what the state leaders had achieved, saying the moves were un-Islamic and defied Allah.
The drama surrounded a constitutional review filed in early 2022 by a Muslim lawyer and her daughter, months after the PAS-dominated Kelantan state assembly passed amendments to the state’s sharia criminal enactment that broadened its scope to include more than a dozen crimes as punishable under Islamic law.
Those crimes included incest, bestiality and the offering of sexual services, all of which already come under similar provisions under civil law – and with harsher punishments
The federal court ruled as widely expected, albeit on an 8-1 majority, that Kelantan’s assembly had overstepped its bounds by attempting to enact laws that fall squarely under federal jurisdiction.
Malaysian Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who was born and bred in Kelantan, anticipated there would be a backlash against the decision.
The country’s top judge prefaced the ruling by stating clearly that the case was an examination of constitutional limitations and had “nothing to do with the position of Islam” or that of the country’s sharia courts.
She repeated what she had said in November, when the federal court last met to hear the case before last week’s judgment, but clearly no one in the conservative political camp had bothered to take notice.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who heads the Malay nationalist Perikatan Nasional (PN) opposition coalition, said in a statement that the apex court’s ruling meant Muslims in Kelantan would now not face any punishment for committing any of the acts that were prescribed under the invalidated amendments.
He made this erroneous comment, despite knowing full well that civil laws governing said crimes remain in place and are enforced by police in Malaysia, including in Kelantan.
So what gives?
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