Miss Joy was born Azlina Jailani into the Muslim religion in officially Islamic Malaysia. At age 26 she converted to Christianity, a bold act in any majority-Muslim society. Later, she sought to marry a Christian man. What followed--for the next nine years--was anything but joyful.
Malaysian law forbids a Muslim and non-Muslim to wed. In the eyes of the country's
sharia
courts, which govern Muslims by the Quran, Miss Joy, now 43, remains a Muslim because she never sought their permission to exit Islam. This was prudent: All major schools of Islamic law prescribe death or prison for "apostates"--renouncers of Islam.Malaysia's constitution, as The Economist points out, guarantees that "every person has the right to profess and practice his religion." But a Malaysian Supreme Court tribunal last month ruled 2-1 that secular authorities must defer to
sharia
in matters of conversion. So in the eyes of the state, too, Miss Joy is a Muslim. Those aren't wedding bells she hears, but the knell of dashed hopes and trampled dignity.The mailing address of the Malaysian Embassy is 2401 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20038.