Are They Helping Me, Or Helping Themselves?
Recently, one of our silent readers sent me a long message about the difficulties faced by ex-Muslims, mixed-faith families, and those caught within Malaysia's religious bureaucracy.
One paragraph stood out to me: "It feels like Malaysia has engineered an incredibly airtight system to keep Muslims as Muslims... religiously justified by amar makruf nahi mungkar, with the implication that failing to keep a Muslim in the faith will now be a sin borne by the Muslims around them."
I could not stop thinking about it, because it provided a possible answer to a question that had been sitting at the back of my mind for years.
For years, I struggled to understand cases such as Indira Gandhi and Loh Siew Hong. Many people explain these cases in political terms. Some explain them in ethnic terms. Others blame bureaucracy or institutional incompetence. Yet those explanations always felt incomplete to me. Why do some authorities seem so reluctant to let these cases end? Why do legal victories often fail to bring closure? Why do people seeking to leave Islam face obstacle after obstacle? Why do friends, relatives, lawyers, religious officers, and even complete strangers suddenly become invested in the religious choices of another adult?
What if the system is behaving exactly as one would expect from a society that teaches collective responsibility for faith? What if many people genuinely believe they have a moral obligation to keep fellow Muslims within Islam? If that is true, then the behaviour starts making sense.
The police officer who seems strangely reluctant.
The religious officer who refuses to let go.
The lawyer who discourages an application.
The concerned friend.
The stranger offering advice.
The man offering marriage.
None of them necessarily see themselves as controlling another person's life.
They may sincerely believe they are helping. They may genuinely believe they are acting out of compassion. Yet from the perspective of the person trying to leave, the experience can feel very different, because what one person calls concern, another person experiences as pressure. What one person calls guidance, another person experiences as interference. What one person calls a religious duty, another person experiences as a denial of personal choice.
I am not claiming to know what is inside the minds of police officers, religious officials, or ordinary Muslims. But I do know the mindset many of us were raised with. I know that from a young age we were taught that the faith of fellow Muslims matters. We were taught that helping Muslims remain Muslim is a virtue. We were taught that bringing someone back to Islam is a noble act. And when a belief becomes deeply embedded in a community, it does not stay confined to sermons and religious classes. It shapes institutions. It shapes behaviour. It shapes instincts.
This is why so many seemingly unrelated cases feel strangely connected. The common thread is the belief that a Muslim's faith is never entirely their own affair. This is the missing piece : amar makruf nahi mungkar.
A woman entered our chatroom recently. She was a convert to Islam. Her marriage to a Muslim husband ending. She was was seriously considering renouncing Islam. Then something interesting happened. Several Muslim men began expressing an interest in marrying her. As I sat there listening to her, and thought about it, the more it reminded me of something I had been taught my entire life as a Muslim.
That a Muslim is not responsible only for his own faith.
A Muslim also has responsibilities towards other Muslims.
To encourage what is right.
To discourage what is wrong.
To bring people back to the right path.
To prevent fellow Muslims from straying.
And suddenly a larger question emerged.
What if this doctrine of collective responsibility helps explain many things that have puzzled me for years?
if one is taught that helping a Muslim remain Muslim earns religious merit, and failing to do so carries moral consequences, then the distinction between caring for another person and fulfilling a religious obligation can become blurred. This is why so many ex-Muslims like myself, struggle to trust the helping hand extended towards us. The question quietly lingers in the background:
Are you helping me because you care about me? Or are you helping me because you need me to remain Muslim?
I do not claim to know what is in the hearts of those who reach out.
Many are undoubtedly sincere.
But I can no longer ignore the possibility that a doctrine of collective religious responsibility profoundly changes how relationships are experienced by those trying to leave the faith. The real issue is not whether people are sincere but whether genuine neutrality is possible when someone believes they bear responsibility for another person's salvation.
And that is the missing piece that connects far more of these stories than we realise.
AUGUST 2026
