Daughter converts to Islam, father approves

PETALING JAYA: A Singaporean civil servant won praises after she wrote a post on Facebook about her father's understanding reaction to her conversion to Islam.

In the post, 29-year-old Li Jinghan, her 60-year-old retiree father Lee Soon Koon was recounting the time when he was collecting an item purchased over Carousell from a Malay seller last week in Singapore.

The seller was surprised when Lee turned up and told him that he was expecting a Malay person to pick up the item. The seller was also surprised when he learned that Lee allowed his daughter to convert to Islam.

Lee asked: “Why is everyone so shocked when they know I let you convert?”.

To this, Li replied: “Cos you very rare la! Most parents don’t let mah."

In the post, Li also asked her father why he allowed her to convert.

His reply in Chinese was that he did so because he understands life.

"I understand the pursuit of happiness. What’s the purpose of life? To seek happiness," he said.

Lee said what parents want most for their children is for them to be happy.

"Every religion teaches good. If you tell me that this religion makes you happy, why should I stop you?” he added.

Li, who now goes by the name Nur Jihan Li, wrote that her father was "so simple, yet so profound".

"A lot of what he says is almost common sense; it doesn’t take a lot for anyone to come up with what he said," she wrote.

"He doesn’t struggle with what society thinks, what our relatives would think, (or even) how it would mean (now) I can’t eat his favourite BBQ with him anymore.

"His sole concern was really just my happiness," Li wrote.

She said her father was a man of his word.

The post received over 10,000 likes and was shared over 4,000 times.

When contacted by The Star, Li said this was not the first time she had written about her father on Facebook.

"Last time, he would visit me about once a week. But since my father moved, he lives closer to me. Now, he is able to see me and daughter anytime," she said.

Li also sincerely wished people would show kindness to each other regardless of race