Malaysia is not a theocratic state

the book of Document of Destiny : The Constitution of the Federation of Malaysia by academician and social commentor, Prof. Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi.

I REFER to the article in which former Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim was reported to have said in a lecture titled “Islam as the law of the land” that any law contrary to Islamic scriptures is null and void.

This is a rewriting of our constitutional history as defined by the Reid and Cobbold Commissions and the Malaysia Agreement 1963. Malaysia is not a theocratic state. The Federal Constitution very clearly states that the Constitution is the highest law of the land, not any extrinsic religious source. The special position of Islam as the religion of the Federation is clear in Article 3. However, this does not mean that Parliament must pass laws in conformity with Islamic principles for them to be valid.