Long before I ever set foot in a Syariah court, I had heard stories.

Whispers of people who had tried to change their religious status being taken to centres whose locations were not publicly known. Held against their will. Stripped of their freedom and, at times, their dignity. I knew of at least one person who had gone through something like that. These were not distant rumours – they were real experiences, carried by real people, often in silence.

When I first discovered, in 2017, that there was in fact a legal route for a person to be declared no longer a Muslim, I remember feeling a strange mix of hope and confusion. Hope, because it meant the law recognised something I had always felt to be a deeply personal conviction – that faith cannot be imposed. Confusion, because if that legal route existed, and if the fundamental rights guaranteed by our Federal Constitution had not changed in any material way since independence, how could those earlier accounts of mistreatment have happened at all?

I have since learnt that the distance between what the Constitution promises and what people actually experience can be vast. I have learnt that “counselling,” when used in the context of religious status, can mean many things. And I have learnt that proportionality – a basic principle of any fair legal system – often goes missing in this area of the law.

Over the course of my case, I have been ordered to attend counselling sessions twice.

The first time was in 2018, before my case could proceed meaningfully – twelve sessions with the Mufti’s Department over roughly seven months. The second time was in July 2025, after seven years of court proceedings. The court’s decision was that I must undergo another 60 sessions of sesi istitabah – repentance sessions – before it could declare me no longer a Muslim.

Twelve sessions, then sixty. A total of 72 occasions on which I had to appear, listen, and explain myself.

Is that justifiable? For a person exercising a constitutional right?

I want to write about both sets of sessions. Because what I experienced – and what “counselling” actually meant in practice – tells you more about this system than any legal argument ever could.

The First Twelve Sessions (2018–2019)

I was told the purpose of the twelve sessions was to help the court understand me better – to assess whether I was genuinely no longer a Muslim. I cooperated fully and attended every session.

The Ustad assigned to me began by getting to know me. We were able to have some civil conversations about our respective beliefs within those settings, and I appreciated that. He told me that what I was going through was the proper legal process, and that the court would ultimately decide. I respected that. But as the sessions progressed, the tone shifted. He began telling me that Islam was right and every other religion was wrong. At one point, he told me that according to Islamic teaching on apostasy, he was supposed to kill me. He shared an analogy of a tree with one bad fruit – the bad fruit must be cut off and thrown away. He was comparing me to that fruit.

I do not say this to portray him as a bad person. I do not believe he meant it as a personal threat – I believe he was expressing what he genuinely understood his religion to teach. But for someone sitting across the table hearing those words directed at them, it was a difficult moment. I was twenty-six years old. I listened respectfully. I acknowledged what he believed in – I did not dismiss his faith. But I made it clear that I did not share those beliefs, and I shared what I did believe in. Just as I would not force my beliefs on him, I expected the same in return.

I completed all twelve sessions. The counsellor submitted a report to the court – a report I was not allowed to see. When I asked for a copy, I was told it was confidential. A report about me, that I could not read, that would be used to decide my case.

I later learnt that in another state, a plaintiff actually received a copy of their counselling report and found inaccuracies in it – facts that did not match what was actually said during the sessions. It made me wonder why some plaintiffs are able to obtain their report while I could not. That is part of the reason why, when the second round of sessions came in 2025, I insisted on recording them.

The 60 Sessions – What Was It Really For?

From my understanding, istitabah in Islamic jurisprudence refers to a process of inviting a person to repent and return to the faith. The court order used that term – sesi istitabah – which carries the weight of a formal religious process designed to bring a person back to Islam.

But when I sat down with the panel at the first session, I was told something different. When I asked what the purpose of these sessions actually was, one of them described it as more of a sharing session. Since I had told them clearly what my faith was – and respectfully said that I was not there to learn about Islam or to return to Islam, but to pursue the declaration I had been seeking from the start – one of them reassured me that there was no need to learn about Islam.

And yet, when I asked another directly – “Is this session meant to persuade me to return to Islam?” – he did not deny it.

So which was it? A casual sharing session? A process of repentance? An exercise in persuasion? Or all of the above? What I do know is this: the court called it istitabah, the panel called it sharing, and the honest answer, when pressed, was that it was meant to persuade me to return to Islam. This left me wondering what the counselling sessions were really for in the first place.

At that same first session, I was told there would be 60 sessions, on 60 separate days, even though the court ordered the sessions within 60 days. I responded immediately out of frustration:

“60 sesi?! Perintah mengatakan ‘dalam 60 hari’. Bukan 60 kali.”

The court order, as I read it, required the sessions to be completed within 60 days – not 60 separate sessions. The administrator told me that based on their previous cases, “60 days” in practice meant “60 sessions.” I pushed back. I told them that if MAIS was insisting on 60 sessions, they were effectively acting contrary to the court’s own order – because 60 separate sessions would almost certainly take longer than 60 days. I said I would not agree to 60 sessions, as it was unreasonable. I wrote to the courts to clarify this or possibly reduce the number of sessions, but was told if I was not happy, I was allowed to appeal.

After that first session and after receiving that reply, I realised my options were limited. An appeal to the Syariah Court of Appeal would have taken far longer than the 60 days. Non-compliance would have handed the court a reason to rule against me. The only option that served my case was to comply, however unreasonable the order felt.

There was one more thing I raised at that first session. Given my experience with the twelve sessions – where the report was kept from me and I later learnt of inaccuracies in another plaintiff’s report – I told the panel that I would be recording our conversations. Their response was immediate: if I recorded, they could not proceed with the sessions. And once again, if I was not happy with that, I could appeal to the courts. It was the same answer to everything – appeal, and wait even longer. I agreed not to record. Not because I thought it was fair, but because I could not afford another delay. Finishing the sessions as quickly as possible was the only path forward I had left.

So I complied.

What the Sessions Actually Became

Between September and December 2025, I attended all 60 sessions.

Through it all, I carried a weight I cannot easily describe. The frustration of being forced to attend sessions that even the panel could not clearly justify. The feeling of a system that seemed designed to outlast me rather than understand me. Seventy-two sessions across eight years – whatever the intention behind it, the effect was to wear a person down. And I cannot help but wonder whether that effect was incidental, or the point.

I understand that there may be value in wanting to know why a person has chosen to leave a religion. I can even understand the desire to persuade a person to stay. But does that require 72 sessions over a period of eight years? I cannot see how that is justifiable.

And yet, something unexpected happened along the way.

The panel members expressed early on that they wanted these sessions to be friendly – a conversation, not a confrontation. I was open to that. I shared my faith honestly. I spoke about why I believe in Jesus Christ, about what the Scripture I believe in says, about how I came to my convictions. They listened. They asked questions. At times, they shared their own perspectives on faith, family, and life.

As the sessions went on, something shifted. They began to speak more candidly – about their own frustrations and struggles. They could see the unfairness. They could see the years I had lost. But they could not change anything. They were carrying out the instructions given to them.

By the final session, one of them said he hoped my case would come out in my favour. We parted with a handshake and a hug. We agreed to stay in touch – not as a counsellor and a case, but as friends.

I value that friendship. I am grateful for their honesty. But the friendship does not erase the question that stayed with me throughout, and stays with me still: if the people closest to the process could see that it was unfair, and if the sessions themselves often became friendly conversations – sometimes meaningful, sometimes just catching up over teh tarik – then what was the purpose of requiring 72 of them?

Through all of it, I tried to be respectful. I tried to engage with grace. I tried to see the people in front of me as people, not as adversaries. But there were moments when I could not hide the frustration. I remember telling the panel, plainly, that I considered this “proses yang paling mengarut yang saya lalui.” The most absurd process I had ever been through.

I meant no disrespect to the people in the room when I said it. I also apologised to them. My frustration was with the process, not with them. But after eight years, I could not hold it back any longer.

And after all of it – after 72 sessions, after full cooperation, after eight years – my case was still rejected.

If istitabah is meant to help a person reconsider their faith, then after 72 sessions, the process has had every opportunity to achieve that. It did not change my conviction. If the sessions were meant to assess whether I was genuine, then 72 occasions should have been more than enough. And if the question is whether I was given a fair chance to be heard – I would ask whether I was truly heard at all.

72 counselling sessions, imposed on a person exercising a constitutional right to freedom of religion. Is that justifiable?

I leave that question with you.

This article was originally published on Buy Me a Coffee.