Brunei Darussalam is a small Southeast Asian Muslim nation, extremely rich thanks to its large reserve of oil wealth, about which we have covered little. Here, in a letter of faithfreedom.org’s Ali Sina, we hear from a secret Brunei apostate about how that country is quietly walking the path of Islamic radicalism and instituting Sharia as the system of governance:

I am from a small, majority Muslim country called Brunei Darussalam. For so long, we have enjoyed tranquility, peace, harmonious and acceptable tolerance towards other religion as well as each other (amongst Muslim). We are a rich country and everything is heavily subsidized by the government, hence, whatever law they impose on us, we have no objection, until now…

Recently, our King has instructed his Religious Minister (yes we have a Ministry of Religious Affairs) to implement a Syariah law where punishments such as amputation (for theft) and stoning to death (for adultery) will exist! And of course, this extreme and radical order received negativity from some people. To cut the story short, the government has now succeeded in turning the whole nation against TWO individuals who spoke out, and by speaking out I meant voicing out their views and opinions in a local newspaper, Borneo Bulletin (we only have 2 English newspapers in the country).

The first person basically questioned the rationale and the need to implement such things, and at the same time voiced out their opinions on how inhumane and barbaric these punishments seem to be. The link to the article can be found here –http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/Hot-Topics/wouldnt-offenders-end-up-as-a-burden-on-society.html.

The latter actually supports the Syariah Law but condemned stoning to death and pointed out that it was not mentioned in the Quran, but only in Hadis which according to him, can be denied. He sounds very knowledgeable in Islam and has also put forward interesting findings on the matter. This person also had a blog (which has now been removed) and is pretty well known as he regularly submits opinions to the newspaper. Similarly, here is the link to that article – http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/Hot-Topics/what-about-the-rights-of-victims.html.

Now, the government through the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) seems to have started a campaign to silence these individuals just because they disagree. The first out of a series of backlashes was less than a week after these articles were published where the Public Relations Unit of MORA replied to the second writer. Their reply, in my opinion is an empty talk filled with mockery where instead of replying  in a professional and knowledgeable manner, they resorted to calling the writer an ánti-hadith’ and went on to diminish the writers’ credibility by reminding him that his knowledge is not sufficient to allow him to speak in such matter. The full article can be found here –http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/Hot-Topics/the-punishment-of-stoning-for-a-muhshan-exists-in-islamic-law.html.

The second attack on the opinion writers was in a Friday sermon a week later where the Imam again echoed the Public Relation’s campaign in labeling the writers as ‘anti-hadith’ and made it sound as if they were trying to confuse and bring down the faith. This has indeed sparked hatred and anger towards these opinion writers as almost all Bruneian Muslims look up to the religious leaders and of course will believe and support whatever they say. And this Friday sermon was presented nationwide. As with all Friday sermons, this piece was also published and can be read here –http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/Local-News/imams-remind-ummah-against-anti-hadith-group.html.

The third and most recent attempt to silence these thinkers is through the State Mufti’s (the State’s head of religious leader) lecture last week. In his lecture, he emphasized on the death punishments for apostates and that those who dared to speak or act against the law of Allah will be considered as apostates. The rest of this silliness may be found here –http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/Local-News/death-for-debasing-islam.html.

Dear Mr Ali Sina, how in the world can I get out of this mess? Although the Syariah law has not been implemented yet, according to MORA, the drafting is done and it’s only a matter of time before we can enjoy the law of Allah (pun intended). As much as I would love to get out of this country, I seem to suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Most of my friends and families are with the government and hate these writers as well. Those who at first agreed with them, now refuse to discuss the matter anymore, perhaps out of fear. And I do not know what happened to these writers now. Lastly, apart from asking for your opinion on how to stop this matter, I also would like to ask the readers to help spread this absurdity around since here we are not allowed to even utter a disagreement.

A secret apostate
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Dear Secret Apostate,

Sadly it seems that the Muslim world has to go through a cleansing process before they dump Islam.  This happened in Iran, when people, not knowing what they were doing, support a religious crook to get rid of a despotic king.  Iranians really did not want the Sharia and Khomeini promised freedom and separation of religion from state.  He said he had no interest in politics and will leave the power to people. Of course, like any good Muslim he lied.

Now 34 years have passed and Iranians have seen the true face of Islam.  At least for Iran, Islam is finished. Once Iran becomes free, it won’t take long before Islam becomes the faith of the minority in that country.

Other Islamic countries have to go through that cleansing process. Egypt seems to be the next. Unfortunately many good people will be sacrificed, perhaps the best of the people, for the Islamic countries to wake up and spit out Islam from their lives.

We can speed up this process by exposing the truth about Islam and its founder.  The movie I am trying to raise money for will do just that. It will bring the truth to the masses or Muslims and non-Muslims.

When people are exposed only to lies, they will believe in lies. Lies can be defeated with truth. And truth needs a chance.

The responsibility of apostates is immense. Although non-Muslims can be of great help, exposing Islam and defeating it, they are generally dismissed by Muslims.  Their views are automatically rejected without giving them a thought.  The views of apostates are much more powerful. Muhammad knew that and that is why he was so paranoid about dissenters that ordered anyone leaving Islam should be killed.

The darker things become the more urgent becomes the need for the light. Islam brings misery and pain wherever it goes in exchange for a false hope of another world.  The way to defeat Islam is to expose the fallaciousness of those hopes. That is why I am so eager to take our message to a larger audience. Now we can reach hundreds of millions of people and a movie is the way to do that.

Ali Sina