SOP to combat the use of black magic aimed at marriage and divorce cases among Muslims

It was earlier reported that the UMP through the Committee for Advanced Studies in Witchcraft Law, has formulated the SOP to combat the use of witchcraft.

The committee’s chairman, Dr Mahyuddin Ismail said the claims of black magic and withcraft were often brought to the Syariah Courts when couples seek divorce.

“But, since there is no legal provision or procedure to consider the use of black magic and witchcraft in marriages and divorces, such claims are often dismissed,” he said in an exclusive interview with Astro AWANI.

“The SOP is to address this issue,” he said.

Mahyuddin said the committee had applied modern medicine, psychiatric, forensic and Islamic healing in its researches.

“We believe by putting together all the four fields, a metaphysic matter which was difficult to be explained, can now be turned into something more physical which can be better explained,” he said.

As an example, Mahyuddin cited the case of a woman who had sought divorce because she was not in a ‘rational thinking mode’ when she married her husband, whom she claimed had ‘charmed’ her into marrying him.

The wife only realised that the husband had used black magic to marry her after her mother had taken her to a witch doctor, who had later healed her.

The marriage was later annulled.

However, he said the same argument could not be used to grant divorce to Yani Yuhana Mohd Zambri who had sought the Syariah Court to end her marriage to Pakistani, Muhammad Kamran Babar Nazir Khan on June 2011.

“Many times, judges are often at crossroads – should they use the claims of black magic and withcraft or simply reject them. That is what the SOP aims to address,” he added.

He said Brunei government had also sought help from the committee to help them enforce the Section 208 of the Syariah Criminal Law regarding the use of black magic.

The SOP was a result of a two-year study, which began in Feb 2013, involving individuals from various fields, including Islamic medicine practitioners, Islamic scholars, judges and psychiatrists.