Malaysia at a Crossroads

TARA SOSROWARDOYO FOR TIME

A HOUSE DIVIDED: The battle over the true spiritual beliefs of Kaliammal's late husband reflects Malaysia?s widening religious fault lines

How well do you know your husband? For Kaliammal Sinnasamy, a Hindu married to a member of the first Malaysian team to scale Mt. Everest, the answer, she thought, was obvious. "I married a Hindu man, lived with him as a Hindu, bore him a Hindu child and watched him die as a Hindu," says the now 32-year-old office cleaner. But when Kaliammal went to the hospital in December 2005 to claim her spouse's body after he died of a protracted illness, she received another shock. Her husband, Maniam Moorthy, had secretly converted to Islam before his death, said Islamic authorities....

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