Homemaker Zaleha Mohd Ali, 50, cringes at the media spotlight to which her family has been subjected after her daughter - whom she insists on calling Siti Fatimah - renounced Islam and declared herself a Hindu.

"I'm embarrassed by the whole affair. I just pray to God that this whole thing is done and over with, because there's nobody else helping us in this," she told malaysiakini in a phone interview from her home in Malacca.

For Zaleha and the religious counsellors at the Ulu Yam aqidah rehabilitation centre in Selangor - where M Revathi (as she is equally insistent on being called) was placed for 180 days - the issue has nothing to do with either Islam or Hinduism.

In fact, said counsellor Mohd Fitri Abdullah - who was assigned to Revathi's case - the matter has everything to do with love.

Fitri, himself a convert to Islam from Hinduism and currently an executive committee member of Islamic welfare organisation Perkim, said he was surprised at how little Revathi knows about Hinduism.

"I asked her about the Vedas (Hindu holy scriptures) and about her beliefs. She has zero knowledge of Hinduism," said Fitri, who claims to have been active in Hindu organisations prior to his conversion.

"In short, it's not Hinduism that she has converted to, it is 'husband-ism'," he said.

He expressed empathy for the family over their predicament.

"Love, as they say, is blind. Fatimah is willing to forego everything she had - including her religious beliefs - for it. She is a victim of circumstances," he added.

Revathi was released last Thursday from the centre after six months of attempts to coax her back to Islam.

She was sent there on the directive of the Malacca Syariah High Court following her effort to have her marriage - to her Hindu husband V Suresh - recognised by declaring herself a Hindu.

Claims are 'nonsense'

Zaleha dismissed her daughter's claim that she had been raised as a Hindu by her grandmother or that she knows anything of Hinduism.

"My whole family converted along with me to Islam before I gave birth to Fatimah. I raised her as a Muslim - just like her two brothers and two sisters - from the time that she was born until she was 21. Until some years ago, she was even wearing the tudung (head scarf)," said Zaleha.

"All the statements about her being raised as a Hindu by her grandmother is karut (nonsense). The only thing she knows of Hinduism is what Suresh taught her."

Revathi's insistence on being recognised as a Hindu has rendered uncertain the future of her infant daughter Nur Atiqah, said Zaleha, who has been given custody of the child.

The baby is in bureaucratic limbo because her parents' names are yet to be recorded on her birth certificate (because one of them is a non-Muslim).

"Nur Atiqah has no BC (birth certificate) yet. Without that, how is she to go to school (later)? How will she move around? How will she get married?" asked Zaleha.

"For the sake of my grand-daughter, I pray that Fatimah comes back to Islam. For the sake of my grand-daughter, I pray Suresh becomes Muslim. Or else, what's going to happen to the baby?"

Zaleha admits that police reports had been made about her husband Abdul Karim, who was once detained overnight at the local police station due to arguments between him and his sons and Suresh.

"I do not want any more conflicts, I don't want any blood shed over this. I'm so embarrassed as it is," said Zaleha in reference to the possibility of communal tensions arising because of the issue.

At the time of the telephone conversation, Revathi was at Suresh's house with their daughter.

"She comes back in the evenings with her daughter," said Zaleha.

Under the conditions imposed by the Syariah Court when it freed her, Revathi is required to live with her parents.

REVATHI: That's my name, forever