The Malaysian constitution guarantees religious freedom, although Islam is the largest and official religion of Malaysia. According to the Population and Housing Census 2000 figures, approximately 60.4% of the population practiced Islam; 19.2% Buddhism; 9.1% Christianity; 6.3% Hinduism; and 2.6% practice Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. The remainder was accounted for by other faiths, including animism, folk religion, and Sikhism while 0.9% either reported having no religion or did not provide any information.[94][95]
All ethnic Malays are considered Muslim by Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia.[96] Statistics from the 2000 Census indicate that 75.9% of Malaysian Chinese identify as Buddhist, with significant numbers of adherents following Taoism (10.6%) and Christianity (9.6%), along with small Hui-Muslim populations in areas like Penang.[95] The majority of Malaysian Indians follow Hinduism (84.5%), with a significant minority identifying as Christians (7.7%), Muslims (3.8%) and over 150,000 Sikhs. Christianity is the predominant religion of the non-Malay Bumiputra community (50.1%) with an additional 36.3% identifying as Muslims and 7.3% follow folk religion.[95]
Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Syariah courts in matters concerning their religion. The Islamic judges are expected to follow the Shafi`i legal school of Islam, which is the main madh'hab of Malaysia.[97] The jurisdiction of Shariah courts is limited only to Muslims in matters such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, apostasy, religious conversion, and custody among others. No other criminal or civil offences are under the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts, which have a similar hierarchy to the Civil Courts. Despite being the supreme courts of the land, the Civil Courts (including the Federal Court) do not hear matters related to Islamic practices
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