Understanding of Syariah Practitioners in Malaysia on Document Forgery

Purpose of the study: This article focuses on a few issues namely the most common form of forgery that occurred especially in Syariah Court Islamic judicial institutions (or better known as Syariah courts) in Malaysia and the extent of respondents’ knowledge on the method used in verifying the authenticity of document that meets the Syariah requirement. Methodology: Research information has been obtained through the quantitative method and from respondents consists of 78 lecturers of Syariah law and 103 practitioners who involve directly in the legislation of Syariah Court in Federal Territories (Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur and Labuan), Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Main Findings: The result shows that the forms of forgery are changing in accordance with time and facilities. Based on the respondents’ perception, the most common form of document falsification is a forgery of a medical certificate and the least is a forgery of the grant of ownership (property/transportation). Besides, the knowledge of Syariah law practitioners on fraud in a document is at a moderate level. Applications of this study: This study is significant to understand the issue of fraud in documents and eventually suggests the relevant ways to counter the matters in the future. The ability of Islamic judicial institutions to be adaptive for such challenges is essential to reduce the disorderly pile of cases involving fraud, especially in the Syariah courts. Novelty/Originality of this study: The research found that it is crucial for the Syariah law practitioners to raise and upgrade their ability to deal with fraud cases in the document to increase the public confidence towards the Syariah judiciary.