“A sumpah laknat is not something to trifle with — it can turn back on you.”
By Dr Mohd Safar Hasim
In Malaysian political life, few gestures carry as much symbolic and emotional weight as the sumpah laknat. It is a solemn invocation of divine punishment, traditionally reserved for matters of deep personal honour.
The oath is meant to be sacred, binding the speaker to truth before God and community.
Yet in recent decades, the sumpah laknat has drifted from its spiritual roots and entered the arena of political performance — where its power can be misused, misunderstood, or manipulated to create a false sense of innocence.
No figure illustrates this shift more clearly than a former national leader.
The person in question had taken two major sumpah laknat in the past two decades. The first was in 2008, when he swore in a mosque that he had never met a Mongolian woman and had no involvement in her murder.
The second came in 2019, when the person concerned declared that the billions of ringgit deposited into his personal bank account was a donation from a royal family in the Middle East, not money misappropriated from a state investment fund that was created in 2009. In both cases, he invoked God’s curse upon himself if he was lying.
It is important to clarify the legal context. The person in question was never charged with the Mongolian’s murder, and the courts did not implicate him in the crime. The two individuals convicted were members of the police force acting on their own.
A political analyst linked to the victim did not take a sumpah laknat, and he was acquitted at the prosecution stage when the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to proceed against him.
Years later, in a separate civil suit, the analyst, the government, and the two convicted officers were found jointly liable for damages — a civil finding that does not overturn his earlier criminal acquittal. This context matters because when a sumpah laknat is invoked in such a high‑profile case, the public naturally scrutinises not only the oath itself but the surrounding facts and outcomes.
For many Malaysians, especially those who hold religious oaths as sacred, such acts carry moral gravity. A sumpah laknat is not a casual gesture. It signals confidence — or at least the appearance of it. It is meant to communicate sincerity in a way that transcends legal argument. The person performing it is effectively saying: “If I am lying, may divine punishment fall upon me.”
But this is precisely why the sumpah laknat can be misused. Its power lies not in its truthfulness, but in its ability to persuade. It bypasses the slow, methodical process of evidence and replaces it with a dramatic appeal to faith. It is a shortcut to credibility — and shortcuts are always vulnerable to abuse.
The politician’s 2019 sumpah laknat on the “monetary donation” is a clear example. The oath created a powerful impression among supporters that he was telling the truth.
Yet the courts later found that the donation narrative was unsupported by evidence. The letters he relied on were deemed forgeries. The money trail pointed not to royalty but to a finance-based company linked to the mastermind of Malaysia’s biggest financial scandal. In other words, the oath created a false sense of innocence that collapsed under forensic scrutiny.
This does not automatically determine the truth of the politician’s 2008 oath on the Mongolian woman — the two cases are legally separate.
But it does raise a legitimate public question: if one sumpah laknat is contradicted by evidence, how should the public evaluate the other? This is not defamation; it is simple reasoning.
When a person invokes divine punishment to defend a claim later proven false, the credibility of their other oaths inevitably comes under scrutiny.
The deeper issue, however, extends beyond the politician. His case exposes a structural problem in Malaysian political culture: the use of religious gestures as a substitute for accountability.
When leaders deploy sumpah laknat to shield themselves from scrutiny, they are not only manipulating public sentiment — they are also cheapening the very religious values they claim to uphold. The oath becomes a political tool rather than a spiritual commitment.
This is why Malaysians must learn to distinguish between moral performance and moral substance. A sumpah laknat may reveal how far a person is willing to go to defend their narrative, but it does not reveal whether that narrative is true.
Truth is established through evidence, not oaths. Integrity is demonstrated through consistent behaviour, not dramatic gestures. And accountability is upheld through institutions, not symbolic acts.
A sumpah laknat is a double‑edged act. It is not merely a declaration of innocence; it carries a built‑in warning. If the oath is false, the curse invoked falls upon the oath-taker. This is the part often forgotten in political theatre.
The oath is not a shield. It is a risk. It is not a performance. It is a moral contract. And if misused, it can turn back on the one who utters it.
The politician’s case teaches us that a sumpah laknat can be used to create a false sense of innocence, especially when deployed at moments of political crisis.
It can sway emotions, rally supporters, and temporarily shift public perception. But it cannot erase facts. It cannot override forensic evidence. And it cannot substitute for the rule of law.
Ultimately, the value of a sumpah laknat lies not in its ability to persuade, but in its ability to reveal character. If the oath is used sincerely, it reflects a person’s willingness to bind themselves morally to their claim.
If it is used cynically, it exposes the gap between religious performance and ethical conduct. Either way, the public has the right — and the responsibility — to judge the act not by its drama, but by its alignment with truth.
In a maturing democracy, faith and evidence must coexist, but they must never be confused. The sumpah laknat may stir emotions, but only facts can uphold justice. And when the two collide, as they did in the politician’s case, it is the facts that must prevail.
The views expressed here are entirely those of Dr Mohd Safar Hasim, a Council Member of the Malaysian Press Institute.