Terengganu Appeals Against Leniency, Wins Six Strokes Each
On September 15, the syariah appeal court of Terengganu, in Malaysia, sentenced a man of 41 and a woman of 20 to six strokes of the rattan each, for having twice been caught alone with someone of the opposite sex. The prosecutor had found the fine too lenient. The caning is due by mid-October, and the state now has nine mosques licensed for the purpose.
Leniency, appealed
On December 14, 2025, at around 1 a.m., a man of 41 and a woman of 20 were found together in a hotel room in Kemaman, Terengganu. Neither married to each other nor related: that is khalwat, "close proximity", a syariah offence. Each already had a conviction for it. On March 11, 2026, the Syariah High Court fined them 4,000 ringgit, or three months in jail.
Too lenient, judged the state's chief syariah prosecutor, Kamalruazmi Ismail. He asked the appeal court a question of law: for a repeat offender, are the penalties a choice or a sum? On September 15, three judges unanimously chose the sum. The fine stays, and each offender gets six strokes of the rattan, to be carried out within a month, so by mid-October. Where, the court did not say. In Terengganu, the punishments for a second khalwat are no longer a menu but a set meal. Both offenders have since married, each to someone else.
Sentencing, with a hadith
The name Kamalruazmi Ismail already appears in the state's caning records. In November 2024, a senior syariah judge of that name sentenced a divorced builder of 42, caught for the third time alone with a woman, to six strokes in public. He reminded him that he had been caned before, which should have brought remorse, and quoted a saying of the Prophet guru.
"A believer does not fall into the same hole twice."— Kamalruazmi Ismail, senior syariah judge, November 20, 2024
Caning had not worked, so there would be more caning. On December 27, 2024, after Friday prayers, the man received his six strokes in Kuala Terengganu's Al-Muktafi Billah Shah mosque, after a medical check, in front of some 90 people. It took two minutes. It was the state's first public caning: until then, canings took place in court or prison compounds, witnessed only by family.
Nine mosques, and soon the market
Terengganu then got organized. In November 2025, the state announced that nine mosques, one per district and two in the capital, had been gazetted as official caning venues, with the sultan's consent and the approval of its Islamic council. The file is handled by state executive councillor Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi, son of the president of PAS, the Islamist party that governs the state.
"Selected to facilitate management and ensure the execution process follows proper procedures."— Muhammad Khalil Abdul Hadi, on the nine mosques, November 2025
The state is also considering parks, squares and markets, such as the area in front of Pasar Payang, Kuala Terengganu's central market. Between the fish stalls and the batik, justice will be served fresh.
Pay in ringgit, or in strokes
The rattan also works indoors. On June 7, 2026, at Marang prison, five young people aged 20 to 26, two men and three women, received 20 strokes in total: three or four each for repeated khalwat or for "preparing" sex outside marriage in a car, and six for a 20-year-old woman. According to Sisters in Islam, neither couple had a lawyer, and one of them reportedly accepted the caning because they could not pay their fines. The khalwat couple had married in the meantime.
Objections, Muslim ones included
Malaysia's human rights commission, Suhakam, called public caning a violation of human rights and dignity, and said the Terengganu court had exceeded its jurisdiction. G25, a group of retired senior civil servants, said it breached both federal law and syariah itself. Sisters in Islam, a Muslim women's organization, puts it this way.
"Constitutional morality cannot be reduced to majoritarian morality."— Sisters in Islam, June 5, 2026
PAS, for its part, presented the first public caning as the start of a full implementation of syariah, notes researcher Mohd Faizal Musa in Fulcrum, and Kelantan and Perlis said they might follow.
In Terengganu, marriage is the only way for a couple to be lawfully alone together. It is no way out of the rattan.
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