Nurdin Hassan – An incestuous relationship between a brother and sister in sternly religious Aceh is the newest unconventional relationship to test the limits of the province's Shariah law, which fails to consider the possibility, authorities there said.

The incestuous relationship was discovered when it was revealed that a child born to 30-year-old Y.W. was fathered by her 34-year-old brother, M.N.

Muddasir, the head of Southwest Aceh's Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), said that the siblings are residents of a remote village in Susoh subdistrict. He said that M.N. was single, while Y.W. was a divorcee with two children.

Since the birth of the child, the siblings have been under protection of their local village head to protect them from reprisals from angry neighbors. But the case has left local Shariah authorities in a quandary.

"We are really confused because there are no rules in qanun Shariah [Shariah bylaw] that discuss incest," Muddasir said.

"We can't marry them because they're blood related and according to Islamic Shariah, they have to be stoned to death, but there are no legal grounds in Aceh to condone that," he said.

The incestuous siblings were outed to village officials by a man who said he loaned the pair funds to have the baby delivered. The brother and sister were originally taken to the police, but were released due to a lack of laws regarding incest.

"They told us that the incestuous sex took place in 2010 when M.N. came into his sister's bedroom, asking her to give him a massage," Muddasir said. "Y.W. said they only did it once but I think it had to be more than once, because they live in the same house," he added.

The baby, born two months ago, was adopted by a military officer in Meulaboh, Muddasir said. The child's sex was unknown. "I hope they would ask God's forgiveness for their sins," Muddasir said.

This is not the first time that Mudassir has had to acknowledge the limits of Aceh's Islamic bylaws. In August, he admitted he was clueless about how to handle a case involving the marriage of two lesbians.

The two women were eventually forced to separate with the promise that they would never see each other again.