Entering the sacred turf
Salbiah Ahmad
One of the more important outcomes to the Inter-Faith Commission conference (IFC) and the Jan 20 Jawi (Federal Territory Religious Department) raid is the rise of civil society voices. Another significant point which is worth noting is the restraint of the use of accusations of blasphemy, unbelief or of insulting Islam by civil society groups including the ulama (religious scholars) associations.
Most activists, writers and human rights defenders clearly remember when these unfortunate accusations used to inundate engagements and kill the public discourse. The discourse by civil society actors, to my mind has spiraled with new actors and arguments have become more sophisticated or least more argumentative.
Sim Kwang Yang, a fellow columnist is right, we have malaysiakini to thank, for fair reporting of views and exchanges.
Reform may sometimes be seen and taken to mean opposition, but reform is also a multiplicity of ideas which complicates the debate. It is this multiplicity and complication which interest me.
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It would be interesting to have a grasp of the different levels of discussion in the context of free speech and expression and the idiosyncracies that would attach to a discourse on Islam, its fiqh (laws arrived through interpretation) and interpretation methodologies in the context of reformation.
Being Muslim per se is not enough. Most Muslims like any other ordinary person may not have the skills in debating jurisprudence. Jurisprudence as a science in law is a branch of knowledge. It can be learned by any person of whatever creed. To put it simply, “authority” in debating is not limited to who the person is, male, female, ulama, writer or activist. Authority has to do very much with expertise and skills as well.
Authority and expertise
As an analogy, the general public can always talk about law or a judgment in a general, free speech, political sense. But that speech is different from a speech of someone trained in the law in lets say, a debate which requires proper legal arguments.
To further illustrate my point, I would like to cite an actual incident in Kuala Lumpur some years ago. A handful of medical practitioners were agitated by concerns raised by a theologian-scholar-activist on HIV Aids and its impact on women through women’s socially constructed roles in society. The engagement is moderated by free speech.
There are two levels of expertise here; medical practitioners and a theologian. Both are professionals but of different expertise. The theologian was invited for her expertise on exegesis. She comes inter alia with the experience of the civil rights movement in her country of origin. She has worked with Muslim women worldwide in several fields.
The presentation of the theologian is not immediately concerned with the medical side of HIV Aids but with women’s lived experiences with the pandemic and how theology and women’s socially constructed roles impact on Muslim women. Gender issues are not necessary internalised by speakers, gender concerns being a specialised field to which even traditionally schooled theologians (traditionally, male dominated) may have no expertise for.
For some, it may be their first time in a meeting of professionals where rare challenges on theological questions are put for discussion. Some of the doctors feel extremely challenged by the theologian’s ideas which are still germinating in the discourse of Islam and gender concerns. Pandemonium ensued.
I think some of the doctors may have felt that the very premises of their belief in God (some claiming to speak on behalf of the Muslim ummah (community), which is arguably, an imagined community in a post-colonial experience) is at stake and they speak, premising their stand on saving Islam, as if all Muslims are of one mind on such matters.
I think for the theologian, she felt betrayed at the absence of safe space that must be accorded to the germination of ideas in her field of expertise. Not even the local Muslim woman’s group she is affiliated with, voiced open support for her views in the pandemonium or with the press. That was such a shame!
The theologian withdrew her paper at the conference, understanding full well, her lack of control over local conditions. Her ideas will undoubtedly grow and she will make that required important contribution to the discourse of Islam and gender, but not here in Malaysia. Most important of all, the theologian respected the freedom of speech and expression at the conference. She listened but left the protesting crowd who called her names, to God’s grace and mercy.
Thus as a quick reflection, the civil society voices on the IFC and the Jawi raid may reflect levels of ‘expertise’ (or none) from NGO actors, faith-based activists, professional bodies, writers, the general public. To the general reader these voices may seem flawed, vulnerable, and confused if not outright contradictory.
Splitting the Muslims
I am not sure if I should distill the issues in this column as suggested by well-meaning friends at home and abroad. Much of my reservations have to do with scholarship which may be required in the process to which a column might not be the most expedient way of expressing theory.
I have sent to a close circle of acquaintances, my concerns of recent events, and I would like to share in this column, an extended version of some of those concerns.
Islah is a noun which is often rendered to mean reform in the English language. It is used in the Quran in a multiplicity of ways. It signifies peaceful action or sulh, which leads to reconciliation and accord. It also signifies a pious deed or amal salih with has to do with righteousness.
Thus to be a salih is to conduct oneself as a righteous person. To be a muslih is to be concerned with the moral perfection of one’s fellow, to call for peace: “You only want to be an oppressor on earth and do not want to be among the reformers.” (Quran 28:19).
The muslih is the opposite of the oppressor and oppression signifies all forms of wandering from the straight path traced by religion. The muslih is informed by the desire to assume the mission of the prophets who were reformers in their communities.
In this, the muslih lays claim to another Islamic precept, that of enjoining good and prohibiting evil. The call for islah expresses, at one and the same time, an awakening of religious consciousness, social dissatisfaction and political opposition. (Alaoui, 2001)
A trailing of news reports and blog sites on the Jawi raid in the last two months, offer an array of views from groups and individuals which was said to threaten to split Muslims in the country.
The woman’s group, Sisters in Islam has initially viewed the Jawi raid as an affront to inter alia “personal choices”. Subsequently the group declared the raid as unIslamic and unconstitutional. Zainah Anwar, the executive director of the group went on record that “there is no basis in Islamic legal theory and practice” for the numerous divisions in state enactments which offended the group.
Some of us may have discerned by now, that several Muslim groups are opposed to the idea that Muslims have a personal choice in the commission of sin in the light of the broad injunction of enjoining good and forbidding evil. This injunction is a core teaching which is internalised from the day a Muslim child says her first bismillah.
Dr Musa Mohd Nordin of the Muslim Professionals Forum (MPF) for example, said that the core issues of morality of youths have not been properly addressed in the concerns over legality. MPF like most groups and individuals have expressed concern over allegations of mistreatment by Jawi officials and suggested disciplinary action to be taken if allegations are proven.
Lawyer, Zainal Abidin Jamal of MPF also relied on the injunction of enjoining good and prohibiting evil, as the guiding principle for Muslims to avoid commission of sins; “Essentially what they (the campaigners on moral policing) want is for Muslims, for example, to be able to drink alcohol in public and do whatever else they want”.
The thread of this line of argument means that even if there is no state legislation for this (that is, state enforcement of morality), the Muslim conscience would dictate that Muslims refrain from the commission of sins at least in public.
Zainah Anwar’s allegation that state laws have no basis in Islamic legal theory and practice, was taken up rather well I thought by Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid of Teras. He was of the view that Zainah was making a bald statement “without supporting evidence”, thus her point cannot be sustained or accepted as valid.
There is credibility in Azmi’s challenge. All Malaysian state enactments have used the standard methodology in codifying fiqh (albeit selected from a diversity of traditional opinions based on ijtihad of jurists of Qur’an and Hadith sources) accepted since the time of the Ottomans. These state enactments are based on the principle of ta’azir which in turn is premised on that wide injunction to enjoin good and prohibit evil.
Not to be outdone, the MPF offered the most tested legal point raised in our superior courts to Zainah’s allegation of unconstitutionality. While I do not necessarily agree with the whole text and meaning of the letter by Dr Sheik Johari Bux, he did point out that the present state laws have its basis in the constitution.
Proper legal argument
Thus, unless one can deftly and ‘authoritatively’ (as per Khaled Abou el-Fadl in his various contemporary works) make a proper legal argument with a sound or at least a compelling methodology, then Sisters’ in Islam’s view on the point in question, is as good a view as any lay person’s.
That speech cannot qualify as a studied view. It may be accepted as free speech and expression certainly, but it would be hard to qualify that speech as ‘authoritative’. For most Muslims who are debating the issue on methodology or Muslim jurisprudence, this point of ‘authority’ is important. For those who desire to enter this once sacred turf, please be advised that it requires rigour and tenacity.
It is good for free speech and expression that groups like Teras and MPF have taken time and appear dedicated in developing arguments in negotiating the public domain of marketplace of ideas.
I do reiterate my concern that the lodging of complaints to the Conference of Rulers or the National Fatwa Council or lodging police reports of ‘insulting Islam’ may not serve to strengthen civil society. Of course this recourse is open to any person, but such a recourse should be exercised with restraint as it may only strengthen the ‘state-security’ factor.
Reference:
Said Bensaid Alaoui, “Muslim Opposition Thinkers in the Nineteenth Century,” in Charles E. Butterworth (et.al) Between the State and Islam (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 90-101.
