Hesham Reda Memorial Lecture:
"Islamisation and its Impact on Democractic Governance and
Women's Rights in Islam:  A Feminist Perspective"
Keynote Luncheon Address by Zainah Anwar
Executive Director
Sisters in Islam, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Fourth Annual
Conference
Washington, DC
May 17, 2003
I speak from the standpoint of an activist, of someone who
works on the ground, challenging political Islam,
traditional Islam in the way it is interpreted and codified
that very often discriminates against women and infringe
the fundamental liberties of Malaysian citizens as upheld
by the Federal Constitution. I speak also from the
perspective of a feminist and a believer, and of someone
who is determined not to be forced to live in exile because
she cannot lead the life she chooses and the Islam she
believes in in her own country.

September 11 has been positive in many ways for Malaysia
and the struggle I am involved in. One important impact has
been the expansion of the public space for debate, for
discussion, for differences of opinion on Islam and Islamic
issues. There is greater awareness, not just only among
Muslims, but also among non-Muslims as well who make up
about 40 percent of the population, who are claiming their
right as citizens of a multi-racial country to take part in
defining the kind of Islam that should govern the lives of
citizens of Malaysia. There is greater awareness that if
Islam is to be used as a source of law and public policy to
govern the public and private lives of citizens of
Malaysia, then the question of WHO decides what is Islamic
and what is not is of paramount importance.

What are the implications to democratic governance, to
multi-racial Malaysia, if only a small group of people, the
ulama, as traditionally believed, have the right to
interpret the Qur'an, and codify the text in a manner that
very often isolates the text from the socio -historical
context of its revelation, isolates classical juristic
opinion especially on women's issues, from the
socio-historical context of the lives and society of the
founding jurists of Islam, and further isolates our textual
heritage from the context of contemporary society, the
world that we live in today.

Increasingly in Malaysia today, and in many other Muslim
countries, women's groups, human rights groups, NGOs,
political parties, the media, and concerned individuals are
beginning to speak up to engage publicly in a debate on
these issues. What is the role of religion in politics? Is
Islam compatible with democracy? Who has the right to
interpret Islam and codify Islamic teachings into laws and
public policies? How do we deal with the conflict between
constitutional provisions of fundamental liberties and
equality with religious laws and policies that violate
these provisions? Should the state legislate on morality?
Is it the duty of the state, in order to bring about a
moral society, to turn all sins into crimes against the
state? Can there be one truth and one final interpretation
of Islam that must govern the lives of every Muslim citizen
of the country? Can the massive coercive powers of a modern
nation-state be used to impose that one truth on all
citizens? How do we deal with the new universal morality of
democracy, of human rights, of women's rights, and where is
the place of Islam in this dominant ethical paradigm of the
modern world?

The reality and the implications of Islamic governance in a
multi-ethnic modernizing country like Malaysia are just
beginning to sink in. As the contestation for power between
UMNO and PAS escalates into a holier than thou battle for
the support of the Muslim votebank, issues such as the
Islamic state, the hudud law, discrimination against women,
freedom of expression, freedom of religion, enter the
public sphere like never before for public debate.

It is useful to take the example of the controversy over
the hudud law to illustrate some of these issues of concern
that have been raised. In May last year (2002), the
Terengganu state government which is under the control of
the Islamic party of PAS introduced the hudud law, the
Shariah criminal law that prescribes punishment such as the
amputation of limbs, and stoning to death. The debate that
opened up represented a microcosm of concerns in law-making
and governing in the name of Islam.

My group, Sisters in Islam, launched a wide public debate
on the hudud law and the issues at stake by issuing a
letter to the editor to the major newspapers in the country
which raised several areas of concern in the provisions of
the Terengganu hudud law.

One major area of concern was the gross discrimination
against women. There is a misogynistic bent in so many
Islamic laws that form a part of the Islamic juristic
heritage. The problem is the religious authorities in
contemporary times are not willing to exercise their powers
of ijtihad to reform these laws to deal with the changing
realities of today's world where the demand for equality
and justice can no longer be ignored. For example, what
sparked off the outcry over the hudud law of Terengganu was
the provision that if a woman reports she has been raped
and cannot prove it, she will be charged for qazaf, making
false accusation, a crime under the hudud law. If found
guilty, the woman will be lashed 80 times. It will not be
difficult for the woman to be found guilty because in order
to prove rape under the hudud law, you need to produce four
pious Muslim male eyewitnesses who actually saw the act of
penetration! In reality, this is of course impossible.

Other provisions in the hudud law also discriminate against
women. Women cannot be witnesses which means half the
population of Malaysia will be disqualified as witnesses.
Neither can non-Muslims be witnesses, which means, in
effect, almost three-quarters of the population of Malaysia
would be disqualified. A single woman who is pregnant is
assumed to have committed zina (illicit sex). In other
jurisdictions, this has led to rape victims being charged
for zina. For many Malaysians, for many Muslims today, to
introduce such provisions in the law in the 21st century is
unacceptable.

The second issue is the nature of punishment. Again this
issue must be seen in its proper socio-historical context.
The hudud law provides for chopping of hands, crucifixion,
stoning to death, lashings. These were punishments deemed
acceptable in the first centuries of Islam and even in
medieval Europe. Within the context of the modern world
today, such punishments are no longer acceptable. In many
societies, and by international human rights standards,
they constitute torture or cruel, degrading and inhumane
treatment which no human being should be subjected to.

Moreover, stoning to death an adulterer is not even a
punishment prescribed by the Qur'an and yet the proponents
of this law chose to keep this pre-Islamic practice as the
codified hudud punishment in the 21st century. Even if
these punishments are in the Qur'an, shouldn't we look into
the socio-historical context of the time when these
punishments were deemed ordinary and acceptable by the
society of 7th century Arabia? Could the course of justice,
of deterrence be better served through other forms of
punishment in the 21st century? In the end the objective of
the teachings of Islam, the objective of Shariah law, is to
ensure that justice is done. In the context of the 21st
century can the cause of the religion, of law and justice
be served in different ways?

The third issue is freedom of religion. Under the hudud law
a person who leaves Islam will be sentenced to death. What
is its implication to multi-racial Malaysia where
non-Muslims have to convert to Islam in order to marry a
Malay-Muslim? Marriages break down. The divorce rate among
Muslims is far higher than the divorce rate among
non-Muslims. What will happen to a Chinese woman who wants
to go back to her original religion, to her family and
community support system upon the breakdown of her marriage
to a Muslim man? Is she going to be sentenced to death? How
does this punishment serve the best interest of her
children, her family, her community and society at large?
How does it serve the cause of Islam? This woman's right to
life cannot be swept aside in the name of preserving the
sanctity of religion, defined in an oppressive manner.

The fourth problem area is the tendency to codify the most
conservative opinion in Islam into law. For example, there
are basically three traditional juristic opinions on the
punishment for apostasy. First is the orthodox opinion that
death penalty should be imposed on those who leave Islam.
Second is an opinion that prescribes the death penalty only
if apostasy is accompanied by rebellion against the
community and the legitimate leadership-in other words,
treason. The third view holds that even though apostasy is
a great sin it is not a capital offence in Islam. Therefore
a personal change of faith merits no punishment. Yet in its
attempt to introduce the hudud law in the 21st century, the
Islamic party in power in Terengganu chose the most
extremist juristic opinion to codify into law. It is a
well-known fact that the Qur'an is explicit in its
recognition of freedom of religion and there exists as well
within the Islamic juristic heritage a position that
supports freedom of religion. This is further enhanced also
by the official position of Al Azhar University under
Sheikh Tantawi who believes that there should be no
punishment for a personal change of faith.

This tendency to codify the most conservative opinion is
especially so in the area of women's rights. For example,
under the hudud law, the provision that women cannot be
witnesses is only a juristic opinion with no explicit
support in the Qur'an or the traditions of the Prophet, for
that matter. Pregnancy as evidence of zina, again is a
minority opinion of one school, the Maliki School of Law.
The majority opinion of the three other schools in Sunni
law: Hanbali, Shafi'i and Hanafi, do not admit
circumstantial evidence for a hudud offence, and do not
admit pregnancy as evidence of zina. Yet, in legislating,
the Islamic party, PAS, chose a minority opinion, even when
the minority opinion does not belong to the Shafi'i school,
which is the dominant school in Malaysia.

The challenge and the reality we are facing today is the
seeming unwillingness or inability of the ulama that
dominate the religious authority and many Islamist
activists of today to see Islamic laws from a historical
perspective as rules that were socially constructed to deal
with the socio- economic and political context of the
times. Given a different world, a different time, a
different context, these laws have to change to ensure that
Islam's eternal principle of justice is served. More than
ever, there is a need for Muslims to differentiate between
what is divine and what is human -- the source of the law
is divine, but the human effort in understanding God's
message, the human effort in codifying God's message into
positive law is not infallible and divine. These laws can
be changed, they can be criticized, they can be challenged,
and they can be refined and re-defined.

Unfortunately, in the traditional Islamic education most of
our ulama have gone through, the belief in taqlid, in blind
imitation is very strong. The belief that the doors of
ijtihad are closed is very strong. This rationale is based
on the belief that the great scholars of the classical
period of Islam who lived closer to the time of the Prophet
were unsurpassed in their knowledge and interpretive
skills. But to adopt such an attitude is totally untenable
in today's world when we face new and different challenges:
the issue of human rights, of democracy, of women's rights,
the challenge of modernity, the challenge of change. How do
find solutions from within our faith if we do not exert in
ijtihad and produce new knowledge and new understandings of
Islam in the face of new problems?

For this to happen, the public space to debate on Islam and
Islamic issues has to open up. Unfortunately in many Muslim
societies today, this public space does not exist, not just
to talk about Islam but to talk on other issues that are
deemed sensitive by the power elites, such as democracy,
human rights, politics, freedom, fundamental liberties.
Someone once said that bad secularism leads to bad
religion. The problem that we face today in the Muslim
world is that many Muslim governments, Muslim leaders
govern in less than exemplary ways, lead less than
exemplary lives. Many Muslim leaders do not have the moral
authority nor the credibility to talk about an Islam that
represents justice, peace and tolerance when they
themselves lead their lives and govern other people's lives
in ways that are so unjust, so intolerant, and so hostile
and violent. Many Muslim countries are led by autocratic
rulers and monarchs where freedom of expression, freedom of
assembly, freedom of association do not exist or are very
restricted. Our traditional upbringing, our culture, and
our political system do not encourage us to engage freely
in debate on issues. Of course then, when political Islam
emerges as an alternative to challenge that autocratic
state, it is an Islam led by those whose mindset and
cultural framework are just as closed and limited.

I feel very strongly that the role played by civil society
groups, such as women's rights and human rights activists
will be key in bringing about change and the terms of
public engagement on Islam in many Muslim societies. In
Malaysia, Sisters in Islam has been at the forefront in
creating and expanding the space for public discussion on
laws and policies made in the name of religion that
discriminate against women and infringe constitutional
provisions on fundamental liberties and equality.

We write letters to the editor, issue press statements,
hold press conferences, organise press briefings, public
lectures, study sessions, and training on women's rights in
Islam to generate a more informed public debate and build
an ever expanding public constituency that will push for
the development of an Islam that upholds the principles of
justice, equality, freedom and dignity within a democratic
nation-state framework. It is our hope that more and more
Malaysians will engage with the religion by building their
knowledge, conviction and courage to speak out on Islam and
to put pressure on the Government, Islamic parties and
movements who use religion as a political ideology to serve
partisan party interests and in ways that oppress women and
infringe our fundamental liberties upheld by the
Constitution.

We work strategically with the media to give us the space
to articulate our views and concerns, and we work closely
with women's groups and human rights groups to show that we
are not an isolated voice in the struggle for rights in
Islam. The resultant public discussion and ownership of
Islamic issues is important as it pushes the authorities
and the Islamic party to deal with the challenges and
questions we pose and to find solutions to the problems
highlighted.

In the end, those who demand the establishment of an
Islamic state and imposition of Islamic law as
conceptualised traditionally, must ask themselves: why
should Malaysians want an Islamic state which assert
different rights for Muslim men, Muslim women and
non-Muslims and minorities, rather than equal rights for
all? Why would those whose equal status and rights are
recognised by a democratic system support the creation of
such a discriminatory Islamic state? If an Islamic state
means an authoritarian theocratic political system
committed to enforcing gender-biased doctrinal and legal
rulings, and silencing or even eliminating those who
challenge its authority and its interpretation of Islam,
then why would those whose fundamental liberties are
protected by a democratic state support such an Islamic
state?

Just as the failure of modern Muslim states today is seen
as the failure of western secular institutions and laws,
the failure of a government that rules in the name of Islam
and claims its legitimacy from God can only be seen, in the
end, as the failure of Islam. And yet, Islam's eternal
commitment to justice, equality, freedom and dignity are
universal principles that remain valid for all times. For
me, it is these ethical principles that should form the
framework within which we seek to reconstruct society. To
successfully do this, however, Muslims need the
intellectual vigour, moral courage and political will to
open the doors of ijtihad and publicly engage in defining
and redefining our understanding and our knowledge of Islam
in our search for answers to deal with the challenges of
our ever changing times and circumstances. This is not
heretical, but an imperative if religion is to remain
relevant to our lives today.

 © Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy, 2003.  All
rights reserved.
1050 Connecticutt Avenue, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036
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