Zainah Anwar: Let there be public debate on laws

Zainah Anwar from Sisters In Islam wrote the article below which was published in the New Straits Times (24th March 2006).
It is followed by my comments.

Zainah Anwar: Let there be public debate on laws

New Straits Times

THE fact that three daughters of current and past Prime Ministers in Malaysia were moved enough to share the same stage, the same passion and the same commitment to speak out their convictions in public on the imperative of justice for women in Islam shows a collective concern about disturbing trends in this country.

Last Saturday was a moment in history in Malaysia when we saw Hanis Hussein, Marina Mahathir and Nori Abdullah join hands to open the Sisters in Islam International Consultation on Trends in Family Law Reform in Muslim Countries. It is also a source of hope that change in the Muslim world is inevitable.

All three felt compelled to lend their voice to the growing force of Muslim women throughout the world who now speak out publicly to demand justice and equality and a stop to the use of Islam to justify continuing discrimination against women.

In much of the Muslim world today, it is women who are at the forefront in challenging governments, religious authorities and Islamist groups who hide behind the infallibility of the divine word to perpetuate patriarchy and to silence dissent.

In Iran, women, including daughters of mullahs and conservative families, are forced into the public space to confront the realities of an Islamic revolution driven by a punitive and legalistic Islam. The Islamic utopia promised where everything would be perfect because God’s law is perfect was anything but.

The women woke up to a reality that Islam, as Imam Feisal Rauf of New York said, was not a pronoun. Islam does not speak. It is human beings who speak in God’s name. It is human beings who use the authoritative text for authoritarian purposes. The justice of God is an ideal at the textual level. At the reality level, so much injustice is perpetrated in the name of God.

For me and my group, Sisters in Islam, it is an article of faith that Islam is just and God is just. If justice is intrinsic to Islam, then how could injustice and discrimination result in the codification and implementation of laws and policies made in the name of Islam?

It is at this level that Muslim women all over the world have begun to organise and demand reform of laws and policies to uphold the principles of justice, equality, freedom and dignity in Islam.

For most Muslim women, rejecting religion is not an option. We are believers, and as believers we want to find liberation, truth and justice from within our own faith. We feel strongly that we have a right to reclaim our religion, to redefine it, to participate and contribute to an understanding of Islam, how it is codified and implemented — in ways that take into consideration the realities and experience of women’s lives today.

For many women today, our lives are at a collision course with patriarchy’s construction of the "ideal" Muslim woman. For too long, men have defined for us what it is to be a woman, how to be a woman and then used religion and tradition to confine us to these socially constructed limitations that reduce us to being the inferior half of the human race. For too long, we submitted, seeking their approval and applause because the power of reward and punishment lay in their hands.

But not anymore. Women today are educated and economically independent. They will not be cowed into silence in the face of injustice. If the injustice is committed in the name of religion, then today’s women will go back to the original source of the religion to find out for themselves whether it is the revealed text that perpetrates injustice or is it an act of interpretation by human beings.

For those of us in civil society, as feminists, as believers and as activists living within a democratic constitutional framework, it is important that we assert and claim our right to have our voice heard in the public sphere and to intervene in the decision-making process on matters of religion.

The fundamental question needs to be asked: Who decides which interpretation, which juristic opinion, which traditional practice would prevail and be the source of codified law to govern our private and public lives and punish us if we fail to abide? Which opinion from the rich corpus of our heritage would fall by the wayside, forgotten? On what basis is that choice made? What are the guiding principles used in choosing one juristic opinion over another? Whose interests are protected and whose interests are denied?

This process of deriving "the right" opinion to codify into positive law is a human construct. The product of this very human engagement with the divine text is not the divine law of God. It is human knowledge and understanding, limited by human experience, human frailties and the context of time, place and circumstance.

The Islamic Family Law recently passed by Parliament, the Hudud passed by Kelantan and Terengganu and the Syariah Criminal Offences Law are all a product of this process. They are not divine law just because they bear the name Islam or Syariah. It is human beings who codified and drafted the laws, it is human beings who passed them through the legislative assemblies.

Thus, when Islam is a part of public law and public policy as in Malaysia, then by necessity such laws and policies must be opened to public debate and public feedback. This is how governments are held accountable in a democracy.

The writer, a former journalist, is a women’s rights activist and is the executive director of Sisters in Islam.


My Comments:-

Zainah Anwar’s article in the New Straits Times (24^th March 2006) demands that Islamic or Syariah law be subjected to public debate and feedback since it is human beings who codify and draft these laws and pass them through the legislative assemblies.

The Quranic principle of consultation or shura has always been the backbone of the implementation of Islamic law and there is no incompatibility with Islam if believers, whether male or female, voice their opinion on matters that affect them.

However, it should be remembered that Islam is a religion based on divine knowledge, and is guided and restricted by fundamental principles that had been defined in the Quran and Hadiths, and thus any public debate should only be undertaken within an atmosphere of desire to uphold divine justice and gain God’s favour.

In order that the public debates retain their significance, each sector of the public voicing their opinion should be represented by individuals who are knowledgeable in the field of Islamic jurisprudence. The importance of this requirement can never be stressed heavily enough.

The matter of Islamic law is too important for Muslims to allow public debates to become forums for gender issues and platforms for advancing the latest fad legislation.