New Straits Times, Jumaat, 12 January 2007

Zainah Anwar
A refreshing chorus of voices

IS this for real, friends ask me. There is not one, not two, but three religious leaders from within the establishment speaking the language of justice, freedom, reason and rights? What an auspicious beginning to the 50th year of Merdeka!

First came the Mufti of Perlis, who boldly proclaimed in an interview with Malaysiakini that the biggest challenge the Muslim ummah had was to "overhaul the hold that the conservatives have exercised over the Muslim community".

He said the ulama, no matter how prominent, were not ma‘sum (infallible); they were fair target for criticism and their ideas were fair target for review.

He criticised the ulama’s continued dependence on texts written hundreds of years ago, which were based on knowledge and experience of those times, which therefore couldn’t provide answers to today’s challenges.

He explained that he was not calling for a renewal of the Quran and the Sunnah, but a renewal of human understanding of the Sacred Text.

That was Nov 27.

By now, most Malaysians are aware that the newly-appointed 35-year-old Mufti of Perlis, Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, is a scholar willing not only to stride through all the issues that have been a source of controversy this past year, but to take public positions that have largely been on the side of Muslims and Malaysians who believe in a just and compassionate Islam.

Be it on moral policing, apostasy, kongsi raya, discrimination against women or the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia, he has publicly come out on the side of justice, freedom, rights and diversity — all based on his understanding of Islam.

So refreshing are his views that all the major mainstream newspapers, English and Bahasa Malaysia, were filled with interviews, stories and commentaries on him this past month.

Then there was the interview with the Deputy Mufti of Sarawak, Dr Juanda Jaya, 31, who spoke on the universality of humanity and not to do unto others what you don’t want done unto yourself.

Like the Mufti of Perlis, he too urged the religious authorities to stop accusing those who ask questions and demand facts and evidence of being against Islam.

Over the last weekend, the major newspapers covered the Sisters in Islam forum on "Knowing Your Rights" for 200 women, where the Mufti of Terengganu and former Chief Judge of the state Syariah Court told women to claim their share of matrimonial assets upon the death of their husbands — before his estate was divided according to the Islamic law of faraid, where the widow would then inherit only one eighth if she had children, or one fourth if she had none.

Not only that, Datuk Ismail Yahya said, at anytime during the marriage, be it at the time of polygamy or if she suspected her husband of straying, the woman had a right to ask for a division of matrimonial assets to protect her financial interests and that of the children. Most women thought it was only at the time of divorce that they could ask for a division of assets.

That such enlightened and compassionate thinking from within the religious establishment should be making the headlines in several newspapers and causing such buzz and excitement, can only mean there is a public hunger for such views.

For so long women’s rights and human rights groups holding the same position have been demonised, accused of being anti-Islam, anti-God, anti-Syariah.

But it is hard to accuse a mufti of such slander.

So for now, the easiest line of attack is to call the Mufti of Perlis "barua Umno" (Umno’s stooge) as headlined in an article in Harakahdaily, or to dismiss his views as that of a young person, as an Umno minister derisively remarked.

As the mufti himself said, once an idea is in the marketplace, the only way you can kill it is through another idea more powerful than the first.

Not by force, not by silencing debate, not by spreading lies and rumours to create fear and anxiety, and certainly not by childish and bankrupt name calling.

For so long, many among us in civil society here have looked enviously at Indonesia, where scholars such as former president Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), the late Nurcholish Majid, Prof Azyumardi Azra, Rector of the Islamic University in Jakarta and Prof Amin Abdullah, Rector of the Islamic University in Jogjakarta, have not only led, but provided the space and protection for the growth of a progressive and inclusive Islam and Muslim activists who believe in democracy, human rights and gender justice, in the pesantren and Islamic universities and institutes in Indonesia.

Like reformers in all Muslim countries, they too have come under attack in recent years from radical groups such as Front Pembela Islam, Majlis Mujahideen, Hizbur Tahrir and their ilk.

Last May, when a mob from Front Pembela Islam shouted down Gus Dur as he spoke on religious tolerance and pluralism, several hundred religious leaders, academics, and pro-democracy activists mobilised and held a Press conference to denounce the "robed militia" and criticised the police for their inaction against such mob intimidation and threat of violence.

They also blamed the Majlis Ulema Indonesia and its fatwa which pronounced "pluralism, liberalism and secularism" as un-Islamic as providing fodder that incited the radical groups to take vigilante action against those they deemed to have violated the fatwa.

That voices from within the religious establishment in Malaysia are now beginning to speak out on issues of fundamental liberties and diversity of opinion within Islam, gives me hope that this would provide the impetus for the silent majority, be they in government, in Umno, in academia, in the media and in civil society, who are moderate, reasoned and rational to begin to take a public stand for an inclusive and progressive Islam so necessary for the survival of this nation.

Just a few weeks ago, a professor from Universiti Malaya’s Akademi Islam shocked the congregation in my neighbourhood mosque by stating that there is no death penalty for apostasy in Islam, that no such punishment exists in the Quran, that Islam actually upholds freedom of religion, that the hadith prescribing the death penalty is a weak hadith that cannot be used to justify capital punishment.

After his talk, many among the congregation surrounded him for further clarification.

Fed on a diet of death to apostates, they could not believe this is in fact not Quranic, and that the human rights principle of freedom of religion is actually an Islamic principle.

All it took was one enlightened lecture by an academic to open minds to the possibilities of other points of view within Islam.

The same happened to my colleague’s nephew, whom I wrote about on Nov 3.

After reading the interviews with the Mufti of Perlis, this 17-year-old religious school student in Perlis texted my colleague to say, after all, that she was right, there is no death penalty for apostasy in Islam.

The attacks now hurled at the Mufti of Perlis just shows how political Islam has become in Malaysia.

The real issue is not so much about who has a right to speak on Islam, but what is being said about Islam.

If one supports the death penalty for apostasy, the hudud, the Islamic state and Syariah rule, then one will enjoy the freedom and safe space to speak on Islam, even if one is only a third-rate engineering graduate from a third-rate American university.

But even if one is the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, one is not immune from attack by these same Islamists because one’s position on freedom of religion does not serve their political agenda.

At this crucial stage of our country’s history, it is important that the silent voices of reason and moderation that I believe prevail in Malaysia begin to speak out, to write, to engage in rational and informed private and public discussions on issues of rights and justice in Islam.

As one woman at the SIS "Knowing Your Rights" forum on Saturday said, if all of us in the hall would go back and speak to one other person about what we have learned today, then that would be 400 women who would know better the rights they have in Islam.