MALAYSIA once had the most progressive family law in the Muslim world. But now countries like Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia are way ahead of us.

The regressive trend began in the 1990s with the slow chiselling away of the rights women gained through the 1984 Islamic Family Law.

While other Muslim countries are now finding ways to ensure that their laws begin to reflect contemporary realities, the discriminatory amendments continually made to the Islamic Family Law in Malaysia seeks to preserve a world that no longer exists.

It continues to insist on a legal framework where men will always be superior to women, men will always be leaders, protectors and providers; never mind if this flies in the face of reality.

It is ironical that as we plunge into the 21st century, our legal drafters and lawmakers of the 1980s seemed better able to understand that historical legal practice and understanding must continually shift to keep pace with changing values and circumstances.

The purpose was not to ensure that Muslim men's privileged status must always be protected by law, but to ensure that the pursuit of justice remains central to the legal practice of Islam.

In 1984, the newly adopted Islamic Family Law extended to women several grounds to begin divorce to counterbalance a man's right to divorce his wife at will. It made divorce and polygamy outside the court illegal. A woman was entitled to a share of the matrimonial assets even though she did not financially contribute to the acquisition. Her contribution as wife and mother was recognised.

A man wanting to practise polygamy must satisfy the court on his ability to fulfil five strict conditions.

Other Muslim countries looked at Malaysia's law as a model. But by the 1990s, this reputation began to change.

The global forces of the Islamic revivalism movement engulfed Malaysia and the subsequent exploitation of faith for political purposes led to a steady regression in the legal status of Muslim women in this country. Suddenly, the gentler, kinder, inclusive Islam of our parents and forefathers was no longer authentic. It was deemed Jahilliyah (Age of Ignorance before the coming of Islam) Islam. We must adopt the "authentic" Islam of patriarchy and tribal culture.

Amendments to the Islamic Family Law have made the Muslim family institution today far more unstable. Divorce and polygamy conducted without the court's permission could be registered as legal.

The fifth condition for polygamy — no drop in standard of living of the existing family - was removed. Only the biological mother is held responsible for the maintenance of an illegitimate child. The biological father has no responsibility.

These amendments led to the proliferation of thousands of cases of men divorcing their wives at a whim — in a car, by the roadside, in a fit of temper during a fight, by telephone and now even by SMS.

Is it any wonder that the divorce rate for Muslims is at least three times that of non-Muslims. All because our legal drafters and lawmakers saw it fit to believe that a man's desire to divorce or to take on multiple sexual partners must not be hindered or delayed in any way. Never mind if it leads to injustice and family decay.

It was not just the Islamic Family Law that came under review. Amendments were made in 1996 to the Insurance Act and in 2000 to the EPF, through a fatwa from the National Fatwa Council. Both monies are now regarded as part of the deceased's estate to be divided according to faraid, the Islamic law of inheritance where wives and daughters get half of what the men get.

Thus a husband who names his wife to be the beneficiary of his insurance policy and his EPF will find that the wife is regarded merely as the administrator of the funds. If she has children, she is entitled to only 1/8th share; if she has no children, she is entitled to only share. The rest goes to her husband's family or to Baitulmal should there be no other valid heirs.

Malaysia seems to be the only Muslim country in the world to make insurance and EPF monies apart of the deceased's estate, rather than as a safety net for the benefit of his immediate dependants.

And then came this latest set of amendments to the Islamic Family Law which introduced gender neutral language to an already gender biased legal framework, thus further discriminating against Muslim women.

No reciprocal effort was made to use gender neutral language to extend rights traditionally enjoyed by men to women. Somehow that is deemed unlslamic because the great ulama of the medieval period had perfected the doctrinal understanding of the status of Muslim women.

For some of us these series of amendments made since the 1990s are mind-boggling in their impunity and contempt for justice and fair play. Its impact is to grossly undermine the stability of the family among Muslims. And it seems to thumb a nose at the huge strides and contributions women have made in this society by telling them that "hey, no matter what you are, you are still under our control".

For Muslim women, it is all the more painful that it is Islam that is used to deny change. Is it any wonder then that many are beginning to describe Malaysia as a country that practises religious apartheid as it formally establishes one set of rights for non-Muslims granting equality and justice between men and women, and a separate set of rights for Muslims, moving toward more inequality and injustice for Muslim women. As it was under apartheid rule in South Africa, separate can never be equal.

Through a series of law reform, the Government since the 1970s, has moved towards recognising justice and equality between non-Muslim men and women. Amendments to the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act, to the Distribution Act and the Guardianship Act enable women of other faiths to enjoy equal rights to marriage and divorce, a ban on polygamy, equal rights to guardianship and equal rights to inheritance. If a husband chooses to name his wife as his beneficiary to his insurance policy and his EPF funds, no one can take that right away from him.

No less than the Prime Minister himself has committed the Government to ending all laws that discriminate against women. It is responsive to public outcries of injustice. It is committed to appointing qualified women to top positions.

Yet, even when the Cabinet has ordered the Attorney-General to review the discriminatory Islamic Family Law amendments, there remains those within Government who cannot bring themselves to support this move.

When misogyny, injustice and political mission hide behind the cloak of religion, too many people in too many high places choose silence or acquiescence — out of fear, out of ignorance, out of personal belief, out of political ideology, or out of expediency for short-term political gains.