COMMENT: What would Melanie Phillips make of this?

Tabloid columnist Melanie Phillips was so quick to condemn the Archbishop of Canterbury for his comments on sharia.

(Then again, so were many others including Dr Tariq Ramadan).

During a recent appearance on Stephen Crittenden's Religion Report, Mel ranted and raved on about how sharia is oh soooo nasty to those poor oppressed Muslim women.

Now I must say that I agree with her to the extent that she says that in many instances sharia courts are used in a manner which, at the very least, discriminates against women. But mad Mel didn't stop there. She actually said that such discriminatory practices were rooted within Islamic theology itself.

Further, she attributed cultural practices like arranged (often forced) marriages to Islamic theology.

The Archbishop made it clear in his lecture that the comments he makes concerning sharia courts and Islamic sacred law would equally apply to rabbinical courts and Jewish sacred law. Conveniently, Mel glosses over that point. Perhaps she expects Muslims to be critical of their sacred law whilst refusing to be critical of her own. A case of "do as I say but not as I do" perhaps?

The fact is that so many of the difficult issues concerning sharia courts and their interaction with civil and secular law are equally present in Jewish sacred law. In saying this, I am not suggesting that Orthodox Jews should not have the right to practise their sacred law or to have their affairs determined by courts of their choosing. Nor am I suggesting that oppression of women is central to Judaism or any other faith.

Rather, my point is that the clash of jurisdictions is present in many many civil societies where religious and secular law must interact.

This includes the civil society of the world's only Jewish state. Writing in Haaretz, Tamar Rotem discusses the dangers of extending the limits of rabbinical courts in Israel ...

The young woman walking toward the offices of Mavoi Satum, an organization that offers assistance to women whose husbands refuse to divorce them, was only 21, married for two years, and pregnant. The daughter of a well-known right-wing spiritual leader, she grew up in a veteran settlement, was wed in an arranged marriage, and asked a rabbi before she decided to get divorced. Her husband was not mature enough for marriage, and was quick to anger. She was condemned to wait a few years for the divorce. One day, in the hallways of the rabbinic courts, her lawyer asked her why she had started the divorce process in the religious court. "My father would not let me do it any other way," she answered. "The civil courts are off-limits to us."

Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog was blind to the reality of women like this - who are typical of a growing number of people in Zionist ultra-Orthodox society who do not recognize civil courts - when he fielded his unsound proposal to expand the powers of the rabbinic courts. On a silver platter, this bill gives rabbinic judges the option to adjudicate any civil matter, from property and inheritance to labor laws. For people for whom Torah law is not something they deliberate over, this option is a religious imperative ...

... This dangerous bill, if it had passed, would have worsened women's status, already low in rabbinic courts. Meanwhile, following the public debate after the bill's presentation, Herzog backpeddled, and its discussion by the cabinet was postponed ...

Zionist ultra-Orthodox women would be the main victims of this bill; women who even now are condemned to be extorted by their husbands. Who can ensure them that all aspects of the divorce will not be given by agreement to the rabbinic court after the divorce itself? The ultra-Orthodox community has an internal system to deal with men who refuse to give their wives a divorce, by means of threats, payments under the table and shunning. Attorney Batya Kahana-Dror, of Mavoi Satum, says that in recent years more and more women among the Zionist ultra-Orthodox are being refused divorces ...

Why not have judicial pluralism? Why not let every sector of society adjudicate in keeping with its worldview? That was the question raised last week in a conference called by Kolech, a women's forum committed to Jewish Law and gender egalitarianism, at the Van Leer Institute, following the presentation of Herzog's bill. This is the answer: The state must protect those who do not have freedom of choice and who are inferior in Jewish law.

I recognise that in countries like Malaysia and Pakistan, the (albeit partial) application of sharia in criminal and family law operates in a manner that severely discriminates against women. I wonder whether Mel Phillips will now make the same admission about Jewish sacred law. Will she call for the dismantling of the Beth Din? Will she openly write about the oppression of her Jewish sisters inside the world's only Jewish state?

And will she decry the fact that this law is being introduced by a coalition consisting of the allegedly moderate Kadima party in coalition with the virulently anti-Christian and anti-Muslim Shas party? Or, to quote Tamar Rotem again ...

This dangerous bill, if it had passed, would have worsened women's status, already low in rabbinic courts. Meanwhile, following the public debate after the bill's presentation, Herzog backpeddled, and its discussion by the cabinet was postponed. The threat, however, is still there, because it is rooted in coalition agreements between Kadima and Shas, and Shas will not give up easily.

Will Mel Phillips be consistent? Or will she claim that what's good for the Jewish kangaroo is never good for the Muslim wallaby? I certainly won't be holding my breath.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: What Dr Ramadan taught me about sharia ...

(The followeing are excerpts from an article published on AltMuslim.com on 1 April 2005.)

Recently Dr. Ramadan has made the headlines with his claim that there should be a moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty (collectively known as hudud) in the Islamic world. His comments have been condemned by Muslim writers and scholars, including those claiming to follow the legacy of Dr. Ramadan's grandfather.

I am not qualified to speak on the legal validity of Dr. Ramadan's proposal. I do not hold any formal qualifications in sharia law, nor am I a graduate of an Islamic university. I have rarely set foot in any madressa (except to learn how to read the Qur'an in Arabic).

But I do know something about the administration of criminal justice. I also know a little about politics and public relations. And I would humbly submit that unless our scholars handle themselves properly, we might be headed for another public relations disaster.

Sharia is not just about criminal justice, stoning adulterers or chopping hands and heads off. Sharia is a complex and sophisticated legal tradition encompassing a broad range of opinions from things as fundamental as how rules are derived to things more mundane as where to place your hands when praying ... Hudud punishments are a small portion of the corpus of sharia.

But the way some of our scholars are reacting, one would think that perhaps all those News Limited columnists are right and that sharia is little more than nasty punishments.

Criminal justice does not just exist in statute books or scholarly dissertations. Between crime and punishment is a whole series of steps. The person must be apprehended and charged. A decision needs to be made on bail. Then there are issues relating to court evidence and procedure. Finally, upon conviction, there must be sentencing guidelines for the judge to follow. Not every theft leads to an automatic amputation.

All this requires specially trained law enforcement agencies ...

Also required are qualified and independent judges. I have relatives in Pakistan who are lawyers. They tell me how wonderfully independent judges there are - to the highest bidder. The judge initially hearing Anwar's case was also totally independent in doing the bidding of the government.

Before pro-Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood, an Arab Islamist movement ironically founded by Dr Ramadan's grandfather] writers attack Dr. Ramadan over his proposal, they should provide one example of a Muslim country where the rule of law is supreme, where judges are qualified to understand and justly enforce hudud and where police and other law enforcement agencies are relatively corruption-free. Sharia may be ... a divinely-inspired legal system. But in the hands of the wrong people, it's criminal punishments can become part of the devil's handiwork.

The late Syed Maududi, a chief proponent of the introduction of sharia into Pakistani law, was also strongly opposed to the introduction of hudud until the moral, social and educational conditions were right. No point chopping hands for theft when the entire economy is based on a reverse Robin Hood system - stealing from the poor majority to give to the rich minority.

And what a nightmare it would be if the proponents of sharia turn out to be the ones behind the creation of a system in which sharia lost all credibility in the eyes of the people it was meant to guide and save. Imagine an international Muslim community fillied with millions of Amina Lawals.

Caliph Umar had the right idea. He suspended the punishment for theft during times of severe poverty arising from a famine. When people are forced to steal just to survive, amputating their limbs hardly seems just.

When Muslim scholars take absurd positions and oppose anything that resembles compromising (a portion of) sharia, they undermine their own credibility. For many, it also involves them speaking and judging in areas beyond their expertise. The trial judge who sentenced Amina Lawal on the basis of a minority (and largely discredited) position within the Maliki school of law was a classic example of this.

These scholars also make it hard for other scholars, writers, professionals, business people and other ordinary Muslims who are busy trying to engage with their fellow humans. It is hard to tell someone that your intentions are peaceful when your religious scholars are intent on imposing criminal sanctions seemingly based on mindless violence. So much being able to fruitfully engage with non-Muslims!

Of course, our scholars could always just state the truth. They could acknowledge that there are serious obstacles to be overcome before any aspect of sharia is implemented on a national level in any Muslim country. They could also acknowledge that sharia is not just concerned with criminal justice but also with economic, political, social, educational, matrimonial and every other form of justice. Sharia is as much about curbing anti-competitive behaviour in the market or ensuring mediation becomes a primary means of settling commercial disputes as it is about punishing criminals.

Law does not exist in a social vacuum. Let's get our Muslim societies in order before we start drastically increasing the severity of our criminal punishments. Let's ensure we have in each Muslim country an independent judiciary, a corruption-free police force, court officials who do not take bribes, politicians who feel the full force of the law and social conditions which mitigate against theft, murder and every other crime the subject of hudud.

Tariq Ramadan has a point ... Let the Muslim country bound by the rule of law cast the first stone.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Some thoughts on Dr Tariq Ramadan ...

(Here are some excerpts from an article was published on the MuslimWakeUp website during Tariq Ramadan's last Australian tour in 2004/05.)



Ramadan Does Boxing Day in the Sydney Opera House

This year, I spent Christmas midnight for the first time at midnight mass at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral ... I wanted to do something different for Christmas. Watching the majestic organs of St Mary’s playing whilst the magnificent choir circled the isles of the Cathedral was a truly amazing spiritual experience ...

Interestingly, the word “catholic” means literally “universal.” And that Christmas night at St Mary’s, I was putting into practice some of the universalism I had learnt from a certain Swiss citizen whose name appears in the heading.

Tariq Ramadan did not just come to Australia to enjoy a holiday with his family. He came to deliver a message. Had his journey been a mere holiday, he perhaps would have been one of the thousands of anonymous visitors to one of Australia’s cultural icons, the Sydney Opera House (SOH). But on the night of Boxing Day, 26 December 2004, Ramadan addressed a near-packed concert hall of the SOH ...

Ramadan repeated the same questions he has asked Muslims in numerous talks he has given, articles he has written and books he has penned over the years. How do we understand our faith in such a way that it really does become a universal faith? How do we as a Muslim community become truly accommodating, or need I say, truly Catholic in its literal sense?

It was refreshing to hear the grandson of Imam Hasan al-Banna citing the Brazilian Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist to illustrate a subtle shade of Qur’anic meaning. And in doing so, those who understand the message of Ramadan’s grandfather would know that he would not be turning in his grave at his grandson’s grabbing of a piece of wisdom that, like wisdom everywhere, is the believer’s lost property.

Ramadan spent a substantial amount of his address re-defining basic terms we use so often ... For Ramadan ... jihad['s] goal is not killing a maximum number of non-Muslims. Rather, its goal is resistance.

Ramadan said that there can be no Islam without jihad. Islam is peace, and so the goal of jihad must be a resistance that leads to peace. Resistance is the name of the game. And it does not just stop at one’s soul.

In this respect, Ramadan laid out a ground plan of how Muslims can practice jihad in their own communities and nations. How? By joining other Muslims to root out social problems in the Muslim community, problems such as racism. And also by joining with non-Muslims in peaceful action toward social change.

This is jihad and this is Islam according to Ramadan. It is not just about the outer aspects of sunna or prophetic tradition. It is about implementing the simple principles of islam in a complex world. And it is about doing all this in a way that emphasises what we have in common with others.

Ramadan laments the fixation which Muslims in Europe and Australia have with being minorities. It’s as if we want to receive strange looks because we are dying to be different. Yet we simply are not strong enough to achieve the goals of jihad. Yes folks, our jihad is to be conducted WITH non-Muslims, NOT AGAINST non-Muslims.

So my jihad has to be conducted not just with Tariq Ramadan’s audience at the SOH but also with the thousands who joined Cardinal Pell at St Mary’s Cathedral at Midnight Mass.

Put another way, jihad is spiritual love. And love is not just some flimsy emotion from a Robbie Williams song. Love is a spiritual struggle against its opposite and all that resemble that opposite. Negativity is so easy. For many of us, it is our position of inertia. If you want to unite a large group, invent an enemy. Being Daniel Pipes is easy. Being Tariq Ramadan is very hard.

Being a true lover and a true mujahid means being prepared to move beyond hate and resentment and negativity. It means finding commonality with people. It means learning to work with people of all colors, sects, faiths, religions, nationalities, genders … and yes, I will say it … sexual orientations.

That means that I, as a socially conservative Muslim, should be prepared to work with a leftist Catholic and a politically neutral Jew if all three of us believe that certain proposed legislation will curtail civil liberties and human rights. And I should oppose this legislation if the first people whose human rights are affected are refugee animists from Papua.

But try getting most Muslims to understand this sort of thinking. Try getting them to understand that good citizenship is part of taqwa, that there is even an ecological jihad. I could lament and go on and on for fifty more paragraphs, and achieve nothing. I just hope that perhaps Dr Ramadan has the good sense to give the United States the flick and migrate to Australia instead.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008

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