Based in New Delhi, Zakia Nizami Soman is one of the founder members of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), a movement of Muslim women across India struggling for their citizenship rights. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, she talks about the BMMA’s work and reflects on the daunting challenges facing Muslim women in India today.
Q: How did the BMMA start? What made you and your colleagues feel the need for a separate Muslim women’s movement?
A: The BMMA was formally inaugurated in Delhi in January 2007, but before that we—numerous Muslim women—were working in our individual capacities on issues related to Muslims, particularly Muslim women, in different parts of India. I was working in Gujarat, my home state, before that, with Action Aid, in the wake of the state-sponsored genocidal attacks on Muslims in 2002. In a sense, it was the Gujarat genocide that brought us Muslim women, scattered across India, together. We met at numerous conventions, rallies and public hearings that were held in different parts of the country in the wake of the genocide. We were all Muslim women who were deeply concerned with the plight of the Muslims, including and especially Muslim women, and the enormous danger of Hindutva fascism, and who were trying, in our own ways, to intervene. That was when we decided to form a loose collective of our own. We felt that the issues of Muslim women were somehow being sidelined in a climate of heightened Muslim insecurity. We urgently felt the need for Muslim women to speak out, not just against patriarchy within the community and unjust personal laws, but also against growing anti-Muslim discrimination, against Muslims being treated as second-class citizens in this country and against neglect, indeed, discrimination by the state and other forces. We felt the desperate need for a Muslim women’s voice at the national level.
We began our work in 2005 by organizing meetings in various cities of India of like-minded Muslim women—in Delhi, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and so on. In the beginning, we did not have any clear agenda. These meetings served as a means for us to get to know each other and to clarify our thinking on issues related to Muslim women, the Indian Muslims as a whole, as well as the larger society and the struggles of other marginalized groups for justice and equality. After considerable discussion and deliberation about what our ideology and form of our collective, finally we announced the formation of the BMMA at our first national convention in Delhi in January 2007. Some 500 women attended the convention. Thereafter, our numbers rapidly grew, and now we have almost 20,000 members, with chapters in fifteen states across India. Most of them are volunteers, who take up Muslim community, particularly Muslim women’s, issues at the local level.
Our name expresses our mission. We are ‘Bharatiya’, or Indian. We refuse to let the advocates of Hindutva monopolise the term. We are Muslim and not at all apologetic about it. We are ‘Mahilas’, or women. And, finally, we are an ‘Andolan’ or movement, not an institutionalized NGO, that seeks to mobilize and work with not just Muslim women alone, but also the whole secular and democratic movement in India, for the problems we all face are so deep-rooted that large scale people’s mobilization is the only way out. The BMMA is based on the values of the Indian Constitution as well as the Quran, both of which have given Muslim women equal rights. Our basic mandate is to work on issues related to education, livelihood, health and security and personal laws of Muslims in general, and Muslim women in particular. This also includes the struggle against communalism, against the stereotyping of Muslims and Islam and the tendency to link them with terrorism.
Q: You speak of the Quran as gender-just, but what would you say about the very obviously patriarchal, and, in several aspects, patently anti-women, stances of the conservative ulema?
A: Islam speaks of a God who is just. The Quran has given women equal rights and equal dignity. We are as much God’s followers as men are. The problem arises not from the Quran but from distorted, patriarchal interpretations of the Quran and other texts by some sections of the ulema. This is something that we have to fight against. Islam is a religion of justice. So, how, if it is interpreted properly, can it discriminate against women? For us, religion is something between the individual and God, a belief grounded in the faith that God cannot be unjust towards women. So, even if a thousand maulvis stand up and demand that women are inferior and that we should remain shut in their homes we will refuse to listen to them.
Q: Why did you feel the need for a separate Muslim women’s voice?
A: The experience of the Muslims of Gujarat in the wake of the 2002 genocide taught us one valuable lesson: that Muslims have to stand up on their own for justice for themselves. Thousands of Muslim men, women and children were slaughtered in cold blood. Three hundred Muslim women were brutally raped and then burnt alive, some in front of their children. With the exception of a few, the so-called secular Indian feminists did not dare to speak out against the Gujarat carnage. It is a shame that Gujarat is home to some of the largest women's organisations and yet they chose to remain mute. Either they were too scared or else it was a case of them showing their hidden anti-Muslim prejudice. They maintained a deafening silence. They had shown their deep-rooted, often unacknowledged, pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim bias on several occasions before, as during the dastardly massacre of Muslims in Bombay in 1992.
This made us realize that we could not depend on the women's movement to take up our cause, to speak for us. We needed to speak for ourselves. Also, our multiple exclusion, just like that of Dalit women, has failed to find any real representation in the discourse of the so-called 'mainstream'.To reflect this, we coined the slogan Jiski ladai, uski aguvai (‘She shall lead whose struggle it is’). Most self-styled Indian feminists are so-called ‘upper’ caste Hindus. Of course, there are individuals who are different, by and large, as far as Muslims are concerned, there is no difference, generally speaking, between a Brahmin woman and a Brahmin man. They are both part of the same patriarchal, hegemonic system. That is also how, for instance, Dalits or Adivasis, similarly oppressed communities, would view them.
That said, we were, and still are, open to alliances with democratic, secular-minded women and men from other communities. Our membership is not restricted to Muslim women alone. Our membership is open to all, except those who are not secular and those who lack financial integrity. In fact, some 15% of our members are non-Muslims. We also have some male members. We also seek to build alliances with other groups and communities fighting for justice, because we see our struggle not just as a Muslim women’s one, or even a Muslim one, but, rather, as part of a broader movement for all secular-minded and democratic Indians. We often attend meetings organized by Dalits, women's groups, and trade unions, and they, too, come to our meetings to express their solidarity.
The second reason why we felt the need for an independent national-level voice for Muslim women was our objection to the fact that when it comes to discussing Muslims, only people with a certain sort of identity—and all males, incidentally, particularly conservative ulema or rabble-rousers are projected as the representatives of the community. The fact is that the male Muslim religious and political leadership has completely failed not just Muslim women, but Muslims as a whole. Typically, they remain silent on the pressing issues of Muslim women—not just on issues related to outdated and patriarchal understandings of family law, but also on matters such as Muslim women’s educational and economic empowerment. Many of them even adopt patently anti-women stances, and, moreover, have done precious little, if at all, even for Muslim men. Muslims in India are victims of discrimination, including by the state, but a major cause of our plight is also the existing Muslim elite. We cannot accept them as our leaders. When the Sachar Committee Report talks of the all-round social and economic exclusion of Muslims, it is not a situation that has developed overnight. It is a tale of pervasive discrimination as well as the failure of the supposed Muslim leadership to enable the Muslims to participate in Indian democracy.
It was not that we want to speak for Muslim women alone. Rather, we speak for, and highlight the concerns of, Muslims as a whole, men as well as women. Till now, those who have claimed to be the leaders of the Muslims have all been men. Why can’t it change? Why can’t Muslim women also lead the whole community—not just Muslim women?
Q: Some women’s groups project the major concerns of Muslim women to be issues related to personal law—triple talaq in one sitting, polygamy, and so on. How do you look at this?
A: These are definitely crucial issues that need to be addressed, and certainly I believe that the existing Muslim Personal Law in India needs to be reformed on gender-just lines and within the broad framework of the shariah, and then codified. But, I do not believe that they are the major issues facing the vast majority of Indian Muslim women. Their foremost concerns relate to endemic poverty and illiteracy that characterizes the Muslim community as a whole, including Muslim men, and anti-Muslim discrimination by the state and other forces. We do not see Muslim women’s issues in isolation from the issues faced by the wider Muslim community. Unless these issues are simultaneously addressed, you cannot expect Muslim women’s conditions to be ameliorated. The tendency to locate the sources of Muslim women’s marginalization solely within the community itself—blaming just Muslim men or the ulema and their patriarchal understandings of religion—is patently unfair. How can you expect Muslim women to be empowered and able to resist male domination if they are not educationally and economically empowered? A major responsibility in this regard is that of the state, which continues to marginalize and neglect Muslims, including Muslim women. How can you expect divorced Muslim women to be paid a decent sum as maintenance if the vast majority of Muslim men continue to wallow in poverty?
Then, I must add, there is this marked tendency, even among so-called feminists, to stereotype Muslim women as hapless, helpless creatures, heavily oppressed by their men and religious leaders, as if Muslim women are unique in this regard. This is not the case at all. This stereotypical image of Muslim women can be very misleading. For instance, surveys have proved that a lower proportion of Muslim couples are polygamous than other communities in India, including Hindus, although, by Indian law, polygamy is possible only for Muslims. Likewise, there is such media hype about the burkha that feeds negative images of Islam and Muslims. In the BMMA we have several members who wear the burkha or hijab, some of who work outside their homes. It does not restrict their mobility. Some of these sisters are among our most vocal and outspoken activists. That said, to wear or not to wear the burkha is a woman's personal choice, and nobody should force her against her will.
Q: What has been the reaction of the ulema to the BMMA? Have you encountered any opposition or hostility from them?
A: Contrary to what some of us had initially feared, we have faced no problems at all from the ulema. In fact, some of them have even addressed our meetings. The latest one to do so was Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, the Vice-President of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, who is a great champion of women’s rights and education. That said, I must also mention that we deliberately do not seek to court those ulema and their organizations that are communal and are known for their misogynist views. The BMMA is a non-sectarian group, and we have members from different Muslim sects—Shias, Sunnis, so-called 'lower' castes and so on, and so we do not work with any sectarian Muslim ulema groups. At the same time, I must also stress that we are not anti-religion at all. Personally, I see no contradiction between the Quran and equality and justice for women. I think that by providing positive models of Muslim women as social activists we are serving the cause of Islam at a time when its image is being sullied, being presented both by its foes as well as conservative and radical Muslims as anti-women.
Q: What practical activities has the BMMA undertaken so far?
A: We have formulated and published a model nikah namah or marriage contract, which, in contrast to the ones generally used in India, safeguards the rights of both spouses, and is fully in accordance with the Quran. It was framed by a team of Muslim women scholars, with the help of the well-known Islamic scholar Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer. Till now, almost three hundred marriages have been conducted, mainly in Maharashtra and Gujarat, using this nikah namah.
Two years ago, we launched a national campaign to press for the implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report on Muslims. The Congress-led Government, which had appointed the Committee, is doing nothing about it—true to form, it is simply hoodwinking Muslims with false promises—but still we need to keep up the pressure. Our members have been going around in their areas, asking local MLAs, MPs, bank managers and so on what they have, if at all, done for Muslims, and we plan to compile these findings and publish them as a report soon.
Q: Personally speaking, what was the source of inspiration that led you to join this movement?
A: My source of courage were the Muslim women of Gujarat, where I come from, whom I worked with in the course of the state-sponsored genocide in 2002. In the face of the barbaric criminality, not just of Hindutva mobs but also of the state itself, many Muslims felt it was best to remain silent, to accept things as they were, to remain low and subdued. But it was these women, whose husbands and children had been slaughtered in front of their very eyes, whose houses had been burned down, who refused to keep silent. They wanted to fight back, to denounce the criminals behind the carnage and those who backed them. They came in their hundreds to rallies and demonstrations, even before the Parliament House in Delhi. Many of them were burkha-clad, but that did not stop them from coming out in droves. They were not begging for relief or hand-outs. What they demanded was justice. These women who lit a fire in my heart. If they could be so brave, so committed, why could I not be like them?, I thought.
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Zakia Nizami Soman can be contacted on zakiasoman@yahoo.com
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Interview: Chandra Muzaffar on Islamic Inclusivism and Muslim Exclusivism
Chandra Muzaffar is Malaysia’s leading public intellectual. Author of numerous books, mainly on religion, hegemony and resistance, he is the President of the International Movement for a Just World. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about various aspects related to Islam and Islamic assertion in Malaysia.
Q: Could you tell us something about yourself and your academic and activist background? How did you get interested in Islam?
A: I was born in 1947 in the state of Kedah in northern Malaysia. Both my parents were Hindus who were originally from Kerala in southern India. My mother was a third generation Malaysian but my father had been born and brought up in India.
Since my teens I evinced a strong interest in religion. I kept wondering about the purpose of life, life after death and so on. And so I began reading about religion. I started with Hinduism, and then went on to Christianity and then to the Bahai Faith . I was even actively involved with a Bahai group but I left after a while. There was more emphasis upon rituals than I had expected. . In 1967, I enrolled at the University of Singapore to do a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and History, eventually specializing in Politics and that is where I began reading about how Western philosophers looked at the big existential questions about life.
In the second year at the University, I became very close to a leading Malaysian intellectual, who was at that time the head of the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Singapore—the late Syed Hussein Alatas, a very well-known sociologist and author of numerous books on Islam. I began spending a lot of time with him in his house. He had just then set up an opposition political party in Malaysia, and so we would spend hours together discussing politics, national unity, inter-communal relations and social justice in Malaysia. It was he who inspired me to start reading about Islam. I read numerous works by many Muslim authors who represented a diverse range of understandings of Islam. I also read Alatas’ own works on Islam and was influenced particularly by his personality, lifestyle and his very universalistic understanding of and approach to Islam.
After graduating from Singapore I returned to Malaysia, where I registered at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang to do a Master’s degree. For my thesis I worked on Malaysian politics, in the course of which I did fieldwork, which gave me the opportunity to meet many Malay Muslim leaders from the Islamic party PAS and to learn more about their understanding of Islam as a political ideology. By this time, I had strengthened my own conviction in Islam—not the ritualistic, dogmatic sort of Islam, but the Islam that stands for universalism, that stresses fundamental values over forms, that does not recognize mere rituals and externals as a criterion of one’s religious commitment. And so in May 1974 I formally embraced, or, as it is said, reverted to, Islam.
Q: You mentioned that one reason for your disenchantment with the Baha Faith was its ritualism. Given what some might call the excessive ritualism associated with the general practice of Islam in Malaysia and elsewhere, it might seem strange that you were attracted to Islam, is it not?
A: As I just mentioned, I was attracted by the universalism that I discovered in the Quran, but which Muslim practice very often tends to completely negate by associating Islam with a particular community and with a set of rituals. This is quite in contrast to the understanding of Islam that I learnt from Syed Hussein Alatas. I think one could argue that every religious community has betrayed its leading figure by turning into a separate group, using rituals to shore up boundaries to set it apart from other similarly constructed groups. This has happened with Muslims as well, and has led to the universal message of Islam being negated in practical terms.
My own understanding of Islam is that it is basically a worldview, a distinct attitude, a weltanschauung, and not the creed of a narrowly-defined community. I do not believe that the purpose of Islam is to create a community defined in this sense. Rather, it is to nourish a certain outlook or way of living that reflects certain basic values and which should not be seen as being confined to a certain community. My understanding of Islam is one that is fundamentally opposed to communal thinking. I mean, how can one consider a person who commits a heinous crime like murder a ‘Muslim’ in the true sense of the word—which means one who submits his will to God—simply because he has an Arabic name and has verbally recited the shahada, the Islamic testimony of faith?
I firmly believe that the various messengers of God did not intend to create new communities of followers defined by external markers and rituals that had little or nothing to do with the central core of their message. Instead, they were sent by God to reform attitudes, to nourish proper ways of being human. Sadly, however, precisely the opposite happened after their demise in every case. According to conventional religious thinking, people are judged or viewed not in terms of the basic values that the prophets stressed, on the basis of how they relate to others, to Nature, and so on, but in terms of an elaborate set of rituals and external markers. This is really tragic.
Q: You seem to argue, if I get you correctly, that Islam did not intend to establish a separate community. But what about the concept of Muslims as an ummah, as a separate people defined on the basis of religion?
A: I think there is a lot of confusion about the term ummah. The Quran uses the term in different senses, which do not negate each other. For instance, it is used in the context of the ummah of Medina, which included the Muslim Ansars and Muhajirin and various non-Muslims, including Jewish tribes who were brought together through the Covenant of Medina. A second sense in which the term ummah is used is for those who accepted God and Muhammad as His messenger, as opposed to those who rejected one or both. A third sense in which it is used is to refer to the whole of humankind in general. In none of these senses does it necessarily convey the exclusivist notion of community that many Muslims understand it as.
So, I would contend that one of the major challenges before Muslims today is to reappraise the whole notion of ummah, to retrieve what I believe is its actual connotation as a group based on values and that transcends communal divisions. This notion of the ummah is suggested in the Quran but it has been subverted in the ways in which it has conventionally been understood and interpreted. I believe that in today’s context of rapid communications and the breaking down of barriers dividing countries and communities, it could be possible to move towards what I regard as the true Quranic understanding of the ummah that goes beyond the narrow notion of religious-based communities.
For this we also need to reevaluate our understanding of what ‘Muslim’ means. A Muslim should be understood not as someone born into a particular community that claims to be ‘Muslim’, but, rather, as a person who upholds certain values and reflects or possesses certain attributes, a person who believes in the one God, submits to His will and does good, irrespective of his or her community. This is why the Quran regards all the many thousands of prophets who appeared before the Prophet Muhammad, in different parts of the world, as Muslims. This means that belief in and devotion and surrender to God, which is also reflected in righteous deeds, suffices to be considered a Muslim in the literal sense of the term as one who has submitted to God’s will.
The Quran refers to the Prophet Abraham as a true believer, as a Hanif, and when it specifies that he was neither a Christian nor a Jew it seems to me to suggest the point that he did not create any sect or community defined in this narrow sense, and that he was free of any narrow communal affiliation.
Q: If, as you say, to be a Muslim is to believe in the one God and lead a righteous life, and that this suggests Islam’s universalism, why do ‘Muslims’ in practice place so much more importance on the Prophet Muhammad over the other prophets although the Quran very clearly specifies that all the prophets are equal and that no distinction should be made between them?
A: I think this has a lot to do with history, with the development of identity of an expanding community over time. So, very often what Muslims are protecting in the name of Islam is this narrowly-conceived identity or historical tradition rather than what the Prophet stood for—the basic values and beliefs, which, unfortunately, are not conventionally understood as the defining attributes of Muslims today. And what many of them defend in the name of Islam is not what the Prophet taught and stood for, but, rather, what some medieval scholars and jurists or fuqaha had written centuries ago, which they wrongly equate with Islam.
This blind adherence to the views and prescriptions of the fuqaha is one of the most fundamental problems of Muslims. Ironically, those who claim to interpret the divine word are themselves considered ‘divine’ now. Much of what passes off as divine shariah, which Muslims generally think is wholly unchangeable, is actually fiqh, the product of the ijtihad or the thinking and interpretation of ulema, who were after all, fallible human beings like the rest of us.
Q: Let’s turn to Malaysia. Many Muslims (and others) outside Malaysia think of Malaysia as a ‘model Muslim state’ or even as a ‘model Islamic state’. Do you agree with this perception?
A: What those who think in this way see when they look at Malaysia is just the brighter side of the picture: a country with a fairly high per capita income, a very high literacy rate and good infrastructure, and which has to a great extent succeeded in eradicating absolute poverty. On all these indices undoubtedly Malaysia has done well, much better than most other Muslim-majority countries. So, when non-Malaysian Muslims see all this they regard it as the achievement of a people and government who do not subscribe to a narrow version of Islam, and who are trying to ward off the creeping influence of this sort of Islam, and they contrast this with their own countries. They admire the fact that Malaysia, as a Muslim-majority country, has been able to do well by these standards without imposing a narrowly-conceived shariah state, for they know that the kind of progress Malaysia has achieved could not have happened if we were ruled by that sort of state. This is what particularly impresses them. Also perhaps the willingness of the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to challenge the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and to raise the issue of continued Western imperialism.
But what people who consider Malaysia as a model Muslim country don’t look at is the other side of the picture: crass capitalism, rampant consumerism, lack of integration between the different communities and so on.
People who uncritically regard Malaysia as a ‘model’ Muslim state do not see or know that generally Muslims in Malaysia are very conservative when it comes to things that are presented in ‘Islamic’ terms, and that what the traditional ulema say or believe is still considered by most Malaysian Muslims as binding. Often, Malaysian Muslims have no problems if you talk about something as long as you don’t bring in Islam, but the moment you do, their approach becomes very traditional. A good instance of this is our legal system. In our civil courts we have had Muslim women judges for a long time. That has never been a problem. In fact, a few years ago the Chief Judge of peninsula Malaysia was a Malay Muslim woman. But till today we have had not a single woman judge in the shariah courts although there are many women in this country who are well-versed in what is considered to be Islamic law. This is because of a very conservative understanding of the Malaysian ulema that women cannot be judges in shariah courts, although there is actually no rule in Islam forbidding this. Even in countries like Sudan, Iran and Indonesia there are women shariah court judges, so why not in Malaysia?
Q: Are you suggesting that, overall, the traditional ulema still have a very decisive influence in shaping Malaysian Muslim understandings of their religion? What about alternate voices? The Malay middle-class has grown vastly in recent decades. Has this resulted in any sort of movement pressing for a re-thinking of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, for a contextual understanding of Islam?
A: There are only a very few, scattered individuals who are trying to do this sort of work. It certainly has not taken the form of a movement in this country. It is true that the modern educated and economically well-off Malay or Muslim middle class has expanded considerably in Malaysia. But still you find that when it comes to Islam they generally remain very conservative. For instance, on the issue of apostasy from Islam, a hugely controversial issue in Malaysia, most of middle-class Malays, despite their education, would continue to insist on its criminalization by the state even though this does not have any Quranic sanction and in fact violates the Quran’s insistence that there is no compulsion in religion.
Q: Scholars have argued that to a great extent the practice and perception of Islam among the Malays is influenced by Malay ethnicity. Does that have anything to do with the sort of conservatism that you refer to?
A: Yes, to a great extent. So, for instance, the issue of apostasy is also seen even by many well-educated Malays as a threat to the Malay community and its ‘special position’, as threatening Malay solidarity in the face of other ethnic communities in the country. This is a reflection of a pervasive fear among many Malays that if they move out of their ethnic cocoons, which they seek to bolster through appeals to a conservative version of Islam, and open up and embrace others the Malays will be overwhelmed by others. This is how Malay ethnicity and insecurities shape ‘Islamic’ understandings in the country.
Q: How valid are these insecurities, though?
A: Some decades ago some of these insecurities would have been understandable. At that time, the economy was almost entirely controlled by foreigners and ethnic Chinese. But today there is a very sizeable Malay middle class. Malays now play significant roles in the upper reaches of the economy.. So, I feel there is no need for them to feel insecure any more. Sadly, however, the political parties keep playing up, even creating and further magnifying, these insecurities. Even Islamic groups that otherwise insist that ethnic chauvinism is contrary to Islam are not averse to this sort of political manipulation.
I must add that this is not a phenomenon unique to the Malays. In large parts of the American mid-West you can find people who subscribe to the ridiculous theory that their country is under threat from poor little Cuba. Or in India many Hindus believe that the impoverished Dalits or heavily marginalized Muslim minority are a threat to them, while this is not the case at all. But because of this sort of ethnic and religious collective consciousness, which, contrary to what Marx claimed, is much stronger than class consciousness, many Malay Muslims, mid-West Americans or Indian Hindus would not be enthusiastic about opening up to others.
Q: Despite generous government patronage of various Islamic institutions, it appears that Malay intellectuals have not made a significant contribution to contemporary debates about Islam or in developing socially relevant and contextual understandings of Islam. This is in contrast to neighbouring Indonesia, where Muslim intellectuals have a rich legacy of articulating alternate Islamic perspectives on a host of social issues of contemporary concern. How do you see this?
A: Perhaps the over-dependence of the bulk of the Malay middle-class on the state, for patronage or for jobs or whatever, is itself a reason for the stagnation of Islamic discourse in the country. Obviously, if you are dependent on the state for your job or sources of funds you cannot really defy the line of the state, be it on Islam or any other issue. But equally or perhaps even more crucially, because of the ethnic issue in Malaysia few Malay intellectuals are willing to be seen as going against what is seen as the interests of their community. So, for instance, when it comes to many socio-economic or socio-political matters, very few of them would stress Islamic universalism over what they perceive as the ‘Malay position’. Another factor for the retardation of Islamic discourse in Malaysia is that, on the whole, the middle class Malay mindset is still conservative in matters of religion, relatively untouched by reformist trends in other Muslim countries.
When one compares the situation in Malaysia with that in neighbouring Indonesia the difference appears stark. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, religious reform movements were an integral part of radical nationalist and anti-colonial struggles in Indonesia. The Dutch in Indonesia directly interfered in Islamic matters. They did away with the local Sultans and set up their own board of Islamic affairs, which was staffed with Dutch administrators. This naturally made the Indonesian ulema much more involved in the anti-colonial and nationalist movement. In what was then Malaya, on the other hand, the British retained the royal houses of the Sultans and appointed them as ‘heads’ of Islam in their own states and generally refrained from interfering in Islamic matters. The perpetuation of these monarchical structures also resulted in the strengthening of a conservative approach to the religion since the Sultans wanted to preserve the status quo..
A second, and equally crucial, factor for the difference is that Muslims form almost 90 per cent of Indonesia’s population, while they only a little more than 60 per cent of Malaysia’s population. That is why Indonesian Muslims are much more confident about their identity and feel less threatened by other communities in their midst than the Malays. And so Indonesian Muslim religious intellectuals are much more open to questioning conservative understandings of religion and to promoting more contextually-relevant responses to a range of contemporary issues.
Q: Given the inextricable link between religious and ethnic assertion among the Malays, which numerous scholars have alluded to, how do you see the phenomenon of what is commonly described as Islamic revivalism in contemporary Malaysia? Is it really a purely religious or even spiritual phenomenon? Or does it have more to do with assertion of Malay communal identity?
A: I think it is related to a large extent to the quest for the assertion of Malay identity.in multi-ethnic Malaysia. It has little, if at all, to do with any spiritual awakening. In Malaysia, this superficial so-called Islamisation and Malay ethnic assertion are in many senses synonymous because ‘Malay’ and ‘Muslim’ are regarded as interchangeable terms. The Constitution of Malaysia even lays down that considering oneself a Muslim is an integral part of being Malay. So, especially due to the sort of ethnic-based politics in Malaysia, instead of heralding a truly cosmopolitan Islam, the sort of ‘Islamisation’ that Malaysia has witnessed is leading to further reinforcing of a narrowly conceived Malay ethnic consciousness. While it is portrayed as ‘Islamisation’ it is actually little more than Malay ethnic assertion.
Take, for instance, the question of hijab or modest women’s clothing. Today most Malay women wear a head-covering, though it is clear that the sort of covering that they are so particular about is not mandated in the Quran. But for many Malays, the woman’s head-cover is not just a religious statement. It serves as a crucial marker of Malay ethnic identity, to mark off Malays/Muslims from others.
Q: From Mahathir Mohamad onwards, successive Malaysian Prime Ministers have been using Islam as an ingredient in Malaysia’s economic development strategy. Has that at all worked?
A: I don’t quite agree. I don’t think Mahathir’s version of Islam or the Islam Hadhari of his successor, Abdullah Badawi, had any major role to play in shaping or influencing Malaysia’s development strategy. Mahathir’s use of Islam was a very political move in recognition of societal pressures, to win Malay votes and to out-maneuver the ‘Islamist’ opposition. So, he set up some ‘Islamic’ institutions, but was careful not to touch the country’s capitalist system. On the economic front, he established an Islamic Bank. His experiment in ‘Islamic insurance’ has not taken off. Other than this, he made no other effort to ‘Islamise’ the economy. And I must add that I don’t think the so-called ‘Islamic banks’ are really Islamic at all. At least in the form they have assumed in Malaysia, they have fully adjusted themselves to capitalism, and are now a lucrative means to make a lot of money, while small borrowers actually pay more than what they would have to if they took loans from commercial banks.
I don’t think genuinely Islamic banking needs an‘Islamic’ label. Any system that aims at proper generation and distribution of wealth, that helps sustainable growth along with equity, can be considered Islamic without needing the ‘Islamic’ tag. If someone wants to call it ‘Christian’ or ‘Buddhist’ banking it’s fine by me. I can still call it ‘Islamic’ if it cares for the poor and reinforces justice and equity.
Why must we want to put a so-called ‘Islamic’ label on everything? It is a reflection of a narrow-minded, communal, indeed tribalistic approach to Islam and Muslim identity, one that I feel is contrary to the Quranic spirit and its universalism. So, you have people talking about ‘Islamic’ sociology or ‘Islamic’ environmental science and even ‘Islamic English’ and so on. I think this is a very restrictive way of understanding Islam. We have to get out of this suffocating obsession with such labels.
Q: Let’s come back to the question of a certain vision of Islam, as articulated by Mahathir Mohamad or Abdullah Badawi, as an ‘input’ in Malaysia’s economic development policy. Can you elaborate a little more?
A: I don’t think Islam has been an input in this sense. Perhaps the only case is that of the Tabung Haji, the government-run Haj Fund, to which people who want to perform the Haj can contribute every month. Just before they leave for the Haj they are given the money that they have saved plus some bonus. The money collected by the Tajung Haji is invested in various companies. That, I believe, is the only Islamic ‘input’, if you can call it that, into Malaysia’s otherwise capitalist path of development which undoubtedly has some elements of social justice.
Q: Mahathir Mohammad and, after him, Abdullah Badawi, repeatedly stressed what they considered to be an ‘Islamic’ work ethic as essential to the country’s development. How effective were these exhortations actually?
A: Yes, Mahathir repeatedly stressed values such as dedication, hard work, loyalty and obedience, but overall in such a way as to make them capitalism-friendly. He did not, of course, refer to other such Islamic values as redistribution of wealth, compassion and social justice that would in any way challenge capitalism.
As for Abdullah Badawi’s Islam Hadhari, I don’t think it worked at all. Although it also ostensibly sought to promote a certain work ethic, and the agencies of the state tried to promote it, , it had no impact at all on people and society in general. Islam Hadhari consists of ten points. I have no quarrel with these points, which sound very lofty, but why brand this as a certain type of Islam or add an adjective to Islam? If you want to change Muslim attitudes you have to present and approach Islam as Islam itself, without any additional adjectives, like ‘Hadhari’ or whatever. That way of packaging Islam puts off Muslims and is sure to be rejected. This is one reason why many Malaysian Muslims resisted the very concept or label of ‘Islam Hadhari’.
Q: Could you tell us something about yourself and your academic and activist background? How did you get interested in Islam?
A: I was born in 1947 in the state of Kedah in northern Malaysia. Both my parents were Hindus who were originally from Kerala in southern India. My mother was a third generation Malaysian but my father had been born and brought up in India.
Since my teens I evinced a strong interest in religion. I kept wondering about the purpose of life, life after death and so on. And so I began reading about religion. I started with Hinduism, and then went on to Christianity and then to the Bahai Faith . I was even actively involved with a Bahai group but I left after a while. There was more emphasis upon rituals than I had expected. . In 1967, I enrolled at the University of Singapore to do a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and History, eventually specializing in Politics and that is where I began reading about how Western philosophers looked at the big existential questions about life.
In the second year at the University, I became very close to a leading Malaysian intellectual, who was at that time the head of the Department of Malay Studies at the University of Singapore—the late Syed Hussein Alatas, a very well-known sociologist and author of numerous books on Islam. I began spending a lot of time with him in his house. He had just then set up an opposition political party in Malaysia, and so we would spend hours together discussing politics, national unity, inter-communal relations and social justice in Malaysia. It was he who inspired me to start reading about Islam. I read numerous works by many Muslim authors who represented a diverse range of understandings of Islam. I also read Alatas’ own works on Islam and was influenced particularly by his personality, lifestyle and his very universalistic understanding of and approach to Islam.
After graduating from Singapore I returned to Malaysia, where I registered at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang to do a Master’s degree. For my thesis I worked on Malaysian politics, in the course of which I did fieldwork, which gave me the opportunity to meet many Malay Muslim leaders from the Islamic party PAS and to learn more about their understanding of Islam as a political ideology. By this time, I had strengthened my own conviction in Islam—not the ritualistic, dogmatic sort of Islam, but the Islam that stands for universalism, that stresses fundamental values over forms, that does not recognize mere rituals and externals as a criterion of one’s religious commitment. And so in May 1974 I formally embraced, or, as it is said, reverted to, Islam.
Q: You mentioned that one reason for your disenchantment with the Baha Faith was its ritualism. Given what some might call the excessive ritualism associated with the general practice of Islam in Malaysia and elsewhere, it might seem strange that you were attracted to Islam, is it not?
A: As I just mentioned, I was attracted by the universalism that I discovered in the Quran, but which Muslim practice very often tends to completely negate by associating Islam with a particular community and with a set of rituals. This is quite in contrast to the understanding of Islam that I learnt from Syed Hussein Alatas. I think one could argue that every religious community has betrayed its leading figure by turning into a separate group, using rituals to shore up boundaries to set it apart from other similarly constructed groups. This has happened with Muslims as well, and has led to the universal message of Islam being negated in practical terms.
My own understanding of Islam is that it is basically a worldview, a distinct attitude, a weltanschauung, and not the creed of a narrowly-defined community. I do not believe that the purpose of Islam is to create a community defined in this sense. Rather, it is to nourish a certain outlook or way of living that reflects certain basic values and which should not be seen as being confined to a certain community. My understanding of Islam is one that is fundamentally opposed to communal thinking. I mean, how can one consider a person who commits a heinous crime like murder a ‘Muslim’ in the true sense of the word—which means one who submits his will to God—simply because he has an Arabic name and has verbally recited the shahada, the Islamic testimony of faith?
I firmly believe that the various messengers of God did not intend to create new communities of followers defined by external markers and rituals that had little or nothing to do with the central core of their message. Instead, they were sent by God to reform attitudes, to nourish proper ways of being human. Sadly, however, precisely the opposite happened after their demise in every case. According to conventional religious thinking, people are judged or viewed not in terms of the basic values that the prophets stressed, on the basis of how they relate to others, to Nature, and so on, but in terms of an elaborate set of rituals and external markers. This is really tragic.
Q: You seem to argue, if I get you correctly, that Islam did not intend to establish a separate community. But what about the concept of Muslims as an ummah, as a separate people defined on the basis of religion?
A: I think there is a lot of confusion about the term ummah. The Quran uses the term in different senses, which do not negate each other. For instance, it is used in the context of the ummah of Medina, which included the Muslim Ansars and Muhajirin and various non-Muslims, including Jewish tribes who were brought together through the Covenant of Medina. A second sense in which the term ummah is used is for those who accepted God and Muhammad as His messenger, as opposed to those who rejected one or both. A third sense in which it is used is to refer to the whole of humankind in general. In none of these senses does it necessarily convey the exclusivist notion of community that many Muslims understand it as.
So, I would contend that one of the major challenges before Muslims today is to reappraise the whole notion of ummah, to retrieve what I believe is its actual connotation as a group based on values and that transcends communal divisions. This notion of the ummah is suggested in the Quran but it has been subverted in the ways in which it has conventionally been understood and interpreted. I believe that in today’s context of rapid communications and the breaking down of barriers dividing countries and communities, it could be possible to move towards what I regard as the true Quranic understanding of the ummah that goes beyond the narrow notion of religious-based communities.
For this we also need to reevaluate our understanding of what ‘Muslim’ means. A Muslim should be understood not as someone born into a particular community that claims to be ‘Muslim’, but, rather, as a person who upholds certain values and reflects or possesses certain attributes, a person who believes in the one God, submits to His will and does good, irrespective of his or her community. This is why the Quran regards all the many thousands of prophets who appeared before the Prophet Muhammad, in different parts of the world, as Muslims. This means that belief in and devotion and surrender to God, which is also reflected in righteous deeds, suffices to be considered a Muslim in the literal sense of the term as one who has submitted to God’s will.
The Quran refers to the Prophet Abraham as a true believer, as a Hanif, and when it specifies that he was neither a Christian nor a Jew it seems to me to suggest the point that he did not create any sect or community defined in this narrow sense, and that he was free of any narrow communal affiliation.
Q: If, as you say, to be a Muslim is to believe in the one God and lead a righteous life, and that this suggests Islam’s universalism, why do ‘Muslims’ in practice place so much more importance on the Prophet Muhammad over the other prophets although the Quran very clearly specifies that all the prophets are equal and that no distinction should be made between them?
A: I think this has a lot to do with history, with the development of identity of an expanding community over time. So, very often what Muslims are protecting in the name of Islam is this narrowly-conceived identity or historical tradition rather than what the Prophet stood for—the basic values and beliefs, which, unfortunately, are not conventionally understood as the defining attributes of Muslims today. And what many of them defend in the name of Islam is not what the Prophet taught and stood for, but, rather, what some medieval scholars and jurists or fuqaha had written centuries ago, which they wrongly equate with Islam.
This blind adherence to the views and prescriptions of the fuqaha is one of the most fundamental problems of Muslims. Ironically, those who claim to interpret the divine word are themselves considered ‘divine’ now. Much of what passes off as divine shariah, which Muslims generally think is wholly unchangeable, is actually fiqh, the product of the ijtihad or the thinking and interpretation of ulema, who were after all, fallible human beings like the rest of us.
Q: Let’s turn to Malaysia. Many Muslims (and others) outside Malaysia think of Malaysia as a ‘model Muslim state’ or even as a ‘model Islamic state’. Do you agree with this perception?
A: What those who think in this way see when they look at Malaysia is just the brighter side of the picture: a country with a fairly high per capita income, a very high literacy rate and good infrastructure, and which has to a great extent succeeded in eradicating absolute poverty. On all these indices undoubtedly Malaysia has done well, much better than most other Muslim-majority countries. So, when non-Malaysian Muslims see all this they regard it as the achievement of a people and government who do not subscribe to a narrow version of Islam, and who are trying to ward off the creeping influence of this sort of Islam, and they contrast this with their own countries. They admire the fact that Malaysia, as a Muslim-majority country, has been able to do well by these standards without imposing a narrowly-conceived shariah state, for they know that the kind of progress Malaysia has achieved could not have happened if we were ruled by that sort of state. This is what particularly impresses them. Also perhaps the willingness of the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to challenge the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and to raise the issue of continued Western imperialism.
But what people who consider Malaysia as a model Muslim country don’t look at is the other side of the picture: crass capitalism, rampant consumerism, lack of integration between the different communities and so on.
People who uncritically regard Malaysia as a ‘model’ Muslim state do not see or know that generally Muslims in Malaysia are very conservative when it comes to things that are presented in ‘Islamic’ terms, and that what the traditional ulema say or believe is still considered by most Malaysian Muslims as binding. Often, Malaysian Muslims have no problems if you talk about something as long as you don’t bring in Islam, but the moment you do, their approach becomes very traditional. A good instance of this is our legal system. In our civil courts we have had Muslim women judges for a long time. That has never been a problem. In fact, a few years ago the Chief Judge of peninsula Malaysia was a Malay Muslim woman. But till today we have had not a single woman judge in the shariah courts although there are many women in this country who are well-versed in what is considered to be Islamic law. This is because of a very conservative understanding of the Malaysian ulema that women cannot be judges in shariah courts, although there is actually no rule in Islam forbidding this. Even in countries like Sudan, Iran and Indonesia there are women shariah court judges, so why not in Malaysia?
Q: Are you suggesting that, overall, the traditional ulema still have a very decisive influence in shaping Malaysian Muslim understandings of their religion? What about alternate voices? The Malay middle-class has grown vastly in recent decades. Has this resulted in any sort of movement pressing for a re-thinking of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, for a contextual understanding of Islam?
A: There are only a very few, scattered individuals who are trying to do this sort of work. It certainly has not taken the form of a movement in this country. It is true that the modern educated and economically well-off Malay or Muslim middle class has expanded considerably in Malaysia. But still you find that when it comes to Islam they generally remain very conservative. For instance, on the issue of apostasy from Islam, a hugely controversial issue in Malaysia, most of middle-class Malays, despite their education, would continue to insist on its criminalization by the state even though this does not have any Quranic sanction and in fact violates the Quran’s insistence that there is no compulsion in religion.
Q: Scholars have argued that to a great extent the practice and perception of Islam among the Malays is influenced by Malay ethnicity. Does that have anything to do with the sort of conservatism that you refer to?
A: Yes, to a great extent. So, for instance, the issue of apostasy is also seen even by many well-educated Malays as a threat to the Malay community and its ‘special position’, as threatening Malay solidarity in the face of other ethnic communities in the country. This is a reflection of a pervasive fear among many Malays that if they move out of their ethnic cocoons, which they seek to bolster through appeals to a conservative version of Islam, and open up and embrace others the Malays will be overwhelmed by others. This is how Malay ethnicity and insecurities shape ‘Islamic’ understandings in the country.
Q: How valid are these insecurities, though?
A: Some decades ago some of these insecurities would have been understandable. At that time, the economy was almost entirely controlled by foreigners and ethnic Chinese. But today there is a very sizeable Malay middle class. Malays now play significant roles in the upper reaches of the economy.. So, I feel there is no need for them to feel insecure any more. Sadly, however, the political parties keep playing up, even creating and further magnifying, these insecurities. Even Islamic groups that otherwise insist that ethnic chauvinism is contrary to Islam are not averse to this sort of political manipulation.
I must add that this is not a phenomenon unique to the Malays. In large parts of the American mid-West you can find people who subscribe to the ridiculous theory that their country is under threat from poor little Cuba. Or in India many Hindus believe that the impoverished Dalits or heavily marginalized Muslim minority are a threat to them, while this is not the case at all. But because of this sort of ethnic and religious collective consciousness, which, contrary to what Marx claimed, is much stronger than class consciousness, many Malay Muslims, mid-West Americans or Indian Hindus would not be enthusiastic about opening up to others.
Q: Despite generous government patronage of various Islamic institutions, it appears that Malay intellectuals have not made a significant contribution to contemporary debates about Islam or in developing socially relevant and contextual understandings of Islam. This is in contrast to neighbouring Indonesia, where Muslim intellectuals have a rich legacy of articulating alternate Islamic perspectives on a host of social issues of contemporary concern. How do you see this?
A: Perhaps the over-dependence of the bulk of the Malay middle-class on the state, for patronage or for jobs or whatever, is itself a reason for the stagnation of Islamic discourse in the country. Obviously, if you are dependent on the state for your job or sources of funds you cannot really defy the line of the state, be it on Islam or any other issue. But equally or perhaps even more crucially, because of the ethnic issue in Malaysia few Malay intellectuals are willing to be seen as going against what is seen as the interests of their community. So, for instance, when it comes to many socio-economic or socio-political matters, very few of them would stress Islamic universalism over what they perceive as the ‘Malay position’. Another factor for the retardation of Islamic discourse in Malaysia is that, on the whole, the middle class Malay mindset is still conservative in matters of religion, relatively untouched by reformist trends in other Muslim countries.
When one compares the situation in Malaysia with that in neighbouring Indonesia the difference appears stark. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, religious reform movements were an integral part of radical nationalist and anti-colonial struggles in Indonesia. The Dutch in Indonesia directly interfered in Islamic matters. They did away with the local Sultans and set up their own board of Islamic affairs, which was staffed with Dutch administrators. This naturally made the Indonesian ulema much more involved in the anti-colonial and nationalist movement. In what was then Malaya, on the other hand, the British retained the royal houses of the Sultans and appointed them as ‘heads’ of Islam in their own states and generally refrained from interfering in Islamic matters. The perpetuation of these monarchical structures also resulted in the strengthening of a conservative approach to the religion since the Sultans wanted to preserve the status quo..
A second, and equally crucial, factor for the difference is that Muslims form almost 90 per cent of Indonesia’s population, while they only a little more than 60 per cent of Malaysia’s population. That is why Indonesian Muslims are much more confident about their identity and feel less threatened by other communities in their midst than the Malays. And so Indonesian Muslim religious intellectuals are much more open to questioning conservative understandings of religion and to promoting more contextually-relevant responses to a range of contemporary issues.
Q: Given the inextricable link between religious and ethnic assertion among the Malays, which numerous scholars have alluded to, how do you see the phenomenon of what is commonly described as Islamic revivalism in contemporary Malaysia? Is it really a purely religious or even spiritual phenomenon? Or does it have more to do with assertion of Malay communal identity?
A: I think it is related to a large extent to the quest for the assertion of Malay identity.in multi-ethnic Malaysia. It has little, if at all, to do with any spiritual awakening. In Malaysia, this superficial so-called Islamisation and Malay ethnic assertion are in many senses synonymous because ‘Malay’ and ‘Muslim’ are regarded as interchangeable terms. The Constitution of Malaysia even lays down that considering oneself a Muslim is an integral part of being Malay. So, especially due to the sort of ethnic-based politics in Malaysia, instead of heralding a truly cosmopolitan Islam, the sort of ‘Islamisation’ that Malaysia has witnessed is leading to further reinforcing of a narrowly conceived Malay ethnic consciousness. While it is portrayed as ‘Islamisation’ it is actually little more than Malay ethnic assertion.
Take, for instance, the question of hijab or modest women’s clothing. Today most Malay women wear a head-covering, though it is clear that the sort of covering that they are so particular about is not mandated in the Quran. But for many Malays, the woman’s head-cover is not just a religious statement. It serves as a crucial marker of Malay ethnic identity, to mark off Malays/Muslims from others.
Q: From Mahathir Mohamad onwards, successive Malaysian Prime Ministers have been using Islam as an ingredient in Malaysia’s economic development strategy. Has that at all worked?
A: I don’t quite agree. I don’t think Mahathir’s version of Islam or the Islam Hadhari of his successor, Abdullah Badawi, had any major role to play in shaping or influencing Malaysia’s development strategy. Mahathir’s use of Islam was a very political move in recognition of societal pressures, to win Malay votes and to out-maneuver the ‘Islamist’ opposition. So, he set up some ‘Islamic’ institutions, but was careful not to touch the country’s capitalist system. On the economic front, he established an Islamic Bank. His experiment in ‘Islamic insurance’ has not taken off. Other than this, he made no other effort to ‘Islamise’ the economy. And I must add that I don’t think the so-called ‘Islamic banks’ are really Islamic at all. At least in the form they have assumed in Malaysia, they have fully adjusted themselves to capitalism, and are now a lucrative means to make a lot of money, while small borrowers actually pay more than what they would have to if they took loans from commercial banks.
I don’t think genuinely Islamic banking needs an‘Islamic’ label. Any system that aims at proper generation and distribution of wealth, that helps sustainable growth along with equity, can be considered Islamic without needing the ‘Islamic’ tag. If someone wants to call it ‘Christian’ or ‘Buddhist’ banking it’s fine by me. I can still call it ‘Islamic’ if it cares for the poor and reinforces justice and equity.
Why must we want to put a so-called ‘Islamic’ label on everything? It is a reflection of a narrow-minded, communal, indeed tribalistic approach to Islam and Muslim identity, one that I feel is contrary to the Quranic spirit and its universalism. So, you have people talking about ‘Islamic’ sociology or ‘Islamic’ environmental science and even ‘Islamic English’ and so on. I think this is a very restrictive way of understanding Islam. We have to get out of this suffocating obsession with such labels.
Q: Let’s come back to the question of a certain vision of Islam, as articulated by Mahathir Mohamad or Abdullah Badawi, as an ‘input’ in Malaysia’s economic development policy. Can you elaborate a little more?
A: I don’t think Islam has been an input in this sense. Perhaps the only case is that of the Tabung Haji, the government-run Haj Fund, to which people who want to perform the Haj can contribute every month. Just before they leave for the Haj they are given the money that they have saved plus some bonus. The money collected by the Tajung Haji is invested in various companies. That, I believe, is the only Islamic ‘input’, if you can call it that, into Malaysia’s otherwise capitalist path of development which undoubtedly has some elements of social justice.
Q: Mahathir Mohammad and, after him, Abdullah Badawi, repeatedly stressed what they considered to be an ‘Islamic’ work ethic as essential to the country’s development. How effective were these exhortations actually?
A: Yes, Mahathir repeatedly stressed values such as dedication, hard work, loyalty and obedience, but overall in such a way as to make them capitalism-friendly. He did not, of course, refer to other such Islamic values as redistribution of wealth, compassion and social justice that would in any way challenge capitalism.
As for Abdullah Badawi’s Islam Hadhari, I don’t think it worked at all. Although it also ostensibly sought to promote a certain work ethic, and the agencies of the state tried to promote it, , it had no impact at all on people and society in general. Islam Hadhari consists of ten points. I have no quarrel with these points, which sound very lofty, but why brand this as a certain type of Islam or add an adjective to Islam? If you want to change Muslim attitudes you have to present and approach Islam as Islam itself, without any additional adjectives, like ‘Hadhari’ or whatever. That way of packaging Islam puts off Muslims and is sure to be rejected. This is one reason why many Malaysian Muslims resisted the very concept or label of ‘Islam Hadhari’.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Interview: Zainah Anwar on Muslim Feminism
Based in Kuala Lumpur, Zainah Anwar, a leading Malaysian social activist and intellectual, is one of the founding members of ‘Sisters in Islam’, an activist group struggling for the rights of Muslim women. She is also one of the pioneers of Musawah, a recently launched initiative to build a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, she talks about her vision for an understanding of gender justice in Islam and the place of Islam within a democratic nation-state.
Q: You may not like being labeled, but how would you describe yourself? As a Muslim feminist? A feminist who is also a Muslim? An Islamic feminist?
A: I am a feminist. That is my foremost identity. But I am also a Muslim, and so I have no problems calling myself a ‘Muslim feminist’. I am very proud of my Muslim identity. I don’t see any contradiction in being Muslim and feminist at the same time, because I have been brought up with an understanding of Islam that is just and God that is absolutely just, including in matters related to women and gender relations. At the same time, I would hesitate to call myself an ‘Islamic feminist’. I find that term ‘Islamic’ too ideological. I prefer to call myself a ‘Muslim feminist’, because the term ‘Muslim’ signifies human agency and how I, as a human being, understand God and religion. Because of political Islam, there is a tendency to believe that anything labeled ‘Islamic’ is the divine word of God, unmediated by human agency and interpretation, which is not the case, if course. Islam does not speak on its own, without human intervention. So, at Sisters in Islam, we are trying to start using the term ‘Muslim’ more, rather than ‘Islamic’, to emphasise the human role in defining what is seen as Islam and what is not. For example, we prefer to use the term ‘Muslim Family Law’, rather than ‘Islamic Family Law’, to help Muslims better understand that the call for reform is not a call to change God’s words, but, rather, to change Muslim understandings of God’s message.
Q: Many Muslim feminists seek to articulate a gender-just understanding of Islam based almost wholly on their reading of the Quran, without taking recourse to the corpus of Hadith and fiqh, possibly because the latter two sources contain prescriptions and rules that seem to greatly militate against gender justice. How do you relate to these latter two sources of Muslim tradition?
A: For me, as a Muslim, the Quran is the ultimate authority. Anything that contradicts it, including in the corpus of Hadith and fiqh, cannot be considered to be Islamic. Furthermore, I also believe that the Quran is open to multiple interpretations, as a result of human agency in seeking to understand the text. There is no final, authoritative human interpretation of the text. Thus, the history of Quranic exegesis is a story of a constant, and continuing, endeavour of Muslims seeking to understand the word of God, a wondrous exercise that can result in new meanings and perspectives evolving over time. If you read a particular verse of the Quran you might derive a certain meaning today, but, five years later, the same verse might suggest something quite different or deeper. There is nothing as a static, frozen interpretation of the text. Interpretations of the same text can vary due to temporal and spatial differences, differences in the class and educational background or the gender of the reader or the sort of experiences the reader has been through and which informs her when she reads the Quran. Thus, every understanding of the Quran by us mortals is really simply an effort to understand it, rather than being the absolute understanding, which God alone knows. To claim that a certain understanding of the Quran—even if it be that of the most well-known ulema—represents the absolute, final understanding is simply fallacious. It is tantamount to the sin of shirk or associating partners with God, because only God knows absolutely what God intends to say and mean.
In other words, Muslim feminists argue against any monopolistic claims on the part of anyone, including the ulema, of knowing fully the mind of God, as revealed in the Quran. Every understanding of the Quran is necessarily a partial, limited, and humble one, which cannot be considered to be perfect or free from error. The great ulema of the classical period were always conscious of this. They never said, ‘Islam says this or that’. It is ‘I’ who is saying or interpreting, and ‘I’ could be wrong or ‘I’ could be right. Only God knows best, they always ended. But, today, such acknowledgment of the humble, fallible self no longer exists. The ideologues who claim to speak for Islam always claim that ‘Islam says this’ or ‘God says that’, and anyone who challenges this is at once accused of being against Islam and God. This is tantamount to claiming to be the embodiment of God, and is, in fact, a form of shirk.
Q: Muslim feminists are routinely accused of seeking to undermine, if not defy, the authority of the ulema as authoritative spokesmen of Islam, and of allegedly serving as fifth-columnists or ‘agents’ of the West or of what are described as the ‘enemies of Islam’. How do you respond to this charge?
A: We are not questioning the authority of the ulema because we want to. What we are saying is that if someone’s interpretation of Islam violates the norms of justice, which are so integral to the Quran, and if this interpretation is then imposed on us as a source of laws and public policies that are oppressive and discriminatory towards women, then we, as citizens of a democratic country, must speak out against this. If there are ulema who subscribe to a gender-just vision of Islam, there would be no reason for us to disagree with them. We would, in fact, have lent them our whole-hearted support. But, sadly, there are very few such ulema on the scene.
If you want to take Islam into the public sphere, you can only expect people to challenge you if they disagree with your views, especially when your views are made into laws that govern the lives of citizens. You cannot prevent others challenging you by using the argument that only you know what Islam is, and that no one else has the right to speak of, or for, it. This would, in effect, be tantamount to equating your own views with that of God, a grave sin in Islam. Sadly, however, that is precisely the tendency of conservative ulema and Islamist radicals alike.
We are not claiming that ours is the sole, authentic, authoritative interpretation or understanding of the Quran, which must replace the interpretation of the conservative ulema or Islamist ideologues. As I mentioned earlier, all interpretations are necessarily limited and partial, at best. But what we are arguing for is the need to respect everyone’s right—the Muslim feminists’, the ulema’s, the Islamists’ and everyone else’s—to seek to understand and interpret God’s word. We are all on a journey of discovery of the intent of God’s word, and this journey will never be complete. We are arguing for recognition of this fact. We are arguing against the authoritarian tendency, sadly so marked among many conservative ulema and Islamist ideologues, to imagine that one’s own understanding of God’s word is absolute and binding on everyone else and that this must be a source, if not the only source, of law and public policy. In this way, they are, in fact, limiting God to their own limited experience, understanding and intellect.
That said, I do not deny that the ulema and other religious scholars do have their own roles to play. And I do believe that there are principles within the rich heritage of Islamic jurisprudence that render open the possibilities for re-interpretation to bring about justice and equality in the modern world. What I am against are the monopolistic claims and the insistence that law and public policy must be based only on their misogynist and unjust interpretations, and that those who disagree with them are to be labeled as anti-Islam, as against God or as opposed to the shariah. This is what is turning people against the Islamist demand for an ‘Islamic state’ and Islamic law. It turns their project into a totalitarian scheme where there is no democratic space for anyone else to differ and disagree.
Q: Does this mean that you are opposed to the notion of the ‘Islamic state’, which is such a central pillar of the agenda of Islamist groups?
A: If Islam is to be a source of law and public policy-making, this has to come about as a result of democratic engagement, and cannot be imposed on the people, as the Islamists demand. The modern nation-state, with all its coercive powers, did not exist at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. For self-styled Islamist groups to seek to use the modern nation-state, with its massive coercive powers, to force people to lead a life that they see as consonant with Islam—that is to say, their own interpretation and understanding of Islam—completely negates the Muslim heritage, which was characterized by a tolerance of diverse schools of jurisprudence and theology that themselves emerged from diverse understandings of Islam.
Another reason for my opposition to the notion of a so-called ‘Islamic state’ is that this is used by many of its advocates simply as a tool for acquiring political power. It is also a regressive ideology, in the sense that, in the face, first of European colonialism, and, now, continuing Western hegemony, it is a reflection of a hankering for the times when Muslim political power was at its height. It is the yearning of a defeated people, a dream of a people who know, but perhaps refuse to recognize, that they are defeated by others. But going back in time is not really the way to overcome the predicament of loss, failure and defeat. It is not the way to acquire power and ascendancy, because the world has so dramatically changed today. Issues like human rights, justice, democracy, women’s rights are the major ethical demands globally today. In the face of all this, the sort of ‘Islam’ that conservative ulema and Islamists alike want to impose, stridently totalitarian and vehemently against democracy, human rights, minority rights and gender justice, is simply not the answer. It is, obviously, and needless to say, unsustainable. In Malaysia, even within the Islamist party PAS, there is now a debate on which direction it should take—to stay firm on its demand for an ‘Islamic state’ ruled by the ulema or to democratize and modernize, along the lines of the AKP model in Turkey. Hardliner ‘Islamic’ rule will in the end miserably fail in providing the credible alternative to the present global system that its advocates believe they are able to offer.
Q: Muslim ‘progressives’ like yourself seem to argue that the right to engage in creative, independent interpretation of Islam, or ijtihad, is not, or should not be, the sole preserve of the ulema, but that it should be democratized. On the other hand, the ulema argue that those outside their circle do not have the right to engage in ijtihad as they lack the necessary scholarly credentials in the Islamic tradition. How do you view this conflict, which is really about competing visions of religious authority?
A: I am most happy to be silent about religion if Islam is just in the private sphere, between me and God. But we live in a country where Islam is a source of law and public policy. Unfortunately, those in religious authority who construct these laws do not recognize equality and justice. They seriously believe God made men superior to women and therefore men’s authority over women is eternal and divine. Never mind the realities before their very eyes. There are some men who are superior to some women and there are some women who are superior to some men. But this belief in the inherent superiority and the authority of all men over all women has led to laws and practices that continue to discriminate and oppress women. I recognize the authority of the ulema to use their scholarship to help draft laws made in the name of Islam. But what I am opposed to is the belief that only the ulama and the Islamists have the sole authority to do this and that we as citizens of a democratic state have no right to question and challenge the injustice of these laws, in substance and implementation. What I am questioning is the use of one’s authority of the authoritative text for authoritarian purposes.
Now, if no one among those who consider themselves ulema or mujtahids is going to challenge this hegemonic agenda, then civil society will have to stand up and speak out and protest. We are not engaged in protesting against this simply to challenge the ulema. We are doing this because their understanding of Islam impacts so deleteriously on us, and so grossly violates our vision of Islam as a religion based on justice. I, as a citizen of a democratic state, who has not gone through a traditionalist education in Islam and do not speak Arabic, still have the right to speak out, and seek to understand and interpret my religion, because the conservative, misogynist ulema have miserably failed to make Islam relevant to women in the 21st century, to human rights, to social justice, to democracy. They have failed to address the social aspirations for justice and equality of the people. It is because of our experience of injustice, discrimination, oppression justified in the name of Islam that we seek to claim our right to understand our religion in ways that makes sense to our realities. I believe in a God that is kind, just and compassionate. So anything done in the name of Islam must be just and compassionate. It is as simple as that. We are doing this because as Muslims, we do not want to have to abandon our faith in order to be a democrat, a feminist, a human rights defender. We believe that equality, fundamental liberties, freedom of religion, gender justice and so on, do not contradict the teachings of Islam. The problem is our understandings contradict the understandings of Islam of the conservative ulema and Islamists, which they want to impose on the rest of society. Why should they have the right to deprive me of my right to love my God and love my religion?
If the ulema can provide me the answers that I am looking for, to enable me to be a Muslim and a feminist, a democrat, a human rights defender, then I’d rather they do that job. But, the sad fact is that they simply are not doing the job. This is the challenge before them. The answer is not to silence the dissenting and questioning ummah, and to declare them as apostates, but to rise up and engage in dialogue in the face of the huge challenges before us.
Let me come back to your point about the argument that is sometimes put forward that ‘modernist’ Muslim scholars, including Muslim feminists, do not have the necessary qualifications to engage in ijtihad, and, therefore, do not have the right to interpret the Islamic sources on their own. Let me say it again: if you want to use Islam as a source of law and public policy, then every citizen has the right to question and speak out. Public law and policy must pass the test of public reason. If you don’t want any public debate, then you must remove religion from the public sphere. Also, consider the various Islamist groups here in Malaysia, and around the world generally. Most of them are led not by traditional, madrasa-trained ulema but by graduates of secular universities, mainly doctors, engineers, science graduates. They have similar a secular educational background as us. They are not experts in Arabic or in Quran, Hadith and fiqh. They have not spent twenty years studying in madrasas or at Al-Azhar. Yet, why is it that their claims to speak for and of Islam and to engage in ijtihad are not similarly dismissed, as ours are? As far as I can see, the only reason for this is that they say the ‘right’ things, the things the conservative ulema want to hear, unlike us who dissent on a host of issues from the conservatives.
Q: How do you see the link or relation between secular feminism and Muslim or even Islamic feminism? Can there be a synergy between them for common goals and purposes, or are they mutually opposed?
A: I think the sort of feminism that will work in a given context depends on contextual factors, and so there is indeed a possibility, and even a need, for different forms of feminism to collaborate on common issues. Given the rise of political Islam in most Muslim countries, secular feminism today faces a brick wall. Perhaps it can work in some contexts where women are up against an authoritarian state that claims Islamic credentials and uses its own version of Islam to marginalize, even oppress, women. But in Malaysia, many Muslims still fantasise about this utopian Islamic state. Given the socio-political context, our struggle for equality and justice has to be justified in ‘Islamic’ terms for the Malay Muslims. But we believe that any understanding of Islam as a source of law and public policy must also be grounded as well in human rights principles, our constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination and our lived realities today. We do not live in a vacuum where Islam can be exercised in a vacuum. We pose a challenge to the Islamic state agenda of the Islamists because we speak for gender justice in the name of Islam itself, which is something that resonates with every Muslim woman who has suffered some form of oppression or discrimination in the name of her religion.
In such a context, for us to provide an understanding of Islam that is gender-just is a great source of empowerment for Muslim women because, all along, they have been taught that a good Muslim woman is one who meekly obeys her male guardians and suffers in silence because this is what Islam is supposed to be.
To return to your point about possibilities of dialoguing with other streams of feminism, let me say that Sisters in Islam is at the forefront of a global initiative to bring Muslim women activists together to build a movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. We are generating hope among many Muslim feminists, those who work with religion and those who work just within human rights principles. What we bring to the women’s and human rights movement is the possibility of Islam as a source of liberation and empowerment, not a source of oppression. We believe it is important to ground our demands for reform of the discriminatory Islamic family law and practices within a holistic framework that include Islamic arguments, Constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination, international treaties that our governments have ratified and the lived realities of women and men today.
Q: Numerous Muslim feminist groups across the world, including Sisters-in-Islam, are dependent on foreign, especially Western, institutional funding. Why is this so? I ask this question particularly since their source of funding opens them to the charge of serving as ‘agents’ of non-Muslim forces that are portrayed as engaged in a ‘conspiracy’ to undermine Islam.
A: It is strange that although Islamist groups, too, get funding from overseas, no one levels the same sort of criticism against them. If we Muslim feminist groups are ‘tools’ of the West, the same could also be said of Muslim governments across the world that are so dependent on Western countries and Western-dominated institutions for aid. If our Muslim critics are so concerned that we should not have to take recourse to Western organizations for funding, why don’t rich Muslims, like the Gulf Arabs drowning in petrodollars, ever assist groups like us? We would be happy to accept their aid as long as they do not interfere with our work. But, of course, they will not aid groups like ours. The reason is simple: they do not believe in equality for women.
I would like to make it clear here that our donors do not interfere at all with our functioning. We draw up proposals, set the agenda, and set it before potential funders, who, if they provide us with money, do not at all meddle with the way we go about doing the things we do. We just have to be accountable for the money we spent.
That said, I must also add that we are now beginning to approach more local donors so that Malaysians have a greater stake in our work, with which they have become increasingly familiar in recent years. In fact, every attack against us is an opportunity for us to open up the space for us to be heard. Because of this, the support for our work has grown, as there is greater awareness of the significance of our work to Malaysia’s survival as a democratic multi-ethnic country.
Q: A major problem that ‘progressives’ face is that they seem to be dialoguing among each other, preaching to the already ‘converted’, without being able to reach out to others, particularly the ‘traditionalists’ and ‘conservatives’. Do you at Sisters in Islam face the same sort of problem?
A: I think the situation varies in different countries. In Indonesia, for instance, some of the most progressive Islamic thinkers are based within traditional Islamic institutions. Several Indonesian scholars associated with pesantrens or traditional Islamic schools have worked on issues such as human rights, religious pluralism, and gender justice, and are in the forefront of the movement for greater democratization. In their case, it appears that the deeper their understanding of Islam, the greater is their commitment to genuine democracy. One reason for the Indonesian case is that Islam has remained largely outside the purview of state authority and control. Some of the largest Islamic movements in the world are based in Indonesia, such as the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah, and, because they have developed independent of state authority, they are among the leading voices for democracy and social justice in the country. Interestingly, they are also opposed to the setting up of a so-called ‘Islamic state’ in Indonesia. Perhaps this is because they have a long history of struggle against dictatorship. This must have forced them to re-examine their own understandings of the relationship between Islam and politics, being wary, from experience, of any form of dictatorship. They seem very aware that an Islamic state would only impose one understanding of Islam on every citizen and this would lead to totalitarian rule and totally undermine the pluralism of Indonesian society. I am amazed to have met so many democracy activists in Indonesia from the pesantrens and Islamic universities who openly declare their opposition to the idea of an Islamic state and shariah rule. “Islam social” yes, “Islam politics”, no, they declare.
The situation is very different in Malaysia, where the state has much greater control over the Islamic discourse, and Islamic education and scholarship have evolved to serve state power. And over the past few decades with the rise of political Islam, what is being taught and propagated is an ideological Islam to serve the interests of those who demand for an Islamic state and shariah rule.
Q: Despite Muslim, particularly Malay, groups being actively patronized by the Malaysian state, and despite the rhetoric of Malaysia being a ‘model Muslim state’, why is it that the level of Islamic intellectual discourse in Malaysia remains so limited?
A: It is sad, but undeniable, that Malaysia lacks a vibrant intellectual tradition. The contrast with neighbouring Indonesia, for instance, is really stark. I think one reason for this is the sudden and enormous economic growth in Malaysia, which has made us a very materialistic people. Everyone here seems so busy with pursuing material accumulation that the intellectual scene appears so stultifying. One good indicator of this is the fact that there is no faculty of philosophy in a single Malaysian university! No one sees the usefulness of philosophy in life. The focus of our universities is not to encourage critical or innovative thinking, but, rather, to churn out people with degrees who can fit the so-called ‘development’ agenda, which is based entirely on material acquisition and consumerism, which has come to be regarded as the key measure of one’s worth. Consequently, intellectual activity or social activism has come to be regarded as something unrewarding, subversive even. Questioning the state can invite its wrath. Not surprising, then, our intellectual scene, particularly among the Malay Muslims, is pathetic. Since the Malay middle-class is so dependent on the state for its economic fortunes, it is hardly surprising that few of them would be willing to risk challenging the state, including the state’s discourse about Islam, which is largely very conservative. State patronage of the Malays has led the community to become very complacent. When life for them is ‘good’, they believe, why rock the boat, or push away the hand that feeds them? The government has also instilled in them the need to feel grateful to it for the material prosperity that they enjoy and that, therefore, they should desist from anything that might even remotely seem critical of the state and its ideology.
This tendency is buttressed by aspects of traditional Malay culture, which is feudal and hierarchical, which teaches that those in authority are always right and must not be challenged. It stresses conformity and frowns on questioning and dissent.
But this is now slowly changing, after the March 8th elections which saw the ruling party lose five state governments to the opposition. People are far more critical and questioning now. Thus the ever more open contestations on all issues, including Islam. We cannot be silenced anymore.
Q: You, along with colleagues from various countries, recently set up a platform, called Musawah, to galvanise the struggle for gender justice in Muslim communities world-wide. What sort of work does Musawah envisage for itself in the coming years?
A: Musawah was launched last February to a roaring welcome from Muslim women activists and scholars from 50 countries. Over the next few years, we are focused on knowledge-building and movement building. We are about to start a research project on the Qur’anic concept of qawwamah or men’s authority over women, which lies at the core of the unequal construction of gender rights in Islam. It is through this concept of qawwamah that women’s subjugation is rationalised, sustained and operationalised. The legal rights that emanate from this concept not only put women under male authority, they give men the right to terminate the marriage contract at will, to control their wives’ movements, to polygamy, and to other inequalities in the family. Given the changing realities of women’s lives today, the fact that women are also providers and protectors of their families, how can we re-understand and re-construct this concept so that equality and justice between genders and in the family are ensured? This is what we want to focus on.
At the international level, we plan to intervene with international organisations with regard to laws in place in many of our countries that restrict or contravene the international treaties that our governments are party to, especially on the issue of women’s rights and CEDAW. Musawah as a knowledge-building movement will concentrate on developing a body of knowledge on different issues related to Islam, women’s rights and human rights, that can help inform activism and legal and social change in Muslim communities worldwide.
Zainah Anwar can be contacted on zmha54@yahoo.co.uk
For more details about Sisters in Islam, see www.sistersinislam.org.my
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Interview: Chandra Muzaffar on Islamic Reform & Liberation Theology
Chandra Muzaffar is Malaysia’s best-known public intellectual. He has written widely on questions related to Islam, inter-faith relations and liberation theology, issues that he discusses in this interview with Yoginder Sikand.
Q: Much of your writing focuses on a critique of capitalism and consumerism, or what you very aptly term as ‘moneytheism’, which you contrast with the monotheism of Islam. How do you see Muslim scholars dealing with these issues?
A: Unfortunately, what is in some circles called ‘Islamic Economics’ has not sufficiently critiqued capitalism and the consumerist ethos. In fact, many of those associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project have simply tried to apply a so-called ‘Islamic’ gloss on capitalism. If at all those associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project critique consumerism, which is such a deeply-rooted phenomenon globally, including in predominantly Muslim countries, it is only at a very general level, in the form of statements to the effect that it is incompatible with Islam, or appeals for balance, restraint and moderation. But this does not go along with any rigorous analysis of economic structures that generate consumerism in the first place. I don’t know of any well-known writers associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project who have done this in a sufficient manner. Rather, their focus tends to be more on the technical aspects, such as the ban on interest, interest-free banking and discussions about disallowing the production of things considered to be haraam.
I think one reason why these scholars have not sufficiently critiqued consumerism and capitalism is that they tend not to discuss issues that are not already written about in the fiqh tradition. Then, the references in the Quran that could be interpreted as condemning consumerism are of a general sort, and are not, in most cases, specific, and so these scholars have not gone beyond these generalities. Further, many of these scholars lack sufficient sensitivity to class issues, and so their project ultimately tends to work in favour of the powers that be, the ruling classes, their formulations being easily co-opted into the existing capitalist framework. A good instance of this is what are fashionably called ‘Islamic banks’.
Q: Another major concern in your writings relates to the concept of ijtihad, which you use to argue the case for reformulating traditional Muslim understandings on a host of issues. How do you envisage ijtihad in relation to vital issues of contemporary import, such as gender relations or relations between Muslims and others?
A: Generally, ijtihad, if at all it is discussed by Muslim scholars, is in the context of the nitty-gritty of fiqh formulations, but, personally, I think it should also apply to a whole range of other issues, including our world-views, the way we understand our religion and its relation to other faiths, inter-faith relations, issues of gender, and so on. Sadly, this project has not gone very far, although in the recent past people like Abul Kalam Azad and Iqbal in India, and Malik Bennabi in North Africa, did argue along these lines, even though they may not have termed this as ijtihad as such, perhaps because, given the traditionalist ulema’s understanding of what qualifies a person to be called a mujtahid, these people would have been automatically disqualified by them.
Q: A major issue that ‘progressive’ and ‘modernist’ Muslim scholars are today focusing on is the need to go beyond traditional fiqh formulations, and, indeed, the very tendency to understand every issue in terms of the fiqh tradition. How do you relate to this?
A: Personally, I feel that we need to emancipate ourselves from the traditional fiqh methodology. The moment you view something from the traditional fiqh point of view, or look at it as a ‘Muslim’ issue, rather than one of universal human significance, you limit your own understanding, transforming it into something narrowly communal, which, as a Muslim, I see as going against the fundamental universality of Islam. The fixation of many Muslims with fiqh, with the externalities of religion in terms of rituals or with Arabic linguistic terms and culture, completely negates what I regard as Islam’s inherent universality.
Frankly, I am increasingly despondent about the marked tendency to see and interpret things from a narrow ‘Muslim’ or so-called ‘Islamic’ point of view, and this applies to new fads such as ‘Islamic Economics’ or ‘Islamic food’ or whatever. If one is looking for solutions to problems through traditional understandings of religion—any religion for that matter—at the end of the day, if one’s mindset is not universal, the quest is utterly futile. I think one of the most basic tasks before us today is to evolve universal understandings of spirituality that go beyond, and transcend, religion and communal barriers, as traditionally conceived. Sadly, we are in a situation where religion, in the sense of labels, language, dogmas and rituals, seems to be of more practical importance than God. That is to say, even if we may not recognize it, we worship our own particular religions in place of God. This is precisely what many Muslims tend to do with their exclusivity, their narrow approach to fiqh, their obsession with rituals and laws which they imagine to be the shariah, and, indeed, what amounts to the very idolization of the shariah.
Q: You have been at the forefront of seeking to promote inter-religious dialogue between Muslims and others, in Malaysia as well as internationally. How do you reflect on your experiences in this regard?
A: In Malaysia we have tried to do this sort of thing, but the problems are daunting and we have not been very successful. We have also tried to promote intra-Muslim dialogue, between progressive Islamic scholars and the traditional, or ‘orthodox’, groups, but here, too, we have failed. One reason for this is that the latter are simply not open to dialogue with the former, whom they consider as having deviated from what they regard as true Islam. If at all they are interested in any sort of dialogue, it is simply in order to impose their own perspectives on others. This can hardly be called dialogue, in the true sense of the term. They are simply too-closed minded, whereas dialogue presupposes that dialogue partners should be open-minded and amenable to listening to other views. Otherwise, there is no point in even attempting to dialogue.
As for inter-faith dialogue, I, as a Muslim, believe that there is much that Muslims need to set in order before they can genuinely dialogue with people of other faiths. Certain deep-rooted, traditionally-held notions, shared by millions of Muslims, must be recognized as being gravely inimical to genuine inter-faith dialogue, such as common assumptions about terms such as kafir and jihad, the alleged ‘impurity’ of non-Muslims, the notion of Muslim supremacism and the belief that all non-Muslims are ‘enemies of God’ or are doomed to perdition in hell. We need to revise our understandings of these issues if we are at all to be able to proceed with the task of inter-religious dialogue and solidarity. Many of these understandings emerged after the demise of the Prophet, at a time of Muslim political expansionism. These were later reinforced in the face of Muslim political losses and traumas in the wake of the Mongol onslaught, the Crusades, and, then, European colonialism, and, now, Western, particularly American, imperialism. We need to re-evaluate our views on these matters, and bring them in line with proper Quranic understandings, which I believe to be just and egalitarian.
Q: Much of your writing focuses on a critique of capitalism and consumerism, or what you very aptly term as ‘moneytheism’, which you contrast with the monotheism of Islam. How do you see Muslim scholars dealing with these issues?
A: Unfortunately, what is in some circles called ‘Islamic Economics’ has not sufficiently critiqued capitalism and the consumerist ethos. In fact, many of those associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project have simply tried to apply a so-called ‘Islamic’ gloss on capitalism. If at all those associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project critique consumerism, which is such a deeply-rooted phenomenon globally, including in predominantly Muslim countries, it is only at a very general level, in the form of statements to the effect that it is incompatible with Islam, or appeals for balance, restraint and moderation. But this does not go along with any rigorous analysis of economic structures that generate consumerism in the first place. I don’t know of any well-known writers associated with the ‘Islamic Economics’ project who have done this in a sufficient manner. Rather, their focus tends to be more on the technical aspects, such as the ban on interest, interest-free banking and discussions about disallowing the production of things considered to be haraam.
I think one reason why these scholars have not sufficiently critiqued consumerism and capitalism is that they tend not to discuss issues that are not already written about in the fiqh tradition. Then, the references in the Quran that could be interpreted as condemning consumerism are of a general sort, and are not, in most cases, specific, and so these scholars have not gone beyond these generalities. Further, many of these scholars lack sufficient sensitivity to class issues, and so their project ultimately tends to work in favour of the powers that be, the ruling classes, their formulations being easily co-opted into the existing capitalist framework. A good instance of this is what are fashionably called ‘Islamic banks’.
Q: Another major concern in your writings relates to the concept of ijtihad, which you use to argue the case for reformulating traditional Muslim understandings on a host of issues. How do you envisage ijtihad in relation to vital issues of contemporary import, such as gender relations or relations between Muslims and others?
A: Generally, ijtihad, if at all it is discussed by Muslim scholars, is in the context of the nitty-gritty of fiqh formulations, but, personally, I think it should also apply to a whole range of other issues, including our world-views, the way we understand our religion and its relation to other faiths, inter-faith relations, issues of gender, and so on. Sadly, this project has not gone very far, although in the recent past people like Abul Kalam Azad and Iqbal in India, and Malik Bennabi in North Africa, did argue along these lines, even though they may not have termed this as ijtihad as such, perhaps because, given the traditionalist ulema’s understanding of what qualifies a person to be called a mujtahid, these people would have been automatically disqualified by them.
Q: A major issue that ‘progressive’ and ‘modernist’ Muslim scholars are today focusing on is the need to go beyond traditional fiqh formulations, and, indeed, the very tendency to understand every issue in terms of the fiqh tradition. How do you relate to this?
A: Personally, I feel that we need to emancipate ourselves from the traditional fiqh methodology. The moment you view something from the traditional fiqh point of view, or look at it as a ‘Muslim’ issue, rather than one of universal human significance, you limit your own understanding, transforming it into something narrowly communal, which, as a Muslim, I see as going against the fundamental universality of Islam. The fixation of many Muslims with fiqh, with the externalities of religion in terms of rituals or with Arabic linguistic terms and culture, completely negates what I regard as Islam’s inherent universality.
Frankly, I am increasingly despondent about the marked tendency to see and interpret things from a narrow ‘Muslim’ or so-called ‘Islamic’ point of view, and this applies to new fads such as ‘Islamic Economics’ or ‘Islamic food’ or whatever. If one is looking for solutions to problems through traditional understandings of religion—any religion for that matter—at the end of the day, if one’s mindset is not universal, the quest is utterly futile. I think one of the most basic tasks before us today is to evolve universal understandings of spirituality that go beyond, and transcend, religion and communal barriers, as traditionally conceived. Sadly, we are in a situation where religion, in the sense of labels, language, dogmas and rituals, seems to be of more practical importance than God. That is to say, even if we may not recognize it, we worship our own particular religions in place of God. This is precisely what many Muslims tend to do with their exclusivity, their narrow approach to fiqh, their obsession with rituals and laws which they imagine to be the shariah, and, indeed, what amounts to the very idolization of the shariah.
Q: You have been at the forefront of seeking to promote inter-religious dialogue between Muslims and others, in Malaysia as well as internationally. How do you reflect on your experiences in this regard?
A: In Malaysia we have tried to do this sort of thing, but the problems are daunting and we have not been very successful. We have also tried to promote intra-Muslim dialogue, between progressive Islamic scholars and the traditional, or ‘orthodox’, groups, but here, too, we have failed. One reason for this is that the latter are simply not open to dialogue with the former, whom they consider as having deviated from what they regard as true Islam. If at all they are interested in any sort of dialogue, it is simply in order to impose their own perspectives on others. This can hardly be called dialogue, in the true sense of the term. They are simply too-closed minded, whereas dialogue presupposes that dialogue partners should be open-minded and amenable to listening to other views. Otherwise, there is no point in even attempting to dialogue.
As for inter-faith dialogue, I, as a Muslim, believe that there is much that Muslims need to set in order before they can genuinely dialogue with people of other faiths. Certain deep-rooted, traditionally-held notions, shared by millions of Muslims, must be recognized as being gravely inimical to genuine inter-faith dialogue, such as common assumptions about terms such as kafir and jihad, the alleged ‘impurity’ of non-Muslims, the notion of Muslim supremacism and the belief that all non-Muslims are ‘enemies of God’ or are doomed to perdition in hell. We need to revise our understandings of these issues if we are at all to be able to proceed with the task of inter-religious dialogue and solidarity. Many of these understandings emerged after the demise of the Prophet, at a time of Muslim political expansionism. These were later reinforced in the face of Muslim political losses and traumas in the wake of the Mongol onslaught, the Crusades, and, then, European colonialism, and, now, Western, particularly American, imperialism. We need to re-evaluate our views on these matters, and bring them in line with proper Quranic understandings, which I believe to be just and egalitarian.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Syed Akbar Ali: The Quranic Islam versus the ‘Religion’ of ‘Islam’
By Yoginder Sikand
Born in 1960 Ipoh, Perak, Syed Akbar Ali is a Malaysian of Tamil Muslim (Mamak) origin. He studied business management and engineering in the United States, after which he returned to Malaysia to work as a banker and then served a stint as a Consultant at the National Economic Action Council of the Prime Minister’s Department. He presently runs a jewellery business in Kuala Lumpur. He was also a newspaper columnist for several years, writing mainly about religion, politics and current affairs He has published three books so far: To Digress A Little (2005), Malaysia And The Club of Doom (2006) and Things in Common (2008). He is an activist of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).
Ali is not a trained traditional alim, but he assumes that, as a Muslim, it is his right to seek to understand the Quran on his own. A striking feature of Ali’s approach to Islam is his reliance only on the Quran, for, as he argues, God Himself has guaranteed that the Quran shall be protected by Him. The same is not true, he argues, for the Hadith as well as the corpus of fiqh, all of which he dismisses as unreliable. Given that many of the problematic issues in traditional and contemporary Islamic discourse to do with women, non-Muslims, inter-community relations and so forth, have their basis in the Hadith and fiqh, and not in the Quran, Ali’s approach enables him to provide novel answers to such issues without having to engage with the Hadith and fiqh at all.
A second major aspect of Ali’s understanding of Islam is his insistence that Islam is not a religion, in the sense of a cult and a set of beliefs about the supernatural. Rather, it is a complete way of life, ad-din in Arabic, which has been taught by all the many prophets that God has sent to the world, the last of whom was the Prophet Muhammad. ‘Islam’, he points out, simply means ‘to surrender’ to God, and this has been the way life that all the prophets. As he puts it, ‘Islam is not a religion or agama. There is no such thing as a religion of Islam […] Islam is a deen or way of life, a good way of doing things. Deen can also imply an Order—an ordered way of life.’[1] In these two senses, then, he argues, Islam represents true universalism. In contrast, he claims that Muslims have reduced Islam from a way of life to a mere religion, a narrow set of laws and beliefs. In his view, they wrongly understand Islam as a cult that is in fierce completion with other cults for supremacy. In this way, he claims, they are not ‘true’ Muslims, in the literal sense of the term (which means to ‘submit’ to God’s Will). Instead, he generally refers to them as ‘deviationist religionists’[2] and ‘cultists’.
A third significant aspect of Ali’s understanding of Islam relates to the question of Islamic authority. God’s last revelation to humankind, the Quran, he says is for all to study and understand. There is no priesthood in Islam, and hence the class of ulema, who presume themselves to be authoritative interpreters of Islam, functioning almost similarly as priests in other religions, has no basis in the Quran. From this follows the argument that one is not bound to follow the opinion of the ulema, past or present.
A fourth central focus of Ali’s approach is to deconstruct, even dismiss, much of the corpus of what has come to be widely understood as the Islamic shariah. He claims that much of this is actually the invention of the earlier ulema, mixed with what he regards as fabricated Hadith narratives for which there is no reliable historical record, as well as the baneful impact of Jewish and Christian thinking on the early Muslim scholars.[3] In this way, Ali is able to argue that many of the deeply problematic aspects of the historical shariah are simply not Islamic at all, in that they have no sanction in the Quran, which, Ali insists, is the only text that Muslims must rely on.
One of Ali’s principal concerns is the formidable rise of conservative, supremacist and reactionary, groups speaking in the name of Islam, in Malaysia and elsewhere, many of which have taken to violent means. These include, but are not limited to, the principal opposition party in Malaysia, the ‘Islamic’ PAS. He considers them a danger to Islam itself. With regard to such elements in Malaysia, he argues that they are a ‘corrupting influence’, because they are ‘advocating chaos and confusion’ and that they would destroy Malaysia if they are left unchecked. Despite claiming to be champions of Islam, most of them, he says, ‘[do] not possess Islamic values.’ Hence, ‘they just [do] not represent Islam’. In a meeting with the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, chief of the UMNO of which Ali is an activist, Ali pointed out that in a way he, Mahathir, was responsible for the promotion of such elements because of his so-called Islamisation policies that had been ‘hijacked by some of the extremists to almost destroy our nation’. Mahathir’s ‘indulgence’, through financial patronage and setting up various ‘Islamic’ institutions in which they had been employed, had empowered them, particularly the conservative ulema, ‘to a level which had never been seen before’ in Malaysia. Many of them, although funded by the UMNO-led Government, were ardent supporters of the PAS and were, so he alleged, ‘abusing government machinery’ in order to further ‘their evil beliefs’.[4] He accused the private ‘Islamic’ schools being run by what he called ‘religious extremists’ in Malaysia of ‘churning out mindless kids who cannot contribute much good to themselves or to their society’. Such schools, which received government patronage, taught their students ‘to hate and foment violent and aggressive thinking.’[5]
The oft-discussed ‘Malay Dilemma’ is another issue that Ali deals with at length. He argues that the post-1970 New Economic Policy that gives special privileges to the Malays has killed the spirit of competition and hard work and the desire for knowledge, making them dependent almost wholly on state patronage.[6] This dilemma is exacerbated by narrow understanding of Islam as a stern religion that forbids even minor pleasures and that preaches Muslim supremacism and abhorrence of non-Muslims, thus leading to a ‘complex psyche that has many fears to contend with’.[7] Excessive government patronage has been made the Malays complacent. In contrast to the ‘enterprising’ and ‘industrious’ Chinese, the Malays remain ‘backward’ because, he says, they spend their time obsessing about ‘useless’ things: religion, sex, ‘hocus pocus black magic’, and endless consumption, caring little, if at all, for intellectual pursuits. This is not something unique to the Malay ‘Muslims’, however, Ali argues. Rather, he says, in this ‘they have friends among all the “Muslim” peoples of the world.’ ‘In every “Muslim” country’, Ali writes, ‘their peoples are at the bottom of the heap. It can be seen that among the poorest, most unhygienic […] most unintelligent people in the world today are the so-called Muslims.’[8]
As Ali sees it, ‘backwardness’ is thus not something limited to the Malay ‘Muslims’, but, rather, is somewhat of a general ‘Muslim’ phenomenon. Ali regards this as owing principally to the fact that Muslims the world over have developed a distorted understanding of Islam itself, as a result of which they have collectively failed to adhere to the ‘clear teachings’ of the Quran. That is to say, Ali argues, it is not because of Islam that they are ‘backward’. Rather, the contrary is true. ‘Because of their own non-adherence’ to the Quran, he insists, ‘they suffer many calamities. They have been forsaken in this world.’ Ali goes so far as to argue that what he regards as the ‘false’ Islam that they follow, which he considers as having nothing at all to do with what he believes is the true Islam of the Quran, that they have met this fate. Hence, it is inevitable, he says, that their ‘distorted’ religion, which they regard as the solution to their woes, will only further exacerbate their plight rather than solve it. As he puts it, ‘They are also led to believe that somehow they will be blessed in the Hereafter for doing the same things that makes them non-achievers in this world’.[9]
A major target of Ali’s ire are ‘Muslim’ clerics, whom he derisively refers to as ‘priests’, and ‘shamans’ and ‘morons’[10], denying them the exalted title of ulema or ‘scholars’. He accuses many of them of ‘depend[ing] on outright lies to make a living’, of using religion as a ‘money-making venture’. He remarks that the Quran condemns priests for taking people’s money, and that it viscerally opposed to the concept of priests offering ‘the keys to paradise’ and serving as intermediaries between Man and God, which is what he regards the class of Muslim clerics as having virtually become. To make matters worse, he argues, the average guru agama or Malay Muslim religious teacher ‘will likely not know the contents of the Quran’, which is why the people they preach to also remain ignorant of the real message of the Islamic revelation.[11]
If Ali denies the self-styled ulema the right to speak for Islam or even to define it, he is equally critical of efforts by the state, in Malaysia and other Muslim-majority countries, to impose ‘Islamic’ laws. Naturally, he is also opposed to the Islamists’ agenda of an ‘Islamic’ state. His argument is that the Quran is ‘clear as to what a person should do and not do’, and hence there is no need for the state to legislate in such matters.[12] Since Islam ‘has already been perfected’ in the Quran, to seek to legislate it is, Ali argues, meaningless. That would only lead to the shackling of the law, to endless disputations resulting from differences in interpreting Islamic legal injunctions, to the hegemonic imposition of the views of one ‘Muslim’ sectarian grouping over the others and to gross human rights abuses, particularly of vulnerable groups such as women and non-Muslim minorities.[13] It would also hurt those Muslims who differ with the interpretation of Islam of the state and religious authorities, who can easily accuse them of ‘heresy’ and ‘apostasy’, which are punishable crimes in Malaysia and many other Muslim-majority countries.[14] In other words, Ali argues the case for a secular, that is to say religiously-neutral, state, claiming that this is precisely what Islam itself mandates.
Ali’s critique of dominant understandings of Islam includes a denunciation of the conflation of Islam with elements Arab culture, or what he derisively dismisses as ‘desert culture’.[15] To equate the two, he believes, is to completely undermine the universality of Islam, which, in his view, is compatible with all human cultures and is not tied to any particular one. A ‘major cultural failure’ of Malaysian Muslims’, he argues, ‘is our inability to fend off the Arabisation of Malay music, culture, religion and language’.[16] This tendency to ‘ape the Arabs’ by regarding Arab culture as somehow more ‘Islamic’ also leads to a pervasive sense of alienation from local culture and a profound feeling of inferiority vis-Ã -vis the Arabs, who are considered to be somehow ‘better’ Muslims just because of their culture and language. This attitude, Ali laments, nurtures among the Malays a strong sense of ‘self-deprecation’ and ‘low self-esteem’ that keeps the community down, leading to ‘negative values’ and ‘arrogance, rudeness and withdrawal into racial and religious cocoons’ that become shields to cover up for their weakness.[17] In this regard, Ali caustically asks:
[W]hat is the worth of being respected by the Middle Eastern countries […]? They are without doubt among the most oppressive, undemocratic, poor and corrupt nations on the surface of Allah’s earth. They are hardly the paragons of Islamic virtue that they are made out to be. Even their citizens do not like their countries.[18]
It is not the Arabs that the Muslims should emulate or learn Islam from, Ali argues. Since he interprets Islam as ‘an ordered way of life’ or ‘a good way of doing things’,[19] Islam, he contends, is found wherever this way of life is practiced, no matter what those who practice it call themselves as. Islam stresses the acquisition and application of knowledge, upholding the truth, intellectual courage, hard work, logical thinking, honesty, integrity, justice, politeness, care and respect for fellow humans, professionalism, a scientific approach, non-aggression and so on. A true Muslim ‘has to be a non-threatening person to his fellow human beings’ and have ‘evil thoughts against others’, he adds. ‘This is what Islam really is’, he insists, arguing against the dominant notion of Islam as a ‘religion’, a set of do’s and don’ts, beliefs and legal restrictions.[20] Those who adopt these values Quranic are practicing Islam even if they do not call it or recognize it as such. For instance, he argues the enormous scientific and economic ‘development’ that China has witnessed and the rising standards of living of its people is ‘Islamic’, because this is a reflection of a truly Islamic way of, and approach to, life. Islam, then, he argues, conduces to material prosperity, for God is said to have promised this to those who truly submit to Him.
Why, then, Ali asks, are most Muslim countries economically deprived? He has a simple answer: in the name of following Islam, they actually follow something else which they call by the same name. The ‘Islam’ of ‘the confused religionists’ makes its followers ‘dirt poor’, besides ‘stupid, violent and downtrodden by everyone else.’ Only the ‘more crafty religionists frequently enrich themselves’ at the expense of the many.[21] The self-styled ‘Muslim’ religious authorities are, Ali contends, directly complicit in the Muslims’ economic and intellectual backwardness, because of the various restrictive laws that they seek to impose, their inculcation of a deadening fatalism, their opposition to intellectual and religious freedom, their stern, their deep-rooted misogyny and stern authoritarianism, their opposition to science, and their hatred for non-Muslims, all in the name of Islam.[22] To repeat a point made earlier, Ali insists that this is not Islam at all, but what he calls a ‘deviant religion’. Because most Muslims follow this ‘religion’ instead of the Islam of the Quran, he argues, they have ‘been forsaken’ by God, which, in turn, has led to horrific ‘poverty, violence and ignominy’ among many Muslim communities. Unless the Quranic Islam is properly understood and practiced, he warns, the situation will not change. Contrarily, if Muslims continue to adhere to their ‘religion’ that they wrongly consider to be the true Islam, their problems will only get worse.
In this regard, Ali sees little hope, for a whole range of forces, including and particularly Muslim political and religious authorities throughout the world, are viscerally opposed to any reforms in the Muslims’ religious thought, erroneously believing this to be ‘un-Islamic’. Thus, he writes:
Despite such horrific truths, the confused Arab religionists keep insisting that the same Allah who has forsaken them in this world will somehow bless them in the Hereafter for the same non-achievements. This is the sick logic which they force their followers to swallow hook, line and sinker […] The confused religionists are following the Fool’s Law of repeating the same unsuccessful method again and again with the hope that maybe the next time round the results will be magically different [….] They are hoping that all the things they do which can make them violent, poor and unsuccessful in this life will somehow win favour from Allah for success in the next life. Such tragic stupidity![23]
[1] Syed Akbar Ali, To Digress A Little (published by the author), Kota Bharu, 2005, p.103.
[2] Ibid., p.2.
[3] In his Things in Common, Ali argues that several contentious aspects of contemporary Muslim thought and practice, such as degradation of women, ill-treatment of non-believers and punishment for apostasy, are not sanctioned in the Quran, but, rather, were borrowed by the later Muslims from the Old and the New Testaments (see www.syedakbarali.blogspot.com).
[4] Ibid., p.6.
[5] Ibid., p.11.
[6] Ibid., p.14.
[7] Ibid., p.42.
[8] Ibid., p.58.
[9] Ibid., p.58.
[10] Ibid., p.94.
[11] Ibid., p.93.
[12] Ibid., p.96.
[13] Ibid., pp.103-4.
[14] In this regard, Ali writes, with reference to Malaysia, ‘It is an irony that the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Tien Taos, Sikhs and everyone else has total freedom to interpret and practice their religion any which way they want but the so-called “Muslims” do not have the same right’, their right to do so being restricted by the state (p.106)
[15] Ibid., p.107.
[16] Ibid., p.100.
[17] Ibid., pp.115-18.
[18] Ibid., pp.103-4.
[19] Ibid., p.103.
[20] Ibid., p.263.
[21] Ibid., pp.233-35.
[22] Ibid., pp.241-47.
[23] Ibid., pp.248-49.
Despite such horrific truths, the confused Arab religionists keep insisting that the same Allah who has forsaken them in this world will somehow bless them in the Hereafter for the same non-achievements. This is the sick logic which they force their followers to swallow hook, line and sinker […] The confused religionists are following the Fool’s Law of repeating the same unsuccessful method again and again with the hope that maybe the next time round the results will be magically different [….] They are hoping that all the things they do which can make them violent, poor and unsuccessful in this life will somehow win favour from Allah for success in the next life. Such tragic stupidity![23]
[1] Syed Akbar Ali, To Digress A Little (published by the author), Kota Bharu, 2005, p.103.
[2] Ibid., p.2.
[3] In his Things in Common, Ali argues that several contentious aspects of contemporary Muslim thought and practice, such as degradation of women, ill-treatment of non-believers and punishment for apostasy, are not sanctioned in the Quran, but, rather, were borrowed by the later Muslims from the Old and the New Testaments (see www.syedakbarali.blogspot.com).
[4] Ibid., p.6.
[5] Ibid., p.11.
[6] Ibid., p.14.
[7] Ibid., p.42.
[8] Ibid., p.58.
[9] Ibid., p.58.
[10] Ibid., p.94.
[11] Ibid., p.93.
[12] Ibid., p.96.
[13] Ibid., pp.103-4.
[14] In this regard, Ali writes, with reference to Malaysia, ‘It is an irony that the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Tien Taos, Sikhs and everyone else has total freedom to interpret and practice their religion any which way they want but the so-called “Muslims” do not have the same right’, their right to do so being restricted by the state (p.106)
[15] Ibid., p.107.
[16] Ibid., p.100.
[17] Ibid., pp.115-18.
[18] Ibid., pp.103-4.
[19] Ibid., p.103.
[20] Ibid., p.263.
[21] Ibid., pp.233-35.
[22] Ibid., pp.241-47.
[23] Ibid., pp.248-49.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A Values-Based Islamic Approach to Inter-Community Dialogue
By Yoginder Sikand
Chandra Muzaffar is one of Malaysia’s best-known human rights activists and public intellectuals. Born in a Hindu family with origins in Kerala, South India, he converted to Islam as a young man. Having worked at several Malaysian universities, he now heads the Kuala Lumpur-based Just World Trust, an NGO dedicated to promoting inter-community dialogue and justice.
Author of numerous books, Chandra is a prolific writer, having published widely in Malaysia and abroad. One of his principal concerns, in his writings and activist involvement, is to promote an Islamic ethic of inter-religious dialogue. Such dialogue, he believes, is an Islamic imperative, besides being indispensable in today’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious Malaysia. It is also crucial, he stresses, at the global level, particularly since many conflicts across the globe, while rooted in economic and political factors, are sought to be projected and legitimised as religious conflicts between Islam and other faiths and ideologies.
Muslim, Dialogue and Terror is Chandra’s principal work on Islam and inter-faith dialogue, in which he seeks to articulate an inter-faith ethic rooted in an expansive understanding of Islam (This book is available online on http://www.muslimsdialogueandterror.blogspot.com/). This article examines the methodology and the arguments that he employs in the book to articulate this project.
Like many other contemporary socially-engaged non-ulema Muslim scholars, Chandra seeks to directly approach the Quran in order to understand and interpret his faith, largely by-passing the corpus of traditional fiqh, and making only passing reference to the corpus of Hadith. This is hardly surprising since the latter two sources contain numerous prescriptions that are plainly inimical, to put it mildly, to harmonious relations between Muslims and others. In approaching the Quran, Chandra does not rely on the works of traditional exegetes (mufassirun), whose views and perceptions were undoubtedly influenced by their own socio-historical contexts, and many of who were sternly prejudiced against people of other faiths. Instead, Chandra seeks to interpret the Quran on his own, guided by a deep concern for justice, peace and equality that transcend narrowly-inscribed religious and communitarian boundaries.
Islamic Inter-Faith Theology: A Values-Based Approach to Re-Interpreting Islam and Inter-Community Relations
Chandra describes the Quran as ‘in essence, a Book whose fundamental aim is to raise the spiritual and moral consciousness of the human being.’ This understanding of the Quran leads him to stress what he sees as the underlying spirit or ethical values of the text over its letter. Some of the fundamental values that he discerns in the Quran are freedom, accountability, justice, kindness, mercy, love, equality, honesty, compassion, fairness, and devotion to the cause of the poor and the oppressed. These values he regards as universal, not limited in their applicability to fellow Muslims alone. In this way, he is able to articulate an Islamic ethic of inter-faith dialogue that is Quranic, that prioritizes the spirit over the letter of the text, that is based on what he regards as the fundamental and universal values of the text, and one that is also contextually-relevant.
Chandra describes this way of relating to the Quran as a ‘values-based approach’. He contrasts this with the traditional ‘fiqh-based ‘approach, which prioritises the letter of the Quran over its spirit, draws heavily on the cumulative fiqh tradition, and stresses, to the point of obsession, forms, externalities, symbols, rituals, laws, regulations and narrowly-construed understandings of Muslim identity. The former is universal, flexible, open, and inclusive, while the latter is particularistic, rigid, closed and exclusive. The former stresses justice, freedom, love, compassion and equality, the latter authoritarianism, control, harshness and hierarchy. The former is open to non-Muslims, actively embraces them as fellow human beings and appreciates the common values that their religions share with Islam. The latter is stridently hostile to people of other faiths, or only grudgingly tolerates them at best.
Appealing for this fundamental transformation in Islamic thought based on the ‘values-based’ approach to the Quran, which would also be reflected in the way Islamic theology and jurisprudence are imagined, including with regard to non-Muslims, Chandra argues:
It is only too apparent that a non-dogmatic approach to Islam, which recognises the primacy of eternal, universal spiritual and moral values while acknowledging the importance of rituals, symbols and practices, is the most sane and sensible way of living the religion in today’s world. The values approach to Islam—the antithesis of the rituals and symbols approach—is not only legitimate from the perspective of the religion but also necessary at this juncture in history.
Making a broad survey of relations between Muslims and others in various countries, and at the global level as a whole, Chandra argues that a host of factors have contributed to increased polarization between them in recent years, particular after 9/11. Much of the responsibility for this rests on the Muslims themselves, he says, but he also regards what he calls ‘the politics of global hegemony emanating from Washington’s imperial ambitions’ as a major factor. This latter points leads him to argue, as he does in many of his other books, that inter-religious and inter-communal solidarity for peace and justice must necessarily also require a forceful challenging of the structures of power at the global level, most importantly Western, and, in particular, American, political, economic and cultural hegemony, because this is one of the major causes for conflict between Muslims and others.
This task, Chandra insists, must go hand-in-hand with a willingness on the part of Muslims themselves to introspect, and to cease blaming others for all their ills. In turn, this requires a fundamental re-evaluation of the way Muslims understand their religion, identity and tradition. In particular, it requires, Chandra says, ‘breaking through the hardened crust of exclusive, dogmatic thinking’, and embracing ‘an inclusive, universal approach’. Seeking to pre-empt critics who would regard this as compromising on Islamic teachings, he insists that it is perfectly in consonance with Islam, which ‘regards all human beings as brothers and sisters, imperiled by the same human condition.’ The pathetic state of most contemporary Muslim societies and states, including the increasingly strained relations between Muslims and others, have much to do, he says, with a dogmatic understanding of Islam that negates the fundamental Quranic values that he distills from the text, as mentioned above.
Chandra traces this ‘dogmatic’ understanding of Islam to the deep-rooted tradition of taqlid, strict adherence to received understandings of Islamic theology and jurisprudence, and a dogged refusal to re-examine and re-interpret these in changing contexts. These understandings reflect deep-rooted biases against non-Muslims (and women) and an underlying notion of Muslim supremacism and communalism. New understandings of Islamic theology and jurisprudence are thus urgently required for Muslims to be able to seriously dialogue with others and work together with them for peace and justice.
As Chandra puts it,
The taqlid-conditioned notion of morality will have to yield to a concept of ethics which articulates in crystal clear terms the Islamic commitment to justice, compassion, freedom and equality […] Such a view of morality, there is no need to emphasise, would be true embodiment of the spirit of the Quran and Sunnah.
For this new approach to Islam and Islamic morality to emerge as a dominant paradigm would require Muslims to ‘re-orientate their thinking on Islam’, focusing particularly on what Chandra regards as the basic moral values of the Quran. From this would emerge understandings of Islamic theology and jurisprudence that are rooted in these values—values that are universal, not limited just to Islam alone. Accordingly, Chandra writes, received theological notions and fiqh prescriptions that depart from these values would no longer be considered relevant, normative and binding. This values-based understanding of Islamic theology and fiqh would, clearly, be more receptive and conducive to genuine inter-faith and inter-community dialogue, something that traditional understandings upheld by conservative ulema and radical Islamists greatly militate against.
Were Muslim societies and countries truly committed to the Quranic vision and values that he outlines, Chandra argues, relations between Muslims and others, both within countries and at the global level, too, would have been vastly different than they are today. True inter-faith dialogue and solidarity thus urgently require these fundamental Quranic values to inform, once again, Muslims’ understanding of their faith as well as their behaviour. Chandra does not consider these values to be exclusively Islamic, though. He regards all religions as reflecting, in various ways and to various degrees, precisely the same values. This being the case, genuine inter-community solidarity and understanding must be built on the firm foundation of these values that are common to all religions.
Inter-Community Dialogue and Social and Political Activism
The sort of dialogue that Chandra envisages departs from the traditional approach that involves religious ‘leaders’ from different faith communities coming together to discuss their respective religious beliefs and practices, an approach characteristic of many religious groups that use dialogue simply as a means for missionary work. For Chandra, dialogue goes much beyond this and seeks to bring people of different faith traditions together to recognize their common humanity and the common values that their religions uphold, and to work together for common social purposes, including peaceful resolution of conflicts and challenging despotism, dictatorship, injustice, imperialism, radicalism in the name of religion (including Islam) and the global capitalist system and its underlying materialistic and consumerist ethos or what he calls ‘moneytheism’.
Aware of the growing influence of conservative as well as radical groups that are vehemently opposed to inter-faith dialogue and interpret Islam accordingly in a narrow, exclusivist fashion, Chandra insists that Islam calls upon Muslims to dialogue with others. He points out, for instance, that the Quran exhorts Muslims, Jews and Christians to come together on the basis of certain shared beliefs and values. He also regards the Pact of Medina, between the Muslims, led by the Prophet, and the Jews and pagans of the town, and the Pact of Najran between the Prophet and Christians, as the Prophet’s practical expression of the Quranic call for inter-faith dialogue and solidarity and the imperative of ‘coming to terms with “the other”’.
Chandra critiques self-styled Islamist groups for misusing the doctrine of jihad to legitimize the killing of innocent people, non-Muslims as well as Muslims, including perfectly innocent civilians, something that has played a major role in worsening relations between Muslims and others in recent years, besides giving Islam a bad name. Chandra recognizes the justice and legitimacy of certain causes that radical Islamists champion, such as countering Zionist occupation in Palestine or opposing the American invasion of Iraq. He also recognizes that Islam allows for armed defence as a form of jihad under certain extreme circumstances. Yet, he points out, Islam does not sanction indiscriminate violence against non-Muslims in the name of jihad or preach hatred for people of other faiths, as some radical Islamists claim. He regards this tendency to be a major hurdle to inter-faith dialogue and improving relations between Muslims and others.
Islam opposes every form of injustice and oppression, Chandra writes, and it is thus the duty of Muslims to actively seek to oppose and end injustice and oppression, even if it is perpetrated by Muslims themselves against others. This struggle against injustice and oppression is a form of jihad. Critiquing the tendency to equate jihad with warfare, he writes that non-violent forms of protest and mobilization, are themselves forms of jihad and are often more efficacious, besides being approved of in Islam as well. He cites in this regard the peace treaty entered into by the Prophet and his Meccan opponents at Hudaibiyah, and the valiant resistance put up by Imam Husain to the forces of the tyrant Caliph Yazid at Karbala, which he characterizes as ‘the noblest instance of resistance to injustice, motivated by principle and conscience.’
Critique of Religious ‘Revivalism’
Chandra finds much of the phenomenon of the contemporary global rise of religious ‘revivalism’, including of Islam, deeply problematic. While he recognizes that, in many cases, such ‘revivalism’ represents a protest against despotic ruling elites or Western political, cultural and economic hegemony, or forcible occupation of Muslim lands, as in Iraq, Kashmir and Palestine, he points out that for many ‘revivalists’ religion is deployed simply as a mobilisational device, often used as a means to bolster a narrow understanding of religious and community identity as pitted against what are portrayed as menacing ‘others’. In such cases, religious ‘revivalism’ is simply another term for communalism and a potent tool for identity politics and conflicts. This, in turn, completely over-turns and thoroughly undermines what Chandra regards as the fundamental values of religion. Accordingly, Chandra appeals for inter-communal solidarity and dialogue to challenge narrow communalism that often masquerades in the guise of ‘religious revivalism’. His opposition to radical Islamist groups demanding the creation of an ‘Islamic state’ in Malaysia, which he regards as a threat not just to the country’s non-Muslims but also to his own understanding of Islam, is a case in point.
Critique of the ‘Islamic State’
A fundamental concern of contemporary Islamic ‘revivalists’ is the establishment of what they call an ‘Islamic state’—that is to say, a state ruled in accordance to what is commonly regarded as the shariah. Chandra has consistently opposed the notion of such a state, arguing that it would inevitably harm non-Muslims, women and even Muslims themselves, and deleteriously impact on inter-community relations. One reason for this is that the historical shariah that Islamists as well as the conservative ulema seek to impose, based mainly on the inherited corpus of fiqh rather than on a direct reading of the Quran, is heavily biased against women and non-Muslims. Besides, it is sternly authoritarian and anti-democratic, and for centuries has been cynically employed by oppressive regimes to legitimize their rule in ‘Islamic’ terms and to crush dissent. A state based on the historical shariah would thus lead to tyranny, repression and dictatorship, ironically in the name of Islam, a religion that, Chandra argues, is stridently opposed to every sort of oppression. Hence its legitimacy even in Islamic terms is questionable.
Thus, Chandra elaborates:
There is another equally serious threat to freedom and civil society in the Muslim world. It comes from a trend that is often described as “Islamic resurgence”. Though in their drive to establish an Islamic State, these resurgents, like other dissidents, espouse the ideals of freedom, human rights and civil society, a close examination of their ideology and their performance in power reveals a pronounced proclivity towards authoritarianism and hegemonic dominance. The contrast between the Islam of the Prophet and the Islam of the resurgents is so stark that one wonders whether the resurgence that is occurring today is Islamic at all. Can we call this an ‘Islamic resurgence’ if it does not bring into fruition the eternal values of love and compassion, of justice and freedom, of equality and dignity embodied in the Quran and exemplified in the life of the Prophet? Or, is this resurgence the contemporary expression of some other trend in Muslim history? […] It is [a] reactionary, conservative, law oriented, power centred Islam that the resurgents have inherited and seek to propagate.
By thus seeking to distinguish Islam from the historical forms it has taken and in which it has been understood, and by offering a values-based approach to the Quran, stressing its underlying moral principles over external symbols and rituals, Chandra is able to articulate a refreshing alternative to stultified Muslim discourses about Islam’s approach to other religions and ideologies and their adherents. In this way, he points to the rich theological resources that the Quran contains to argue the case for a true global ecumenism, a universal ethic that he regards as indispensable in today’s context to promote justice, peace and inter-community solidarity and to challenge all forms of oppression.
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Chandra Muzaffar can be contacted on cmuzaffar@gmail.com
The website of his Just World Trust is www.just-international.org
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Chandra Muzaffar can be contacted on cmuzaffar@gmail.com
The website of his Just World Trust is www.just-international.org
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