ANALYSIS

Caning, flogging and starving

By Rafia Zakaria

The lack of questioning of the blatant disregard for gender disparity so visible in all of these incidents is not the only cause for deep dejection. Equally disturbing is the desire to make being a good Muslim not an issue of individual effort but of robotic obedience

It's been an eventful summer for Muslim women around the world. On August 14, 2009, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed into law the Shia Personal Status Law, making it legal for Afghan men to starve their wives if they refused to have sexual relations with them. On July 29, 2009, Lubna Ahmed Hussein, a widowed Sudanese journalist, was threatened with forty lashes by Sudanese authorities for having worn dress pants in a public place. Finally, to look forward to next week, the caning of Malaysian model Kartika Shukarno for drinking beer in a nightclub in the eastern Malaysian state of Pahang.

Consider first the Shia Personal Status Law enacted into law by President Karzai, assumedly to appease a hard-line Shia cleric. The law not only grants exclusive rights to child custody to the father or grandfather but also requires women to ask for their husband or father's permission before leaving the home. The only time a woman would be allowed to leave home without such permission is if she has reasonable legal reasons, which are conveniently left unspecified.

Other provisions of the law are even more alarming. In the words of women's rights activist Wazhma Frough, “the law allows men to even deny food or any support to their wives if they refuse to have sex with them”. Other provisions of the law allow also make it possible for men to legally marry children enabling the custom of child marriage pervasive in rural Afghanistan.

According to Afghan female parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, the current law is still an improvement from the previous version which had made it impossible for women to leave the home without male permission under any circumstances and required them to have sexual relations with their husbands once every four days.

Moving on to Sudan, where Lubna Hussein, a journalist, was arrested on July 3, 2009 along with eighteen other women because she was wearing dress pants. There was nothing provocative about the tailored pants that fully covered her legs and yet Lubna Hussein stands threatened to be sentenced to forty lashes under the charge of “being dressed indecently”. Her name has been put on a travel blacklist by the ruling regime and she is now prohibited from leaving the country.

Ten of the women who were with Ms Hussein at the time of the arrest chose to plead guilty to “indecency”, paid a fine and were lashed ten times. Ms Hussein and another woman have chosen to fight the charges to bring attention to the plight of tens of thousands of women who have been lashed in the past decade under the country's indecency laws. The Islamist government in Sudan has routinely imposed draconian laws on Sudanese women to testify to their “Islamic” credential regardless of the law's actual relationship with Islamic doctrine. In the words of Ms Hussein: “These laws were made by this current regime which uses it to humiliate the people and especially women. These tyrants are here to distort the real image of Islam.”

Finally, take the case of Malaysia, a functioning democracy, relatively speaking, where Islamic courts function alongside civil courts. The consumption of alcohol is forbidden to Muslims but permitted to the country's Christian and Hindu minority. Ms Shukarno has been fined the equivalent of $1,400 and six strokes with a rattan cane. Ms Shukarno, who is married and a mother of two, was found guilty of drinking a beer in a hotel bar. In the northern Malaysian state of Kelyantan, Muslim women have also been forbidden from wearing bright lipstick and high heeled shoes that may make noise in order to promote public morality. According to Mohamed Isa Ralip, president of the Shariah Lawyers Association of Malaysia, it's not about causing pain, it is about educating others and about teaching the person a lesson.

The three contexts under discussion are undoubtedly different in demography, culture, geography and historical context. But they are all post-colonial Muslim states fraught with a crisis of authenticity that consistently leads them to believe that public displays of religious piety are at the core of religious practice. What easier targets to centre these expressions of piety and pristine public morality than the private and public behaviour of women?

The Afghan law essentially gives the state the right to enter the private sphere of the family and control even what happens between husbands and wives. It legislates essentially the nature of the relationship and creates a particular power dynamic that makes the woman an appendage to a man with her duties circumscribed entirely and completely by her gender. Political machinations aside, the law is an expression of an unapologetic patriarchal system where such subjugation enshrined in law is considered an expression of Afghan Islamic identity, legislated and signed into law through democratic process.

Similar tactics underlie the Sudanese and Malaysian cases. Ultimately, both represent the relegation of public morality as a task to be accomplished through legislation and enforced through instruments of the state such law courts. The underlying logic of all three cases is that if all temptations are forbidden by law, then all need for individual conscience will conveniently be eviscerated. The assumption is that in a perfect Islamic society, there would be no need for an individual conscience at all. If women are covered from head to toe, it is assumed, few would be tempted to engage in sexual promiscuity. If there is no bright lipstick, noisy high-heeled shoes, and women dressed in pants, it seems all Muslim men will suddenly become better believers and more eligible for heaven. If wives submit easily, can never refuse sex and are forced by the state to obey their husbands, then it is assumed men will be even less likely to covet other women.

The injustices in these scenarios are numerous, from the public subjugation of Muslim women as an expression of a society's piety to the fact that the system is designed entirely to facilitate the journey of men (not women) to heaven. But what is most notable in the framework is the desire on the part of Muslim publics in all three countries to have the state as a stand in for the conscience of the individual believer.

The lack of questioning of the blatant disregard for gender disparity so visible in all of these incidents is not the only cause for deep dejection. Equally disturbing is the desire to make being a good Muslim not an issue of individual effort but of robotic obedience. Few bother to ask whether giving Zakat, and abstaining from alcohol or sexual promiscuity really are exercises of obeying Divine Guidance when they are enforced by the state and are not questions of free will. Are robotic Muslims lulled into obedience by the threat of starvation, the fear of being caned or flogged at the same level of religious devotion as those who freely choose to abstain from forbidden acts?

Women and their subjugation have become the visible symbols of Islamic statehood and the piety of the Muslims that live in them. Instead of outrage, such incidents are met with approbation and lauded as efforts to Islamise society. If the worth of women and the tragedy of their subjugation is not enough for Muslims to be shocked out of their apathy, then perhaps the notion of a lulled ummah cornered into obedience out of fear rather than religious devotion should be.

[Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com]

Islam at crossroads: Who's to blame?

By M. Rajaque Rahman

It has become almost fashionable for a Muslim to say 'Islam is in danger'. The religion whose literal meaning is peace is today seen as the root cause of terror and violence. The Muslim world cannot merely dismiss this as a fallout of a grand conspiracy against Islam by people of other faiths. It has failed to present the real essence of Islam and remained a mute spectator to many atrocities against humanity committed in the name cleansing the world of infidels.

This diffidence to stand up for Islam is mainly due to lack of clarity among Muslims about what their religion truly stands for. The Muslim world is heavily weighed down by its own blinkered interpretation of what's permitted and forbidden in Islam. The most glaring misinterpretation that has led to a distortion of the very essence of Islam is its understanding of the ex-pression 'La Ilaaha Illallaah', which is the first principle of Islam. Literally translated, it means 'there is no god but God'.

However, generations of Muslims have been taught to interpret it as 'there is no god but Allah'. Thanks to this limiting interpretation, Muslims are made to believe that there are many gods, but only Allah is the right one. This understanding totally distorts Islam's real message of tauhid (oneness of God).

A case in point is the recent statement of chairman of National Fatwa Council of Malaysia Abdul Shukor Husin while passing a fatwa against yoga. "Many Muslims fail to understand that yoga's ultimate aim is to be one with a God of a different religion." When one has affirmed to 'La Ilaaha Illallaah', how can a Muslim think of another "God of a different religion".

If a Muslim thinks there are different Gods for different religions, he is negating the essence of Islam and unwittingly subscribing to polytheist beliefs. 'La Ilaaha Illallaah' establishes beyond argument that there is only one God. However differently we may pray and by whatever name we may call, it goes to that one source. Further, the Quran clearly states that God can be invoked in different names. "Glory be to God, beyond any associations. He is Allah, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names." [Al Hashr 59:22].

Despite the clear pointers in the Quran, orthodox mullahs still hold that calling God by any other name than Allah amounts to associating a partner with Him. The biggest casualty of this exclusivity of Allah has been the concept of jehad, prompting innocent Muslims to believe that fighting against 'infidels' who don't call God by Allah is an act worthy for the Quranic promise of heaven for jehad. This amounts to challenging Quran's command to invoke God by any names with a sense of reverence and beauty.

This myopic interpretation of the concept of tauhid has had a domino effect on other spheres of life. Take the case of recent fatwas forbidding yoga for Muslims on the ground that yoga will erode their faith in the religion.

As the Quran and Hadith have nothing specific that will make practice of yoga haram, the ulemas based the ruling on their own fear of supposedly 'Hindu' elements of yoga destroying the faith of a Muslim. The best way to allay their fear is to look at the Hindu philosophy on yoga and see how and where it contradicts the tenets of Islam.

Yoga simply means uniting with the Self. Maharishi Patanjali's Yoga Sutras starts by calling itself an enunciation in union. The asanas, the practice of which is the focal point of these fatwas, are just one way of attaining that union. Is striving for such a union with the Self against Islam? It cannot be. For, Prophet Mohammed has said, "He who knows his own Self knows his Lord." Anything done in pursuit of knowing the Lord will count as a meritorious act of following the Prophet.

The best explanation of why yoga is not just permissible, but also desirable for Muslims is to be found in the second sutra of the Yoga Sutras. "Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhah." It means yoga is stopping all the modulations of the mind. Ceasing all the outward activities of the mind and reposing in Allah is the ultimate goal of Islam. So doing yoga asanas as a means of attaining a thoughtless state will qualify as the highest form of ibadat (prayer). Hence contrary to the fatwas, yoga as a spiritual pursuit is very much permissible in Islam.

It's universally proven that yoga brings peace of mind, and on that count yoga is almost obligatory for Muslims. As Islam means peace, peace of mind is a prerequisite for one to be truly following Allah's only religion.

This leaves only one ground for orthodox mullahs to frown at yoga: that yoga stems from polytheist beliefs of Hinduism. But when yoga means union, how can it be linked to polytheist beliefs? In fact, yoga takes one away from polytheism and leads to Advaita, which is in perfect agreement with the doctrine of tauhid.

The time has come for ulemas to dispel this mistaken understanding of the real essence of Islam. Else history will accuse them of doing a great disservice to Islam and unwittingly leading innocent Muslims towards polytheism.

[M. Rajaque Rahman is a former business journalist and now teaches yoga-based spiritual programmes of the Art of Living. He can be contacted at rajaque@gmail.com]