Parochial Islam Vs Enlightened Islam: The Dilemma of SIS
By Farouk A. Peru
I once had the fortune of seeing Zainah Anwar of Sisters In Islam (SIS) in action. It was during a forum for the freedom of religion in Malaysia back in 2002. The unfortunate PAS man was Dr Hasan Ali, whom Zainah asked about why apostasy was a punishment when the evidence supporting it was weak at best. Naturally Hasan had to fall back on the old ‘because the law says so’ circular logic. Needless to say, Ms Anwar simply ripped his answer apart.
Seven years on, nothing has changed. PAS, despite them marketing themselves as an Islamic party upholding justice for all, showed their true colours last week by calling for the ban of SIS. The question we now need to ask is, why did PAS do so? Does PAS not support SIS’s goal which is basically to democratise the formulation of Islamic law in order to bring it closer to the spirit of Islam? And does PAS not support SIS’s mission to rid Islam of cultural practises which detract it from that spirit?
On the face of it, there is nothing objectionable about SIS’s mission but if we probe a little deeper, we would understand why PAS has a deep problem with SIS. A look at SIS’s page called Model Islamic Family Law shows that SIS has a deep problem with the paradigm of the ‘providing man’ and the ‘submissive wife’. They claim that this paradigm is no longer in touch with the realities of today and that the Quran has a wealth of principles which need to be fleshed out in order to provide a body of family laws based on the principles of justice and equality.
This flies in the face of PAS’s Islamisation project. One may wonder given that PAS also claims to be after the same thing as SIS but in truth, PAS upholds what one might call ‘Parochial Islam’ which is really nothing more than a body of cultural laws formed by patriarchal societies which over time has come to be known as ‘Shariah law’ thereby acquiring a sense of religiosity which scares Muslims into acquiescence.
Take the requirement of the ‘wali’ or the male marital guardian who gives away the woman in marriage. The Quran nowhere even mentions the wali which shows that it is not in the fundamentals of Islam yet the 4 schools of Islamic law give the wali primary importance. So here we need to ask, why does PAS support something which has no basis in the Quran? After all, PAS wishes for an Islamic state and in an Islamic state, the Quran is the constitution.
Our answer lies in the issue of power. The Parochial Islam which PAS upholds is an expression of power over women. The fact that Muslim women actually prefer civil courts to the shariah ones is a testament to this. This approach gives us a glimpse of what Malaysian life will be like under PAS rule.
An analysis of SIS’s views compared to the Quran will tell us that SIS’s views are remarkably close to the Quran itself. Justice (al-adl) and goodness (al-ihsaan) are central principles which God himself uses to run the affairs of the world (Quran 16/90). Truth (al-haqq) which is the Quran itself (41/53) is that which brings about benefit for mankind (13/17). Therefore what the Sharia courts are doing that is causing people undue difficulties are not in the spirit of the Quran.
The Enlightened Islam which SIS propagates needs support from the government. Experts from SIS should be approached to bring our Shariah courts much needed reforms. On the other hand, this tactical blunder by PAS must not be overlooked. For those of us who are not hypnotised by their images of piety and liberal use of Arabic terminologies, this is the time to see PAS for what they truly are: a political party with designs of power.
