“You Are Not Qualified To Talk About My Religion” – Part 2

By Farish A. Noor

If I were to tell someone that I don’t like Satay, loathe batik shirts and can’t stand keroncong music, does it follow from that that I hate Malay culture in toto? Now one would have to be deliberately and consciously paralysingly stupid to believe that, by assuming that the rejection of some aspects of normative culture amounts to a total rejection of an entire culture as well. If that is the case with culture, then why cant we see that the same rule applies to talk of religion as well?

I raise this point because it has become ever so trendy in Malaysia these days to assume that any rejection, critical questioning or even debate over some normative aspects of religious epiphenomena amounts to a total rejection of the religion per se. This arises because of the unscrupulous manner in which some religiously-conservative individuals have erroneously equated the normative aspect of religiosity with the dogmatic aspect of religion in general. The two spheres, however, are distinct and should remain so.

This explains in part why groups such as Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam have been in the limelight for so many years, and why this group of Muslim feminists have been attacked again and again, and accused of being anti-Islamic. The fact however is that Sisters in Islam (SIS) has never raised any questions or doubts about Islamic orthodoxy, but rather have questioned the application of Islamic law and the praxis of Muslim norms in the country that go against the spirit of Islamic orthodoxy itself.

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