Jakim’s struggle all about money, says Prof Shad
‘What is regarded as a religious struggle is actually an economic struggle’.
(Free Malaysia Today) – Hundreds of millions in taxpayers’ money are the reason that Malaysia’s Islamic authorities are resistant to reform, according to retired law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi.
Speaking at a forum on Islam and human rights today, he said the institutionalisation of Islam was not simply a religious issue. “There are economic implications. These people will never give up power because of the tremendous economic benefit that they receive,” he said, according to Malay Mail Online.
Prof Shad, emeritus professor of law at Universiti Teknologi Mara, said: “Don’t expect them to give that up. What was regarded as a religious struggle is basically actually an economic struggle.”
He said Jakim, the federal Islamic development department, receives hundreds of millions in federal funds every year. Budget figures show that the department was allocated RM783mil this year under the Prime Minister’s Department, and RM806 million last year.
Another speaker, James Piscatori of Durham University in Britain, pinpointed Islamic bureaucrats as the biggest enemy of modern Islam. “Bureaucratism, it’s the presumption that you should speak on behalf of my god” was a bigger threat to reform than fundamentalism, he said.
Piscatori, a professor of international relations, was among several speakers who took religious authorities for exceeding their bounds.
Noor Farida Ariffin, a former sessions judge, said Islamic teachings had been interpreted to make Islam seem to be a religion that was “coercive, unkind, and emphasises more on punishment instead on kindness and justice”.
“Here in Malaysia, they have even added things which are not even in the traditional interpretation of Shariah, especially when it comes to moral policing, intrusion of private space of Muslims,” said Noor Farida, according to Malay Mail Online.
She said most of the syariah laws violated human rights, and were in violation of fundamental liberties protected in the Malaysia’s constitution.
