Sisters in Islam is shocked by a newspaper report (The Star, 19 April 2002) that JAKIM is planning to ban Muslims with no “in-depth knowledge on Islam” from expressing themselves in public on Islamic issues. 

Such a move seems to be an attempt by the religious authorities to monopolise the discourse on Islam in Malaysia to only those who subscribe to one particular point of view in Islam. 

When Islam in Malaysia is used as a source of law and public policy with widespread impact on the lives of the citizens of a democratic country, any attempt to limit writing about Islam to only those who supposedly have “in-depth knowledge of Islam” tantamount to rule of a theocratic dictatorship. 

This is particularly disturbing when the dominant view in Islam that prevails among so many Islamic scholars and preachers in Malaysia today discriminates against women and perpetuates gross injustice. When Muslim scholars with columns in daily newspapers give advice to women in distress that they do not have a right to divorce their husbands, that it is better to touch a pig rolled in  mud than to shake hands with a woman, that hell is full of women because they disobey their husbands, that  a woman does not have the right to visit her dying father without the permission of her husband, even if the father is in the bedroom downstairs and calling for the daughter in his last breath, then the situation demands that such gross distortion of God’s message cannot remain unchallenged.

When certain Muslims with Islamic degrees publicly accuse other Muslims of being kafirs because of differences of opinion on issues such as the Islamic state, hudud law, freedom of expression and freedom of religion, it is dangerous that those accused and those concerned about the impact of such intolerant and extremist views are denied the public space to have their voices heard just because they are judged lacking in “in-depth knowledge of Islam” to challenge the damning by others.  

There must be a public sphere for engagement and debate  for Malaysians who disagree with those Islamic scholars and preachers  who already dominate the public space in perpetuating an intolerant and misogynistic Islam through newspaper columns, over radio and television, in ceramahs in mosques, suraus and private homes. 

Why is their right to publicly preach injustice, discrimination, intolerance, and extremism protected while the right of other citizens to preach justice, equality, tolerance, respect, and moderation in Islam denied? Why are their credentials to teach hatred and misogyny never questioned while our credentials to speak and write on Islam continually questioned?

The stark truth before us is not about who has the right to talk about Islam. It is about what is one’s position on various issues in Islam. If one supports the death penalty for apostasy, the hudud law, and the Islamic state, then one will enjoy the freedom and space to speak on Islam even if one is only an engineering graduate from an American university. But even if one is the  Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar but one does not believe in the  death penalty for apostasy in Islam and the right of  suicide bombers to  kill innocent civilians, then one will still be  condemned by fellow ulama in Malaysia. This is because the positions taken by the Grand Sheikh do not serve the political agenda of those who use Islam as  a tool  to mobilise public support for their cause.   

When we as Muslims are expected to lead a life according to the teachings of Islam, and laws are being made to stone us to death, flog us 100 or 80 lashes, chop off our limbs, send us to jail, and fine us if we violate the tenets of Islam, then we have a right to engage in defining what Islam means to us and how it should govern our lives within our democratic constitutional framework. When three-quarters of Malaysian citizens — all women and all non-Muslims — will be denied the right to be witnesses in the Hudud Enactment as adopted by the Kelantan State Legislative Assembly, how could we be expected to remain silent when it is we who will suffer the consequences of grave injustice and discrimination? 

The tragedy of Islam in Malaysia is compounded by the fact that Muslim scholars who do not subscribe to this brand of intolerant and misogynistic Islam are often too reluctant to speak out in public for fear of being embroiled in any controversy or accused of being anti-Islam by colleagues in the fraternity. Others just prefer to remain detached and isolated in their ivory tower where they lead privileged and protected lives.

It is then left to women’s groups and lay Muslim scholars and activists to claim the public space and right to offer an alternative view of Islam as a religion that upholds the principles of equality, justice, freedom and dignity.  These are the groups that are often accused of having no knowledge of Islam even though their effort to offer alternative views is done after much in-depth research and study of Islam and consultation with highly qualified Islamic scholars.  

In a two and a half hour dialogue on Wednesday between Sisters in Islam and  the Director-General of JAKIM, Tuan Haji Mohd Shahir Abdullah, nothing was said about silencing writers and columnists. (SIS also objects to the use of the word “summoned” in newspaper reports. We were not summoned. We were invited to engage in what was  a very respectful and rational dialogue with JAKIM to enable JAKIM to listen to our views to help them to write an informed and balanced report to the Council of Rulers in response to the PUM memorandum and the writers’ counter submission to the Council.) 

In fact, Tuan Haji Shahir welcomed the role played by Sisters in Islam to educate the Malaysian public on women’s rights in Islam and to provide feedback to the religious authorities on the impact of Islamic laws and policies,  mosque sermons and ceramahs  on the status and rights of Muslim women. 

Tuan Haji Shahir also welcomed the dakwah impact of SIS work which has strengthened the faith of  many Muslim women whose experience with their husbands and the religious authorities have led them to believe that Islam is an unjust religion. SIS assertion that there is a difference between the revealed word of God and human being’s interpretation of God’s infinite message have enabled many women to realise that it is not  God that preaches injustice and oppression, but men who want to perpetuate their dominance in a patriarchal world. 

Sisters in Islam calls on the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to take a strong stand to stop this headlong descent into a theocratic dictatorship  pushed by those in religious authority both in Government and in the Opposition movement.

Sisters in Islam

Kuala Lumpur

19 April 2002