Non-Muslims for PAS - The Nut Graph

By Deborah Loh
deborahloh@thenutgraph.com

AFTER 20 years with the MCA, Hu Pang Chaw switched camps to give his allegiance to PAS. The former Kelantan MCA Youth secretary quit the Chinese-based party a week before the general election in 1999.

"I got tired of the MCA's infighting and personal agendas," says Hu. Living under PAS rule in Kelantan, he felt that the Islamist party was well organised, and its leaders and members friendly and humble.

"I accept the reality in Malaysia that Malay politics will be dominant. The choice between Umno and PAS is obvious. Umno divides people but PAS is more sincere about treating people fairly," he tells The Nut Graph.

Hu, a Christian, also reconciled his position with PAS's Islamic stance. "They say that in Islam, there is no racial superiority. And there is no mention of setting up an Islamic state in the PAS constitution. I have studied the constitution and there is nothing there that is against any other religion."

As the constitution only allows Muslims to become members, Hu decided to set up a supporters' club. It was launched a week before the general election in March 2004 with 100 members. Hu, the club president, said they now have an impressive 18,000 members after four years.

Hu finds PAS's message of equal treatment for all races under Islam
more appealing than Umno's ketuanan MelayuClubs are active in Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Perak and Selangor. When first launched, most supporters were Chinese Malaysians, but Indian Malaysians now comprise 70% of the club after Hindraf's emergence on the national scene in late 2007.

The club has been credited with PAS's victories in the 2008 general election, especially the wresting of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) stronghold of Kedah, where the party now rules the state government. PAS also retained Kelantan, and holds 22 of the 82 opposition coalition's seats in Parliament.

Now, the club is on the threshold of being elevated to a dewan, or wing, in the main party. The top leadership agreed to this in principle at a November 2008 party retreat. The matter will be raised at the party muktamar (annual congress) around the middle of 2009 for delegates' approval, but PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa is eager for their acceptance. "I hope for a much bigger role for the club than what they are now," he tells The Nut Graph.

Advantageous for PAS

If the delegates approve it, PAS will be the first Islamic party in the world to admit non-Muslims, says the party's unity bureau chairperson Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa.

"It would be wonderful, in this hostile climate of Islamophobia, for PAS to set a good example of inclusiveness," says Mujahid, whose bureau oversees the club.

But public relations aside, the political stakes at national level are clear. Opening PAS is strategic for its evolution from being the Islamic fundamentalist bogey to a national ruling party.

"It will be advantageous for PAS. The club has got so much support from non-Muslims and they are one reason we did so well in the general election," Nasharuddin says.

DAP elections strategist Liew Chin Tong, who researched PAS for his honours degree thesis in Asian Studies, says the supporters' club was a party milestone. This was because of the internal struggle between its moderates and hardliners in defining its future and relevance to the electorate.

"PAS has realised that the way forward is to be inclusive. That's how they won big in the 2008 general election.

"Instead of focusing on the Islamic state issue, they focused on people's stomachs. This helped them win in areas where non-Malays were the swing voters, such as in seats in south Kedah," says Liew, who is also the Bukit Bendera Member of Parliament.

Liew says the idea of making PAS multiracial dates back to the 1960s, but that did not take off until after 1999. The catalyst was the reformasi movement following Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's sacking as deputy prime minister and jailing for sodomy. PAS joined the opposition coalition, then known as Barisan Alternatif (BA) for the 1999 general election. It was forced to moderate its stand on its Islamic goals in order to appear palatable to its secular allies, DAP and PKR, then known as Parti KeADILan Nasional.

"Before the reformasi, PAS was on the fringes with 450,000 members. A year after Anwar's sacking, they had 800,000 members. Today, they have one million," Liew notes.

Faster than the BN

PAS is responding to growing interest in multiracial political parties faster than BN is able to reinvent its model of racially segregated representation under Umno dominance. How this will impact national politics will perhaps only be known at the next general election, due at the latest in 2013.

How PAS treads the middle path will also be closely watched. The party has always had tensions between those seeking to gather mass appeal for PAS beyond the Muslim electorate, and those who adhere to "purer" Islamic ideals for the whole country.

In 2002 and 2003, the party was divided over definitions of what constituted an Islamic state. According to Liew's research, there was also a policy split between conservatives who wanted an Islamic state at federal level, and mainstreamers who favoured syariah law only in PAS-governed states (Kelantan and then Terengganu). This fracture left PAS unprepared for the 2004 general election, in which the party performed disastrously, barely retaining Kelantan by a whisker.

Will the admission of non-Muslims drive a deeper wedge between the moderates and conservatives?

Party leaders seem able to justify it, at least to themselves. Mujahid, the unity bureau head, said PAS's Islamic ideologies are viable in a multiracial context. "PAS will actually become more Islamic with a non-Muslim wing, because Islam is multicultural," he says.

PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat tossing yee sang with Chinese Malaysian
community leaders in Kelantan in February 2008 (Source: sokongpas.blogspot.com)

Balancing act

While admitting non-Muslim members can seem as simple as changing the party constitution with a stroke of the pen, there's more to the fine print.

Hu has big hopes for the non-Muslim wing. He wants to propose that they be given three seats on the PAS central committee. "We must have representation, or we might as well remain a club."

Mujahid, who is tasked with studying the technicalities involved in setting up the wing, has a cautious response. "We still have a lot to discuss. There are issues whether non-Muslims will be given full or associate membership, and whether there will be any conditions regarding their eligibility to vote and to have representation."

Nasharuddin also acknowledges the sensitivities involved. "If they become members, they shouldn't be treated as second-class. But we are not sure how the traditional PAS members will receive them, so we are getting feedback."

The crux is whether PAS sees itself as a party for all Malaysians. Liew believes the party can handle this balancing act, even with its Islamic stance, by being inclusive while ensuring that it stays "clean, competent and friendly" — aspects that the rural grassroots value.

Liew believes PAS can balance its Islamic stance and multiracialismCan PAS become a centrist, multiracial party, yet uphold its Islamic ideals? What bearing will a multiracial Islamist PAS have on its opposition partners, the DAP and PKR, which both espouse multiracial secularism? And how would it impact on the BN?

PAS's promise to be fair to all races must be matched with deeds, and it must avoid the Umno pitfall of equating race with religion. It waits to be seen, but if PAS can pull it off and get the support, serious changes may well happen to Malaysia's race-based political landscape.

Islamic crime and punishment - The Nut Graph

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah@thenutgraph.com

A MUCH sought-after speaker, imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait in 1948 into an Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship. He has a degree in physics from Columbia University in New York, United States, and was also educated in England and Malaysia. His comfort in slipping into Bahasa Malaysia before this interview was a pleasant surprise.

Imam Feisal is also the author of Islam: A Search for Meaning, Islam: A Sacred Law (what every Muslim should know about the Shariah), and What's Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West.

In the second part of this exclusive interview with The Nut Graph, imam Feisal discusses whether personal sins can be turned into crimes punishable by the state, and whether there is a conflict between Islam and human rights.

TNG: There's a hadith that always makes me laugh, and I'm paraphrasing here. Prophet Muhammad was passing by a date palm orchard, and he observed the way that people were going to pollinate the plants and said, "Well I don't think that's going to work." The people then stopped what they were doing. When the trees did not yield any harvest later, the prophet said, "Well, what do I know about worldly affairs? I'm a prophet!"

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: This hadith is actually a very important hadith, because [it] has been used by the scholars to indicate that the primary jurisdiction or mandate of the prophet was in religious affairs. And they've used [it] to indicate when the prophet makes a decision, [it is sometimes] from his wahy, or from the guidance of Allah, and that decision has a divine impact, or divine authority. [But] if it comes from his ijtihad, it is considered a different category.

In his own ijtihad, he can make a decision or recommendation which is deemed to be not working. So this hadith has been used by the scholars to define or to put a boundary to that area which is deemed to be the prophet's primary jurisdiction.

But now we go back to the issue of legislating on more divine matters. For example, we accept that there is consensus in Islam that Friday prayers are obligatory for Muslim men who fulfil certain conditions. If you don't do it then it's a sin between you and Allah. But if you legislate on that and it becomes a crime, where you can be put in jail, or fined a certain amount of money, how does that fit into this framework we are discussing?

[My] opinion is based upon Islamic history. We do know that this (penalising) was not instituted by the prophet (Muhammad) during his time. And it's very clear to many Muslim scholars that there are a variety of jurisdictional issues which need to be recognised by Muslims.

Let's say the courts in Malaysia render or make a decision. This decision has power over Malaysia, but not Singapore or Indonesia. People understand that pretty well. But jurisdiction is not just a matter of geography.

You can also have jurisdictions which apply to a particular group of people, and not to others. So for example, the syariah laws apply only to Muslims and not to non-Muslims.

Also, the syariah courts in Malaysia have jurisdiction over particular states, not other states. The syariah court in Selangor can render its decision but [its] jurisdictional authority [does not extend] over the state of Perak.

So you have that variety of jurisdiction — geographical limitation, community limitation, [and] also subject limitation. You can have, let's say, courts [with] jurisdiction over personal law cases [but not] over criminal law cases.

When you look at the laws of Islam, the crimes or the sins in Islam, there are certain sins which are very major. The Quran is very critical of both those who reject God and those who are Muslims but who are [also] hypocrites.

But the jurisdiction over penalising those people does not belong to the worldly courts. It belongs to Allah on the Day of Judgment. So no syariah court, no matter how serious the crime of hypocrisy, is granted jurisdictional authority to issue a penalty for the crime of hypocrisy. Are you going to play God?

Having said that, there is a principle in Islamic law called takzir, or warning. To give an example, let's say when a driver exceeds the speed limit, you fine him. A fine is like a slight penalty to prevent people from committing the crime itself. Because the penalty, [in] Islamic law, as it is in Western law, is a function of the seriousness of the result of the crime.

And you will notice that the penalties in Islamic law are far more punitive for damages that you do to your fellow human beings. Say if you commit murder, that's a capital crime. But if you do not perform your prayers, there's no recognised penalty for that.

It's important to note that there is no penalty that is imposed by the worldly courts for crimes committed against God. And if there is punishment for any of these things, of course, that punishment is the domain of God, not the domain of human beings.

There is no penalty for crimes or sins that you commit which do not hurt other people. For example, eating pork...it's haram. [But] there's no penalty in the Quran or hadith for eating pork. Even if you do it deliberately and you're committing a sin, there's no (worldly) penalty. Why?

It shows that not all sins are in the [worldly] jurisdiction to impose penalties.

So when Islamic teachings are used then as a source of public policy and law that affect citizens, do you think there is room for public debate to talk about these laws?

Of course. You know, when people went to, say, saidina Abu Bakar or saidina Umar for a decision, [if] he wasn't sure he would call the prophet's companions and consult with them. This whole idea of syura, consulting, means to get the opinion of the best thinkers around on a particular issue.

For instance, there's no penalty in the Quran or the hadith for the consumption of alcohol, the consumption of wine. And it was during the time of the caliph Umar, do you know this story?

I do.

This is the story of the prophet's companion who would enjoy drinking and when he got drunk, he would go around town of Medina saying slanderous things. So the people got upset about it. So they went to caliph Umar and said [something like], "There oughta be a law against this guy! This guy is saying slanderous things about us!"

Yes, there's no penalty in the Quran for drinking wine, or the hadith, but the guy is committing slander. So saidina Umar consulted, and saidina Ali said, well, when a person drinks alcohol he is prone to commit slander, and in this case this guy committed slander, so we punish him with a penalty for slander, which was 80 lashes.

So the punishment of 80 lashes was not because he consumed alcohol, it was because he was committing slander.

Correct. That's again an important thing for people to understand, the genesis, or the history of how certain things developed in our jurisprudence. So the application of 80 lashes for the consumption of alcohol is not really a correct application for the consumption of alcohol per se, but rather for a crime committed under the influence of alcohol. So if a person consumed alcohol and committed murder, the penalty would be different.

The same thing happens even under modern law. Let's say in the United States or in some countries, if you drink, there is no penalty.

But if you drink and drive...

Then you pay a fine if you get caught. Why? Because driving under the influence of alcohol is considered dangerous. But [paying a fine for] driving under the influence of alcohol, if you have not committed an accident, in fact is like a form of takzir. You're paying a penalty for not having really done any damage yet. But you could.

But if you drive under the influence of alcohol and crash into somebody's property and damage it, then your fine will be much larger. You will be liable for the damage to the property, in addition to the crime of driving under the influence of alcohol. If, because you were drunk, you were involved in an accident where someone was killed, then you will be liable for the diyah, for the blood payment (compensation for murder victim's next-of-kin).

Do you think there is a conflict between Islam and human rights? Specifically in the areas of women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, and in Malaysia, freedom of religion.

Well first, let me say this again. I have no jurisdiction in Malaysia. Now, my personal opinion is that the issue of human rights in general is something which Islamic ethics, Islamic jurisprudence is very much at the centre of. In fact, I am part of those scholars who believe that Islamic law has to always [advance] the cause of humanity, the interest of society, and the well-being of both the individual and the community.

And therefore it is the obligation of Muslim jurists to always bear in mind the well-being of the community, the well-being of the individual.

As far as women's rights, there's no doubt that Islam was about women's rights, and the prophet was very clear about that. It is [also] clear that in the 22 years of the prophet's time, he could not do everything that he would have liked to do.

It is clear, for example, that Islam is against slavery, but during the 22 years, it was not possible in that time, in that context, and in that duration to outlaw slavery entirely. But today we no longer have slavery. Islam condoned it but limited it; didn't ban it outright. But now that slavery has been banned, can anybody say that it is un-Islamic to ban slavery? Or that we should bring back slavery? I mean, this is certainly not in keeping with Islamic thought and Islamic ethics.

So, some scholars have said similarly [regarding] the status of women [and] our ability to understand issues that we did not understand before.

Gender, for example, is not a black-and-white issue. And even classical Islamic law recognised that. [For example] in estate law. Because people recognised that there were human beings born who exhibited both male and female characteristics, or were uncertain as to whether they were male or female. How do you dispose of an estate to a child when it is not clear whether he is male or female?

But you'll notice that even in classical times, there was no value judgment made against these people or against their rights.

Now, I'm of the opinion that given our modern understanding of [science], that Muslim scholars need to look at the issue of gender in light of our better ability to recognise the area where gender definition is a bit more blurred. And to ensure that whatever we do is based upon the principles of justice and ethics which are consistent with the ethics of the syariah.

Has the job been completely done? Let's say this: Islam has not been completed yet. That's how I would describe it.

Fatwas 101 - The Nut Graph

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah@thenutgraph.com

IMAM Feisal Abdul Rauf is the imam of Masjid Al-Farah in New York City, barely 12 blocks from the site of the 11 Sept 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre. He is also CEO of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (Asma). Established in 1997, Asma is a Muslim organisation committed to bringing Muslims and non-Muslims together through programmes in academia, policy, current affairs and culture.

Furthermore, Imam Feisal is the architect of the Cordoba Initiative, an inter-religious effort to improve relations between the Muslim world and the West. His work takes him all over the world, including Malaysia. As he tells The Nut Graph: "I am interested in bringing humanity together, not creating divisions."

Imam Feisal granted The Nut Graph this exclusive interview to clarify the issue of fatwas, from historical, religious, and political perspectives. He stressed that he wanted this to educate and to clarify an issue that seems to have caused a lot of confusion in Malaysia, among both Muslims and non-Muslims.

(Background image (© Jetmir Decani)

TNG: What exactly is a fatwa?

Imam Feisal: A fatwa is a legal opinion. But depending upon the context in which it is given and who provides the opinion, it can have the force of law. If a fatwa is given by an authority that has the jurisdiction to render law, then that decision has the power of law.

It's like if you ask a qualified lawyer to give his opinion on something, it's a legal opinion. But the opinion given by a judge who sits [in] a court has jurisdiction in a particular piece of geography. And if it is done [according to] a certain process, then that opinion has the force of law.

When a judge gives an opinion on a specific case, it is called a hukum in Islam. It's a specific application, a judgment. And that judgment of that particular sitting judge has the power of law in a particular jurisdiction if it is [from] the highest authority. [So] in courts, we can go to a higher court to appeal, until [we] go to the highest level of the court system. The Islamic legal system is analogous to that in some ways. If the authority giving the fatwa has jurisdiction in that territory, then that opinion has the force of law.

The codification of Islamic law in contemporary times must be quite different than how it was applied during the period of classical Islam. In the classical period of Islam, what would be the process in issuing a fatwa?

[The] classical period in Islamic history refers to a particular period during which Islamic jurisprudence was being developed, which was roughly the second, third century [after Hijrah] till about five or six hundred years [after].

The imams developed the science of Islamic jurisprudence, called fiqh. Because we have what is called a syariah or a syarak. Syarak is the ordinances which God made in the Quran, and we have the syariah, which jurists define as being, roughly, depending upon which school, anywhere between 150 and 500 verses in the Quran called ayatul ahkam, which are verses in which God commands and prohibits. And there are about 12 to 15 hundred hadith of the prophet (Muhammad), in which the prophet also commands and prohibits.

This group of Quranic verses and prophetic statements [is] called the syariah. This is God-given, so to speak. And what we call fiqh means our understanding of the syariah. Of course, there is always, in Islamic thinking, a caveat that we human beings are not perfect.

The prophet himself was a human being, but he was guided and protected by the divine power during his prophethood. [W]hen the prophet did something God disagreed with, God would send a [Quranic verse] to correct the prophet. This is something which has happened.

So we call fiqh our understanding of the divine and prophetic statements. Because we always believe that our understanding may be imperfect and may be wrong. We try our best, but we know we cannot be completely correct all the time.

Fast-forward to contemporary times, and fatwa-making in the different Muslim nation-states and Muslim-majority societies has become so divergent. I remember a fatwa by Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, where he agreed with the ruling in France banning the hijab in public schools. The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, at one point also issued a fatwa saying if the congregation agrees to have a woman imam for Friday prayers, then that's fine for that congregation. In Malaysia, on the other hand, there was a lot of objection to these two things. There does not seem to be a lot of harmony in the Muslim world now as far as the issue of fatwa-making is concerned.

Well, see, there is an impression by many Muslims that there's only one correct answer to many of these questions. This is a relatively modern phenomenon.

[But] that is not the case. Based upon even our knowledge of how the prophet (Muhammad) himself rendered decisions, the prophet gave different answers to the same question based upon who was asking.

Therefore it is a principle of Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic law, that the right answer to a question is very often context-specific. And this is something Muslims need to understand, that the context can itself shift the answer.

Even in our history, imam Shafie (d 820CE) — and Malaysia is [mostly] governed by Shafie principles of Islamic law — when he moved from Iraq to Egypt, modified or changed some of his fatwas because the context changed.

So it is a long-standing and well-recognised principle of Islamic law that the correct answer to a question ... can be context-specific.

And I think at some point imam Shafie defended imam Malik (d 795CE), and then when he went to Egypt, imam Shafie was suddenly very critical of how people were blindly following imam Malik's judgments.

First of all, there is not that much difference between the different mazhabs. They are by and large identical. The differences lie in small areas; minor differences.

This comes out of the historical, societal and social narratives in which many of the founders of these mazhabs had lived. For example, imam Malik, who lived in Medina, in the Hijaz (western region of the Arabian Peninsula) — which was a very homogeneous society, mainly Arabs — had a different viewpoint.

Imam Abu Hanifah (d 765CE), who lived in what is modern Iraq today, lived in a far more heterogeneous society, far more multicultural. So in more multicultural societies the situations are different, needs are different, and therefore they were more proactive in developing principles of interpretation which were suitable for their societies.

But within a few centuries, there was a general consensus by Muslim scholars that all of these mazhabs are equally correct. And this is something which modern Muslims need to apply in their behaviour.

Very often Muslims, while they know that there are four classical mazhabs in Sunni thought — which implies that there can be differences in opinion, both of which are deemed correct — don't apply that in behaviour. The tendency for many modern Muslims today [is] to act in such a way that if you do not agree with their opinion, you are considered a kafir right away.

You've clarified that fatwas are context-specific. A lot of Islamic jurisprudence evolved out of specific historical and social contexts, as far as the human interpretation of the primary and secondary sources of Islam are concerned. So, am I correct in concluding that public opinion and legislative processes can contribute to Islamic lawmaking?

Absolutely. In fact, government legislation is a recognised source of laws [in Islam]. You see, what the Islamic jurists did [was that] they classified the sources of law. And they looked at how people legislated or brought about laws.

The Quran and the hadith are a particular source of law, the primary sources of what we call Islamic law, [meaning] laws which are consonant with God's prescriptive and prohibitive commandments.

But then there are other sources of laws which societies have. One is legislation by the authorised legislative powers. Government legislation has already been recognised under Islamic law as being syarie.

The word syarie is understood by Islamic scholars in much the same way that people say, "Is this law constitutional?" Modern societies, modern nation-states have a constitution. The legislature may enact a law. But if this law contradicts the constitution, you can raise a case against it in the courts, and the courts can strike it down as being unconstitutional. But if the law is not in conflict with the constitution, then it is considered acceptable or constitutional. [That is what] the term syarie means in the way that it is applied.

And the same has been considered to other sources of law which are recognised by Muslim jurists. Like the importance of what is called al-ada. You call it adat over here, or custom, and it's called urf also in Islamic law. [People have customs], there's an adat. There's adat Melayu, adat Cina, adat Arab, there's all kinds of adat from different countries. If the adat does not contradict the principles of the Quran or the hadith, it is considered syarie.

There have been cases where judges have issued judgments based upon their understanding of Islamic law. A case happens, they apply a decision. This is sometimes called judicial activism. This is under the Hanafi principle of istihsan, which has been used to refer to the activism of judges making decisions in cases where there is no existing law, and the process creating law or creating precedents [from] their judgments.

Because this is, in a sense, what the prophet (Muhammad) did. The prophet would be asked to judge a case, and the way he judged a case is considered part of the hadith of the prophet.

The prophet himself performed ijtihad, and in many cases gave us the reason for something. So, judges have done the same thing, and they categorise it under different names. So these terms that we have used, istihsan, urf and adat, or government legislation, these are sources of law which are deemed to be syarie.

In fact, the vast majority of Islamic law is not the Quran or hadith, but later legislation or the custom of the people. And this is an important thing to understand because there is a general recognition by Muslim scholars that things in the Quran and hadith tend to have a more permanent value. But laws which were enacted later, or come from the adat of a people, even though they were deemed syarie in earlier times, can be modified.

So when you look at the whole corpus of laws which people deem to be Islamic, we have to be a bit more refined or nuanced in what we mean by "Islamic". We mean not just the Quran or the hadith but the whole history of the laws that Muslims [governed] themselves by.