[a very critical thinking article...scholars input and advise required...] ... Enacting Harsh Laws Makes Us Less Islamic by Farouk Musa
This is taken from FMT here :
It is a commentary by Dr Farouk Musa about the sharia, the hudud, the RUU355 and so on. My comments follow.
Much has been debated about the amendments to the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965. A massive demonstration in support of the bill was held last Saturday and tensions are running high.
PAS has insisted that the main aim of the proposed amendment is not to introduce hudud but to strengthen the shariah laws and shariah courts.
But if that is true, then PAS for sure must have identified the weaknesses. To the general observer, the weaknesses are apparent and appalling.
Just look at the number of cases of women abandoned by their husbands and children denied their maintenance. Or the prolonged cases of fasakh (annulment of marriage). These cases sometimes take years to resolve, if they are ever settled. Most of the time, it is due to the failure of the men to show up in court. And most of the time this is deliberate; they want to “teach a lesson” to the women.
This is a clear manifestation of injustice. It is injustice committed in the shariah courts and in the name of Islam, with no foreseeable remedy. If indeed one really wants to strengthen the shariah system, wouldn’t it be more meaningful to strengthen the Islamic Family Law? This is a law that falls under the ambit of the shariah courts. When one has failed to strengthen this aspect of the law, it looks rather foolish and irresponsible to focus on criminal matters to increase the severity of punishments.
Why this preoccupation with severe punishments? Even if one argued that the amended version proposed in November 2016 is deemed constitutional since it did not have the same over-arching principle that intrudes into the Federal Constitution as in the May 2016 amendment, why the need for harsh punishments? Will they really “strengthen” the shariah law and shariah courts when we know for sure that the glaring weaknesses are not being tackled?
Wouldn’t the religion of Islam look more just when the so-called guardians of the faith fight for the rights of the abandoned wives and neglected children? And does the imposition of such harsh laws make us more Islamic in the eyes of God? We have to ask ourselves, were we not imbued with the notion that the most noble thing to be done is to dispense justice?
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In this regard, a renowned student of Ibn Taimiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, in his book I’lam al-Muwaqi’in, said: “The foundation of shariah is wisdom and the safeguarding of people’s interest in this world and in the next. In its entirety, it is justice, mercy, and wisdom.”
Every rule which turns justice into tyranny, mercy into cruelty, good into evil, and wisdom into triviality, does not belong to the shariah, even though it might have been introduced therein by implication.
“The shariah is God’s justice and mercy. Life, nutrition, medicine, recuperation and virtue are made possible by it. Every good that exists is derived from it, and every deficiency is the result of its loss and dissipation. For the shariah, which God entrusted to His Prophet to transmit, is the pillar of the world and the key to success and happiness in this world and the next.”
It becomes obvious then that the ultimate aim of shariah, like the aim and purpose of any law in the world, is to establish justice and to preserve and promote human welfare. And since the shariah did not come to us in a codified form, it requires our human agency to approximate God’s justice. And as humans, we might err. But to err in approximating God’s justice is better than to enforce something because it is believed to be the will of God.
We should not gravitate into becoming a Taliban state by imposing harsh shariah criminal laws when we have failed to solve mundane issues such as divorce and alimony in our shariah courts, or more pressing issues like economic equality and good governance.
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When some people are still living in makeshift tents after the floods of two years ago, when clean and colourless water is still a main problem even after twenty years under our rule, and when many of our youths are still unemployed with a high rate of intravenous drug users among them, to prioritise pushing for harsher penalties for personal offences only proves that we have failed to understand Fiqh Awlawiyyat, or the jurisprudence of priorities, in decision-making.
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Does lashing someone a hundred times for fornication make us the warriors of Islam or defenders of the laws of God?
The Prophet himself was very reluctant to impose a hadd punishment to an adulterer who made a confession. When Ma’iz al-Aslami confessed his act of adultery to the Prophet, the Prophet refused to engage him in conversation and turned his face away.
While we acknowledge there are variations in the report, what transpired was that the Prophet finally asked, after avoiding Ma’iz the fourth time, whether Ma’iz was sane. Then he asked whether Ma’iz really knew what fornication meant or “you only kissed her or, or winked at her, or checked her out?” Lastly, the Prophet asked Ma’iz or his people if he had ever been married.
These three elements plus the Prophet’s act of turning his face away from Ma’iz can only be interpreted as an extreme reluctance to apply the hadd punishment. The Prophet’s intention was clearly to allow Ma’iz to rethink and to be left alone so that he could repent.
Now compare this noble attitude of the Prophet to that of the Talibans in PAS today. Mercy and compassion are alien to them, although mercy is traditionally considered to be the all-pervasive objective of the shariah.
Looking at the political situation in this country and the timing for such a divisive issue to take place, leads us to one main conclusion – that the main beneficiary from this commotion is none other than the ruling government.
And looking at the political situation in this country, and the timing for such a divisive issue to take place, leads us to one main conclusion. That the main beneficiary from this commotion is none other than the ailing and corrupt government of Najib Razak. This issue is practically a lifeline to the despotic regime. And this issue will be blown out of proportion in order to drown the growing criticisms against financial malfeasance and kleptocratic authoritarianism of the government of the day.
Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa is director Islamic Renaissance Front, a think-tank promoting reform and renewal in Muslim thought.
My comments : Readers who may have read this report in FMT will note that the last paragraph above (highlighted in yellow) is missing. It was "edited" out.
Dr Farouk sent it to me separately via email.
My view is this.
Call it what you want ie sharia, hudud, Islamic law etc.
These are just names.
They are not from the Quran.
The words shariah and hudud appear in the Quran, including this phrase 'tilka hududillah' (these are the hudud of Allah) which appears TWELVE TIMES in the Quran.
But none of the shariah or hudud words mentioned in the Quran has anything to do with the shariah, hudud or so called Islamic laws of the religious people. Isnt that strange?
It is also super high time that the Muslim people stop being lazy and start doing some critical reading and research to determine if indeed the sharia and hudud laws are 'god's laws'.
Because other than the quickie, single word baits like "hudud" and "sharia" to hook the villagers, even the smallest scratching below the surface of these two words exposes the contradictions, divergences, differences and arguments among the religious people.
The hudud and shariah of the religious folks is 100% sectarian.
It differs greatly among the sects.
And when you go into the details, it differs even more greatly.
Here are some simple examples.
1. The cutting the hands of the thief differs between the sects in things like determining the minimum value of the stolen objects that warrants cutting the hands.
According to some sects a minimum value of x is required in the stolen object before the hands can be cut. In other sects the amount could be greater than x.
So whether you lose your hands or not depends on the sect which is in authority in your area of thievery. So to all potential thieves, choose your country carefully.
The question for Muslims to start thinking about is "Is this god's law or is it just sectarian law?"
2. In Afghanistan they punished homosexuals by "dropping" a wall on the guilty. But there is no SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) about the size, thickness, height and material of the wall.
The Taliban once used an old Soviet tank to push a brick wall over a homosexual. The guy survived the "brick wall" and was allowed to go home to recuperate.
So homosexuals, avoid countries that have advanced concrete industries.
The question for Muslims to start thinking about is "Is this god's law or is it just sectarian law?"
3. In Iran, they believe that homosexuals should be punished by dropping them off high places like a cliff. In one case, they didnt have a vertical cliff nearby. But they did have a helicopter. Needless to say, the homosexual was killed.
So homosexuals in Iran should avoid places with helicopters. It is safer for them to hang around places with low lying hills.
The question for Muslims to start thinking about is "Is this god's law or is it just sectarian law?"
4. Now in Malaysia no less than the Federal Court has upheld the ruling that NON MUSLIMS cannot become lawyers in Sharia courts. Of course the judges in Sharia courts also must be Muslim - this is what they say.
But did you know that NON MUSLIMS also cannot be witnesses in a sharia court?
Can this be "god's law" ?
Lets say a Muslim robber breaks into a non Muslim home and robs a family of four non Muslims. After the robbery the victims call the Police and lodge a Police report.
Say the robber is caught.
BUT lo and behold, there is a Sharia court nearby.
So the case goes to the sharia court. The non Muslim victims cannot be witnesses. And there are NO OTHER witnesses.The case will be dismissed. The robber walks free. What kind of justice is this?
Eventually, so as not to waste time, the Police will not even entertain any Police report involving robbery (a sharia offence) where the victims are NON MUSLIM. It is just wasting time.
The question for Muslims to start thinking about is "Is this god's law or is it just sectarian law?"
5. Then they changed 'god's law'. Somewhere along the line the religious people changed their sharia law. Somewhere in history, some sects allowed NON MUSLIM DOCTORS to appear as expert witnesses in the sharia courts.
(There could have been cases where death was involved and a physician was also involved who may not have been a Muslim doctor.)
So an exception was made where NON MUSLIM doctors could become 'expert' witnesses in a sharia court. So they changed god's law.
Even then some sects argued that even NON MUSLIM doctors cannot be allowed as witnesses in Sharia courts. And the arguments go on until today.
The question for Muslims to start thinking about is "Is this god's law or is it just sectarian law?"
Conclusion : What is the conclusion? The conclusion is all you Muslim people just do not read. You do not know jack s__t about your own religion or about what is going on with your religious people.
This is the problem.
You people just do not read.
Go and read lah.
It is so easy now.
Just use your smart phone.
As an example just Google 'Non Muslims cannot be witnesses in Shariah courts'. You will get something like this :
Then you just click, click and click and read.
Dont surrender your brains to the retards.
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