How sharia law inadvertently helps paedophilia and rape

In a The Malaysian Insider article on February 7, Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin, the erstwhile spokeswoman of the G25, stated that the implementation of hudud laws in Kelantan will be open to abuse by paedophiles and rapists.

It is a bitter pill to swallow for conservative traditional Muslims, I know. However, if we delude ourselves into thinking this will not be the case, we will run the risk of causing great harm in Kelantan, especially to Muslim women and children, for whom this law applies.

In order to understand how the noble religion of Islam can be instrumentalised to legitimise such heinous acts, we must understand that Islam was reintroduced by Prophet Muhammad in a particular socio-cultural milieu, that of 7th century Arabia.

This being the case, the cultural norms of the time influenced what we now come to know as Islamic teachings. Conservative traditional Muslims consider this notion unacceptable, almost blasphemous.

For them, the cultural subjectivities which exist within the Islamic tradition of knowledge (turath in Arabic) do not exist.

What was formulated in that era was a human attempt at understanding the Quranic message, if even that.

This is why there are massive contradictions in the turath. Therefore, any attempt would necessarily be mired within its own cultural biases.

Unfortunately, this fact is not recognised by PAS. They fail to understand that hudud laws are ultimately just interpretations of God’s will, if not utter misinterpretations thereof.

Even when PAS governed both Kelantan and Terengganu, they could not come up with uniform set of hudud laws. Such is the latitude of interpretation but the rakyat is not told of this.

This is probably to create a façade of divine authority. Latitudes of interpretations are not bad outcomes at all. They simply show a human element to the process. A human element PAS cannot afford to expose.

In the case of paedophilia, it will forever be a problem because traditional Muslims subscribe to the notion that the Prophet married a six-year-old child, Aisha.

Because this information is considered authentic and the Prophet is the paradigm of human perfection, traditional Muslims will never escape this issue and modern ulama have often allowed marrying minors much to the chagrin of Muslims everywhere.

On the other hand, the Quran is very clear that marriage is for believers (Chapter 2, Verse 221) and those are defined by their maturity to function in society (9/71).

This clearly excludes children and there are other versions of Aisha’s age in Islamic narratives which testify to this fact. However, if the ulama were to rescind this norm or worse, to challenge the authenticity of this hadith, the integrity of their entire system of jurisprudence will collapse.

As for rape, most versions of sharia law actually punishes the victims for reporting the crime because in doing so, they have confessed to adultery!

This is due to a misunderstanding of the Quranic norm to punish adulterers (24/2).

However, a rape victim is not an adulterer because she was an unwilling participant in the fact.

The Quran does not penalise acts under compulsion (16/106) hence the adultery law cannot apply in this case.

I believe what led to this misinterpretation are patriarchal notions of honour which see women as objects rather than people.

A rape victim has been ‘soiled’ and must be redeemed through punishment.

This must have been the case with the Qatif case in Saudi Arabia where the victim herself was punished, ostensibly for being alone in a car with a marriageable male.

Marital rape can also be a problem. There are traditions in which “angels” reprimand wives for refusing sexual relations with their husband.

This leads to the notion that sex is a god-given right of the husband and hence he can seek its fulfilment at will. Little wonder that this sort of mentality can lead to cases of marital rape.

All in all, hudud laws are very much one sided in favour of men. Men have unassailable rights over women. Not only that, men’s temptations and the lack of ability to control them are blamed on women.

We have already seen in Kelantan elements of this misogyny and obsession with sexual regulation. Even queuing in shops has become an issue!

Men and women are feared to break into some sort of frenzy if they were to queue together. Queuing together happens all over the world without any such incident yet this is seen to be an issue.

Apart from that, women are told to wear the headcover and not to overdo make-up. There is little responsibility given to men. This imbalance is exactly the same as 7th century Arabia.

This worldview is entirely at odds with the Quran, as shown above. The Quran does not legislate any sort of cultural dress and places responsibility at the hands of the criminal, not the victim.

In summary, there are numerous issues with the hudud bill and its deficiencies with regards to rape and paedophilia will lead to great social problems.

PAS needs to realise that hudud laws developed in a particular cultural milieu and Muslims should constantly re-evaluate them in light of the Islamic spirit. – February 18, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.