Ban on book on women and Islam lifted

The ban on the book Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism published by Sisters in Islam in Malaysia has been lifted. The Malaysian government had earlier banned the book upon discovering that 7 pages in the 215-page book could confuse the Muslim community and cause public disorder.

Fatwa on hairstyles rejected

Muslim women in Surabaya have rejected the religious edict that bans women from straightening or colouring their hair. They emphasize that had hair straightening and colouring had nothing to do with the causes and effects of immoral acts.

Shariah police arrested for gang rape in Aceh

The Shariah police in Aceh who enforce Islamic law in Aceh gang-raped a 20 year-old undergraduate but are exempted from Islamic law because the sentence is deemed too “harsh.” It took this incident for authorities to question the legitimacy of the Shariah police. The travesty revealed the hypocrisy of the system.

In September, Aceh’s provincial parliament passed a law saying adulterers can be sentenced to death by stoning. The measure, which still must be approved by the governor, has outraged human rights groups here who say it will unfairly target women.

The suspects allegedly stopped a couple by the road near a plantation. In an interview, the victim’s father said his daughter’s friend was beaten and the two were taken to a Sharia police station.

The men later returned while off-duty and raped the woman, investigators say.

“She was treated like an animal, they suffocated and raped her,” said the victim’s father. “She’s in deep trauma.”

Marzuki Abdullah, head of the 1,500-member Shariah police force, said the case was not linked to the patrols because the officers were off-duty at the time of the alleged crimes.

Women and vanity according to Indonesian clerics

Indonesian clerics warn women against changing hairstyles, taking certain public transportation in case of accidental physical contact with men, and going for photo shoots before weddings. The interesting thing is that these clerics refer to the kitab kuning, religious publications on various subjects such as fiqh (jurisprudence) and aqida (doctrine) printed on yellow-tinted paper.

Hindu woman attempts to declare conversion unlawful

Banggarma Subramaniam, who is a Hindu, but recognised as a Muslim in Malaysia, is now seeking a court declaration that the conversion process to Islam that she underwent was unlawful as she was then a child of seven. She argued, rightfully, that she did not and could not have, at that time, understood the contents and meaning of the words in the Declaration to Convert into Islam certificate which she was asked to recite, utter and execute. To reverse her conversion is out of the question, for she would be labelled an apostate, a crime in Shariah court in Malaysia, which meant that she would have to be punished.
I do wonder how Malaysian religious authorities will try to counter this argument. The court’s reluctance to grant Banggarma her wish could be symptomatic of a larger concern. Perhaps they’re worried about opening the floodgates to similar wishes in future, some of which might be as tenable as Banggarma Subramaniam’s case.

Dress code in Aceh

More on West Aceh’s ban on trousers for women. It seems that ostracization awaits repeat offenders.

“…once the new regulation was implemented, the district-level government would strongly recommended that government and private offices refuse services for Muslims who violate the dress code. Of course, for the first time, the person [who violates the dress code] should just be reprimanded, not ignored,” he said. But the next time they come back and still do not follow the dress code, they should be sanctioned by not being given any service.”

Shariah policewomen

Acehnese policewomen are out on the streets haranguing young women wearing tight jeans. In West Aceh, women are already forbidden to wear trousers. Snippets from the article below.

Women caught in breach will have their trousers torn up and they will be forced to wear “loose fitting” attire. Ramli Mansur, the district chief of West Aceh, has already placed an order for 14,000 long skirts, and sent a stern edict to schools and colleges warning against violating the law.

“It will reduce crime,” said Ayub Ahmad, the secretary of Dinas Syariat Islam, who went on to explain: “Bill Clinton decided to have an affair with Monica Lewinsky only after he saw her in seductive dresses.”

Child marriage

This article on underage marriage points out that changes to the implementation of Islamic law in Indonesia are generally regarded as controversial, which unfortunately means that child welfare and legal rights are not likely to be altered to reflect changing times. I wonder how international human rights could affect Islamic law in particular countries directly. Clearly, education is not sufficient to stem off underage marriage in many countries. Age is a convenient marker for “puberty”, but in reality it involves more than that. More in the article, but I just have to quote this here.

Islamic legal traditions determine children’s rights based on such concepts as baligh and mumayiz, age of consent, religious criteria for determining children’s competency, which is not solely determined on the basis of age. A child may be able to be categorized as a mature and capable individual earlier or later than others in the same age group.

Attempt by Hindu woman to reverse conversion in Malaysia

More details of the case of the 27 year-old Malaysian woman have been revealed. Banggarma Subramaniam, also known as Siti Hasnah Vangarama Abdullah is not only trying to prove that she’s not a Muslim, but that she’s never been Muslim, so as not to be charged with apostasy considered an an offense in the state. But since she’s classified as a Muslim, her case is tried a Shariah court, who has apparently chosen to disregard her verbal profession of faith to another religion. According to a conversion certificate in 1989, she supposedly converted when she was a child of seven, which is actually impossible because she had not reached the age of puberty yet at the time.
I do wonder what argument the Shariah court is going to present to counter this. Her lawyer states that under Penang Islamic laws, minors below 18 cannot be converted to Islam without the consent of their parents. Since she was an orphan, it seems that she’s virtually unprotected by a proper guardian or laws. In this way, non-Muslim orphans are therefore susceptible to similar treatment, if the system is left unchecked.
Evidently, she has not even been able to register her marriage to her Hindu husband, or even list him as the father of her two children, as the state doesn’t allow marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims.
I was struck by one line in the article.

“In interfaith disputes involving Islam, the Shariah courts typically get the last word, which has upset non-Muslims who fear they cannot get justice in such courts.”

What is the rationale behind this for people who professed to be non-Muslims?
I find the case fascinating because of the ways the Shariah court in Malaysia could impose its own particular view of religious identity, as the case unfolds.

Ban on book by Sisters in Islam

Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism, a 215-page book published by Sisters in Islam has been banned for reasons which are unclear, especially since it has been alleged in court that then Home Affairs Minister, Syed Hamid Albar who ordered the ban to be issued has not read the book, though he said he based his decision, that the book was “prejudicial to public order”, on guidelines provided by JAKIM (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia). However, evidently JAKIM is not fit to dictate Islamic law.

I wonder how the issue of public order in Malaysia need to be argue on the basis of Islamic law in this case. Or is counsel trying to argue two things at the same time – that the book was not “un-Islamic” whatever that means, and at the same time, but separately, not prejudicial to public order?