My response to Chua Soi Lek’s Rants about Hudud

The recent rants by Chua Soi Lek of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and his mouthpiece, the Star tabloid, about Hudud reminded me of the time my team was in the state-level field hockey finals.

We were playing in Johor Bahru (JB). My team, Pontian, was playing against JB, on their home turf.  We were losing.  I was a fullback.  My job was to defend my teams own goal.

In the final 10 minutes, I was metres away from the JB team’s goal post.  I was far away from where I should’ve been.  Fullbacks are not supposed to cross into the other side!  Fullbacks are trained to prevent goals, not score them!

I was “in the wrong place” because desperate times call for desperate measures: we were losing very, very badly.  And that, I think, is what Soi Lek is demonstrating when he seeks to scare us with “Hudud.”

Fortunately for me, the skills required to score goals were simple: I couldn’t make a fool of myself.  Soi Lek however succeeds only in revealing his foolishness.

Soi Lek says we should vote for Barisan Nasional (BN), his alliance with Umno, because to vote for the alternative Pakatan Rakyat, which includes the Islamic Party (PAS) is to open the door for Hudud in Malaysia.

What is Hudud?  I’ve not been able to locate any clear statements by Soi Lek.

Soi Lek leaves it to our imagination. Hudud means our worst nightmares: stoning women caught in adultery, caning women who consume alcohol, prohibiting the sale of alcohol, cutting off the limbs of those who commit crimes, imposing the death penalty on apostates, etc.

Who decides what Hudud is?  In 56 years of rule by Umno-BN, has there been a decision?  And if there is, why aren’t Soi Lek and his allies referring us to it?

I live my life according to this rule: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind; love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40).  This means I seek to learn what my neighbours believe and if I think they believe wrongly, I correct them.  This means if my neighbour thinks it’s safe to drink raw water from the Ganges, I try very hard to persuade her she’s wrong.

In my search for understanding about Hudud, I found some helpful statements:

“HADD (HUDUD).  Mandatory punishments imposed in classical Islamic law in cases of adultery, fornication, and false accusation of adultery, as well as for theft, highway robbery, apostasy, and drunken-ness.  For these offenses, punishments are fixed and details as to their execution specified in the Traditions or the Koran.  For example, the punishment for adultery is stoning or one hundred lashes for fornication, but strict rules of evidence require either a confession from the culprits or the testimony of four male witnesses.  The amputation of a hand for theft requires either a confession or two witnesses.  Furthermore, the stolen property has to exceed a certain value and the theft must not be between relations.  The punishment for wine drinking, not mentioned in the Koran, is 80 lashes according to the Traditions.  Because of the severity of hadd punishments, they have not been imposed in most parts of the Islamic world.  Only in Saudi Arabia and in the self-described “Islamic States” of Pakistan and Sudan, and most recently in Afghanistan, have hadd punishments been exacted.”  (Adamec, Ludwig W.  Historical Dictionary of Islam.  Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001.  106)

In case you’re wondering why I begin by quoting a non-Muslim source, I’ll tell you.

I’ve found many Muslim writers so preoccupied with citing Arabic texts and listing Arabic authorities that I’m left wondering if even they understand what they write.  I’ve said before that they remind me ofpeacocks, birds which cannot fly.  There are many opinions about what Islam actually teaches, and Muslims know it.

After I wrote the previous paragraph, I noticed John Woronoff agrees with me.  He says, in his editor's forward to Adamec’s book:

“All religions are hard to explain, but few seem to be as difficult as Islam.  Indeed, the more it is explained – and it is explained a lot nowadays – the less it seems to be understood.  There are various reasons for this, aside from any inherent complexities.  One of the most pertinent is that Islam is undergoing considerable flux at present, swayed by different currents whose adherents hold different views, from the modernists and reformers, to the traditionalists and conservatives, to the fundamentalists and Islamists.  And each differs in their interpretation of the traditions.  There is the problem of vocabulary, most of it in Arabic, and whose meaning is hard to convey to outsiders and not always entirely grasped by Muslims.” (ix)

The inability of others to explain what they believe doesn’t exonerate me from seeking to understand.  I just have to try harder, and hope that my effort will pay off.

Despite what I said earlier about the difficulty of understanding Muslims, there is one Muslim author on the subject of Hudud whom I can understand.

In a short paper titled Can the Hudud be Given a Fresh Interpretation?, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, founding chairman of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia (IAIS), says:

“Muslim countries have generally shied away from the enforcement of hudud due to the severity of these penalties, yet because of public sensitivities they have not ventured to undertake a fresh interpretation of hudud.  The problematic of hudud thus persist (sic) and made worse by Western media and human rights activists that have taken the hudud as a centre-piece of their anti-Islam propaganda.  We know that Islam stands on its five pillars, and hudud is not one of them.  Punishment of any kind is rather remote from the spiritual core of Islam, yet the general public has maintained a highly exaggerated perception of hudud as a litmus test and criterion of the Islamicity of their governments.  The whole issue has been riddled with misunderstanding, exaggeration, and disillusionment.”

Did you know that Professor Kamali who specializes in Islamic Law was born in Afghanistan and educated at Kabul University? 

Prof. Kamali should add Umno’s sleeping partner, the MCA, to the list of those who misunderstand and exaggerate hudud in their anti-Islam propaganda.

It’s important not to ridicule Islamic law, because to do so is to downplay the centrality of justice in Islam.  And justice, of course, is what the corrupt fear most.  What have Soi Lek and the MCA said about Corruption?

Also, what the MCA knows but doesn't say is that there are 2 major factions within PAS: progressives, sometimes called Erdoganists; and fundamentalists.  To implement extreme punishments, the Erdoganists have to be suppressed; also, the hereditary rulers (Sultans) – who are the heads of Islam in most states in Malaysia – have to sign-up.

How likely is Hudud, whatever it means?  How likely is curtailment of corruption and promotion of justice if BN doesn’t win a majority in GE13?

I, a fullback, was at the opposition team’s goal post.  If I scored, my team would win a goal.  If Soi Lek scores, who will gain a goal?  On 05 May 2013 we will learn how impressionable Malaysian voters are.

Posted by Ramanathan