Hudud, blindness to reality – Ravinder Singh

Some people have suddenly become so overcome by a “ghairahness” (extreme blind desire) to introduce hudud as if there is no tomorrow.  

Sorry to say, all this ghairahness for hudud seems to me to be much ado about nothing.

I wonder, do they mean to say that Muslims who are not under hudud laws, are lesser Muslims than those under hudud?

What is the yardstick to measure this?

Is a God-fearing Muslim living in a secular state a lesser Muslim than a corrupted Muslim living under hudud?

I mean no offence to anyone. What prompts me to ask this question is the fact that the largest Muslim nation (a very close neighbour, Indonesia) is not practicing hudud. There are many other Muslims countries that do not practice hudud.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that hudud, in countries that practice it, has reduced crime, the purported purpose for which it was introduced. Ask our former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad.

By the way, have these ghairah persons taken any trouble to find out why crime has been going up, and up, and up despite the police telling a different story, i.e. that it has been going down, and down and down.

Just compare with the increasing number of bus crashes taking the lives of innocent passengers. It is not that there are no laws to regulate bus operators and their drivers, but the laws are not working. Why? Why? So, does it need something similar to hudud to reduce bus crashes and deaths?

If rising crime is the concern of these ghairah people, then they must not turn a blind eye to the underlying reasons that have brought about a breakdown of law and order. A blindfolded knee-jerk solution like enforcing hudud is no solution to this malaise.

Please don’t take advantage of the rising crime situation to clamour for hudud, as the perception that it will reduce crime is very false. 

I repeat, hudud is no solution to the rising crime situation in the country.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider