COMMENT They say politics makes for strange bedfellows. It looks like religion also does the same.
Consider thinker Kassim Ahmad’s ties to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad - on Islamic exegesis, the two are birds of a feather.
This is best understood in the context of Voltaire’s famous criticism of Christian belief and practice at the onset of the Enlightenment in the 18th century - that incantations can kill a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.
In other words, faith should not be blind and unexamined beliefs are for bovines, not homo-sapiens.
In 1986, Kassim published a book - ‘Hadis: Satu Penilaian Semula(Hadith: A Reappraisal)’ - that espoused a subversive idea.
This was that certain bases of Islamic practice and belief cannot sustain critical scrutiny. The book proposed the Quran as sole basis for sound Muslim belief and best practices.
That view Kassim reiterated to a conference which reviewed his thought held last Sunday at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, a think-tank associated with Mahathir (right).
The former premier officiated at the conference’s opening and days later, after controversy flared over what Kassim had said, allowed that Kassim was a thinker whose opinions are easily misunderstood.
Like the publication of his book 28 years ago, Kassim’s latest musings have caused a furore. Its magnitude can be gauged in the days to come as Islamic authorities mull action against him.
It’s a safe bet, though, that none of them will take him on in a debate because they know that Kassim is a formidable foe to joust with; he will not easily recant his views.
Kassim blames Anwar Ibrahim - then education minister in the mid-1980s - for squelching the debate that ‘Hadis’ was obviously intended to provoke.
Till today, Kassim nurses an enduring antipathy towards Anwar for the turn of events following publication of Kassim’s book in early 1986.
The ironies in history
Although all this occurred 28 years ago, the passage of decades has not had a becalming effect on the visceral feelings the controversy evoked at that time.
As recently as the middle of 2012, Kassim remained choleric at the mention of Anwar’s name, denouncing the Pakatan Rakyat leader with a vituperation that was ugly to behold.
It is not clear that Anwar had anything to do with the banning of Kassim’s book or with foreclosure of the debate.
What’s less incontestable is that had the book not been banned, matters to do with Islamic thought and understanding in Malaysia would plausibly have transcended the present moment where some peninsula Muslim Malaysians insist that the term ‘Allah’ is exclusive to them.
In one of those ironies in which history abounds, in the debate over the ‘Allah’ issue, Anwar (left) is not opposed to non-Muslim use of the term - provided it is not abused - whereas Mahathir is for prohibition of the term to non-Muslims.
Kassim’s position on the issue is not known, but judging from what can be deduced of the man’s intellect, it would be a huge surprise if he agreed with Mahathir’s stance.
There is a strong strain of the iconoclast in Kassim, evident from half a century ago when he suggested that Malay folklore was wrong to view Hang Tuah as a hero because the real hero was Tuah’s friend, Hang Jebat, whom Tuah had killed.
Because of his tendency to examine the received wisdom on a subject, it wasn’t surprising that Kassim, who tuned 80 last September, gave vent at last Sunday’s conference to views that were even more controversial than the ones he aired in his 1986 work.
In what was purported to be his final testament - rendered at the conference themed ‘Thoughts of Kassim Ahmad: A Review’ - the man who started his intellectual journey as a cultural iconoclast and doctrinaire socialist, invited Muslims to return to the teachings of the Islamic faith as revealed in the Quran.
He said that believers would find Quranic teachings to be cognate with natural law (undang-undang alamiah).
Kassim also espoused the view that Muslims do not need, like he claimed Christians did, a “priestly caste” to know what God commands of them and to perceive those commands’ consonance with what natural law tells them.
He argued that the female practice of wearing a headscarf was a wrong interpretation of the Quranic stricture against bodily exposure, claiming that hair on a woman’s head is not included in the ‘aurat’ that is required by the Quran to be covered. He said that head hair must be aired for health (natural law) reasons.
An interesting tack to take
Thus, he took an example from nature to elucidate a Quranic teaching, demonstrating in the process the supposed truth of his argument that sound interpretation of Quranic revelation would necessarily be found to be compatible with what natural law teaches.
This is an interesting tack to take and is at variance to the asharite (God is power/God is will) school of Islamic thought. The asharite has been the dominant school since the 12th century when it gained the upper hand over the mutazilite (God is also reason) school of Islamic interpretation.
Since the victory of the asharite school, Islam’s answer to what is called “the Socratic puzzle” has been emphatic.
But, pray, what is the Socratic puzzle?
It is a question that is so abstruse, it gives philosophy a bad name: Is a good action good because it is approved by God? Or is it approved by God because it is good?
In other words, do the categories of good and evil, right and wrong, have an existence independent of the divine will?
To this, the answer of the asharite school is: An action is good because it is approved by Allah.
The asharites hold that there is no independent criterion of morality outside the will of Allah. And since the Quran is an absolutely literal and accurate account of that will - indeed in a deep sense, the Quran itself actually incarnates that will - there is no independent criterion of morality outside the text of the Quran.
In other words, if the Quran says something that seems morally offensive, it is morality that is mistaken, not the Quran.
The mutazilites are inclined to find an interpretation of the Quran that accords with what natural law teaches. This is because they believe that there is an objective moral order to the universe and that this is discoverable through reason. That is why the mutazilities are called rationalists.
Because these are febrile questions of religious interpretation and philosophy, and apt to foment divisive and emotional effects on believers - Voltaire advised that discussion of complex religious questions be held behind closed doors and out of the hearing of servants - Muslim thinkers approach them with circumspection.
Now and then, one or the other of them saunters on to the turf and inevitable detonations ensue.
Last Sunday, Kassim Ahmad walked into a blast-prone area and set off subversive ripples of resonance. He is likely to enjoy immunity because he did it at the Perdana Leadership Foundation
Last year about this time, Ibrahim Ali (right) escaped a sedition rap for threatening to burn bibles after Mahathir offered extenuations on the Perkasa chief’s behalf, following former attorney-general Abu Talib Othman’s admonishing incumbent AG Abdul Gani Patail against dilly-dallying on pressing charges.
This time round, Mahathir’s extenuations on behalf of Kassim are likely to have intellectually more beneficent uses.
The irony is that Kassim - like the man he detests, Anwar Ibrahim - is not likely to think much of the argument that the term ‘Allah’ ought to be the exclusive preserve of peninsula Muslims; more certainly, he will laugh Mahathir’s reservation of the term for peninsula Malays, to scorn.
Not just politics, religion, too, makes for strange bedfellows.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
Consider thinker Kassim Ahmad’s ties to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad - on Islamic exegesis, the two are birds of a feather.
This is best understood in the context of Voltaire’s famous criticism of Christian belief and practice at the onset of the Enlightenment in the 18th century - that incantations can kill a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.
In other words, faith should not be blind and unexamined beliefs are for bovines, not homo-sapiens.
In 1986, Kassim published a book - ‘Hadis: Satu Penilaian Semula(Hadith: A Reappraisal)’ - that espoused a subversive idea.
This was that certain bases of Islamic practice and belief cannot sustain critical scrutiny. The book proposed the Quran as sole basis for sound Muslim belief and best practices.
That view Kassim reiterated to a conference which reviewed his thought held last Sunday at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, a think-tank associated with Mahathir (right). The former premier officiated at the conference’s opening and days later, after controversy flared over what Kassim had said, allowed that Kassim was a thinker whose opinions are easily misunderstood.
Like the publication of his book 28 years ago, Kassim’s latest musings have caused a furore. Its magnitude can be gauged in the days to come as Islamic authorities mull action against him.
It’s a safe bet, though, that none of them will take him on in a debate because they know that Kassim is a formidable foe to joust with; he will not easily recant his views.
Kassim blames Anwar Ibrahim - then education minister in the mid-1980s - for squelching the debate that ‘Hadis’ was obviously intended to provoke.
Till today, Kassim nurses an enduring antipathy towards Anwar for the turn of events following publication of Kassim’s book in early 1986.
The ironies in history
Although all this occurred 28 years ago, the passage of decades has not had a becalming effect on the visceral feelings the controversy evoked at that time.
As recently as the middle of 2012, Kassim remained choleric at the mention of Anwar’s name, denouncing the Pakatan Rakyat leader with a vituperation that was ugly to behold.
It is not clear that Anwar had anything to do with the banning of Kassim’s book or with foreclosure of the debate.
What’s less incontestable is that had the book not been banned, matters to do with Islamic thought and understanding in Malaysia would plausibly have transcended the present moment where some peninsula Muslim Malaysians insist that the term ‘Allah’ is exclusive to them.
In one of those ironies in which history abounds, in the debate over the ‘Allah’ issue, Anwar (left) is not opposed to non-Muslim use of the term - provided it is not abused - whereas Mahathir is for prohibition of the term to non-Muslims.Kassim’s position on the issue is not known, but judging from what can be deduced of the man’s intellect, it would be a huge surprise if he agreed with Mahathir’s stance.
There is a strong strain of the iconoclast in Kassim, evident from half a century ago when he suggested that Malay folklore was wrong to view Hang Tuah as a hero because the real hero was Tuah’s friend, Hang Jebat, whom Tuah had killed.
Because of his tendency to examine the received wisdom on a subject, it wasn’t surprising that Kassim, who tuned 80 last September, gave vent at last Sunday’s conference to views that were even more controversial than the ones he aired in his 1986 work.
In what was purported to be his final testament - rendered at the conference themed ‘Thoughts of Kassim Ahmad: A Review’ - the man who started his intellectual journey as a cultural iconoclast and doctrinaire socialist, invited Muslims to return to the teachings of the Islamic faith as revealed in the Quran.
He said that believers would find Quranic teachings to be cognate with natural law (undang-undang alamiah).
Kassim also espoused the view that Muslims do not need, like he claimed Christians did, a “priestly caste” to know what God commands of them and to perceive those commands’ consonance with what natural law tells them.
He argued that the female practice of wearing a headscarf was a wrong interpretation of the Quranic stricture against bodily exposure, claiming that hair on a woman’s head is not included in the ‘aurat’ that is required by the Quran to be covered. He said that head hair must be aired for health (natural law) reasons.
An interesting tack to take
Thus, he took an example from nature to elucidate a Quranic teaching, demonstrating in the process the supposed truth of his argument that sound interpretation of Quranic revelation would necessarily be found to be compatible with what natural law teaches.
This is an interesting tack to take and is at variance to the asharite (God is power/God is will) school of Islamic thought. The asharite has been the dominant school since the 12th century when it gained the upper hand over the mutazilite (God is also reason) school of Islamic interpretation.
Since the victory of the asharite school, Islam’s answer to what is called “the Socratic puzzle” has been emphatic.
But, pray, what is the Socratic puzzle?
It is a question that is so abstruse, it gives philosophy a bad name: Is a good action good because it is approved by God? Or is it approved by God because it is good?
In other words, do the categories of good and evil, right and wrong, have an existence independent of the divine will?
To this, the answer of the asharite school is: An action is good because it is approved by Allah.The asharites hold that there is no independent criterion of morality outside the will of Allah. And since the Quran is an absolutely literal and accurate account of that will - indeed in a deep sense, the Quran itself actually incarnates that will - there is no independent criterion of morality outside the text of the Quran.
In other words, if the Quran says something that seems morally offensive, it is morality that is mistaken, not the Quran.
The mutazilites are inclined to find an interpretation of the Quran that accords with what natural law teaches. This is because they believe that there is an objective moral order to the universe and that this is discoverable through reason. That is why the mutazilities are called rationalists.
Because these are febrile questions of religious interpretation and philosophy, and apt to foment divisive and emotional effects on believers - Voltaire advised that discussion of complex religious questions be held behind closed doors and out of the hearing of servants - Muslim thinkers approach them with circumspection.
Now and then, one or the other of them saunters on to the turf and inevitable detonations ensue.
Last Sunday, Kassim Ahmad walked into a blast-prone area and set off subversive ripples of resonance. He is likely to enjoy immunity because he did it at the Perdana Leadership Foundation
Last year about this time, Ibrahim Ali (right) escaped a sedition rap for threatening to burn bibles after Mahathir offered extenuations on the Perkasa chief’s behalf, following former attorney-general Abu Talib Othman’s admonishing incumbent AG Abdul Gani Patail against dilly-dallying on pressing charges.This time round, Mahathir’s extenuations on behalf of Kassim are likely to have intellectually more beneficent uses.
The irony is that Kassim - like the man he detests, Anwar Ibrahim - is not likely to think much of the argument that the term ‘Allah’ ought to be the exclusive preserve of peninsula Muslims; more certainly, he will laugh Mahathir’s reservation of the term for peninsula Malays, to scorn.
Not just politics, religion, too, makes for strange bedfellows.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.
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