Changing times: In the post-colonial period, a huge portion of the Muslim
populace has chosen to re-assert what it perceives as its Muslim identity via
attire, food, laws and so on. — AP
This is an edited version of an essay published in Chandra Muzaffar's Rights, Religion and Reform.
What is Hudud?
This is an edited version of an essay published in Chandra Muzaffar's Rights, Religion and Reform.
Books and Essays
What is Hudud?
Hudud (Arabic:
حدود Ḥudūd, also transliterated hadud, hudood; singular hadd, حد, literal meaning
"limit", or "restriction") is an Islamic concept:
punishments which under Islamic law (Shariah) are mandated and fixed by God.
The Shariah divided offenses into those against God and those against man…read more>>>
I had noted that the ideology of Malay supremacy is the single most critical issue
affecting Malaysia. The Malay supremacy ideology was always morphed with
Islamic supremacy. In recent years, with the split in the Malay community
becoming a significant permanent feature, the debate has shifted away from the
Malay race to the Islamic religion…
Introduction. Hudud in Malaysia: The Issue in Stake is chosen for
our book review
The theology essay below
has been submitted to us by a student in order to help you ... Hudud Laws
are the deterrent penalties prescribed by Syariah laws for...
Police, Robbers and Hudud
Four robbers shot dead, one on the loose in Kajang [VIDEO]
KAJANG: Police shot dead four suspected robbers at the Sekamat River near the Sungai Long Toll Plaza at the Kajang Silk Highway, this morning. The 6.15am incident happened a few hours after the suspects, together with another accomplice still on the loose, broke into a house in Taman Saujana Impian a few kilometres away...
Police, Robbers and Hudud
Four robbers shot dead, one on the loose in Kajang [VIDEO]
KAJANG: Police shot dead four suspected robbers at the Sekamat River near the Sungai Long Toll Plaza at the Kajang Silk Highway, this morning. The 6.15am incident happened a few hours after the suspects, together with another accomplice still on the loose, broke into a house in Taman Saujana Impian a few kilometres away...
THE proponents
of hudud laws have created the erroneous impression that hudud laws are central
to Islam, that they define the character and identity of an Islamic state and
society.
If we examined
the growth and spread of Islam, how Islamic civilisation sustained its dynamic
spirit for centuries, and what led to its eventual decline, we get a different
picture of the role of hudud in the religion.
The spread of
Islam from Spain to China within one hundred years of Prophet Muhammad’s death
more rapid than the spread of any other religion in history was not due to some
inherent attraction to hudud laws. Islam came as a liberator to all sorts of
people suffering from oppression and persecution.
This was how the
religion was perceived by the Persians, for instance, just as it brought a measure
of equality to the Egyptians who for centuries had been groaning under the
yoke of unjust social structures maintained by the Greeks and Romans.
Or, in the words
of H.G. Wells, “Islam prevailed because it was the best social and political
order the times could offer. It prevailed because everywhere it found politically
apathetic peoples, robbed, oppressed, bullied, uneducated and unorganised and
it found selfish and unsound governments out of touch with any people at all.
It was the broadest, freshest and cleanest political idea that had yet come
into actual activity in the world and it offered better terms than any other to
the masses of mankind.”
It was primarily
because of what it did for human dignity and social justice that Islam
flourished as a great world civilisation between the eighth and fourteenth
centuries.
There was,
however, another reason too. A vast corpus of knowledge applied to commerce
and the economy, science and education, the military and administration gave
Islamic civilisation the strength and resilience to withstand various trials
and tribulations. Hudud, understood today as modes of punishment associated
with criminal law, cannot claim to have helped preserve the quintessence of
Islamic civilisation.
Even the decline
of Islamic civilisation has no direct or indirect link to the observance or
non-observance of hudud laws.
As distinguished
Muslim thinkers like Shah Waliullah have pointed out, elite corruption and
oppression, apart from the devastation wrought by external invasions, were
largely responsible for the downfall of Muslim empires in history.
It is worth
noting that most of these empires and kingdoms faithfully carried out hudud
ordinances. In fact, there are a few examples of Muslim regimes today which
adhere strictly to hudud and yet their people remain trapped in poverty,
ignorance and ill health.
One of these
hudud oriented societies in West Asia has an incredibly high rate of
illiteracy, in spite of its huge oil revenue. It is also totally autocratic,
does not even observe minimal public accountability and denies the ordinary
people any form of participation in government. The ills of this and other
Muslim societies cannot be overcome through the mere imposition of hudud laws.
Though it is
only too obvious that the colossal challenges confronting most Muslim
societies today cannot be resolved through the promulgation of hudud ordinances,
a significant segment of the ulama continues to believe that allegiance to
these laws demonstrates fidelity to the faith.
This is why they
are even prepared to label as murtad (apostates) those who question the relevance of hudud to the eternal
Islamic mission of protecting human dignity and promoting social justice.
Before we try to
understand this attitude of some contemporary ulama, it is important to
emphasise that by questioning the relevance of the modes of punishment prescribed
in hudud one is not challenging the notion of right and wrong that underpins
Islamic law or the Syariah.
For a Muslim,
murder or theft or adultery or consuming liquor would always remain morally reprehensible.
Preserving and protecting the basic moral structure of the Quran embodied in
its eternal values and principles is essential to the defence of Islam’s
fundamental ethical foundation and framework.
Muslim reformers
who regard various types of punishment in hudud ordinances as contextual have
never been known to raise doubts about the validity and the authenticity of
Quranic values and principles.
Indeed, some of them
would even argue that the obsession with meting out punishment in hudud
legislation in various Muslim countries today is inimical to the spirit of
encouraging the wrongdoer to repent and reform which is germane to the Quran
and the example of the Prophet (the Sunnah).
After all, hudud
itself is essentially a reminder to the human being of the importance of
observing certain boundaries, certain restraints, in one’s personal and social
conduct. It is a way of persuading the human being to function within a moral
realm.
Hudud, in its
philosophical sense, is not a rigid, dogmatic set of rules and regulations.
Unfortunately,
an important section of contemporary ulama do not see hudud or Islamic law
from this perspective. The vast
majority, whatever their sect or inclination, adopt a legalistic,
traditionalist approach to Islam.
Laws - not
universal values or eternal principles - in their opinion embody the sanctity
of the religion.
It explains why
laws - though only about 300 out of 6,666 verses in the Quran deal with various
types of laws - are given so much prominence in the writings of the ulama. By
overemphasising laws, the ulama, who alone exercise authority over
interpretation, enhance their own power.
It is a power
derived to a great extent from their role as the custodians of the whole
tradition of Islamic law. And, in applying the Syariah to the contemporary
situation, the ulama invariably adopt an unthinking, uncritical approach.
Consequentiy,
the Syariah in its entirety, and not just its Quranic root, is seen as divine
and sacred.
Indeed, there
are rules and regulations in the Syariah, including some pertaining to the
hudud, which are not in consonance with either the letter or the spirit of the
Quran.
For instance,
the Quran does not prescribe any specific punishment for sukr (intoxication) but hudud
laws do. Similarly, the Quran does not lay out any punishment for apostasy,
though it condemns it in the strongest terms. In hudud, it is punishable by
death.
It is
significant that most Muslims today accept these hudud punishments as divinely
ordained. It goes to show that in reality, legalist, traditionalist Islam has
a more powerful grip upon the Muslim mind than the Quran itself.
This is not an
accident. It is a product of both history and contemporary developments. As
the compassion and egalitarianism of early Islam slowly declined,
Muslim rulers
sought to legitimise their power through the manipulation of Islamic forms,
symbols and laws.
Very often; the
ulama who served these rulers helped to but tress the latter’s authority by formulating
harsher modes of punishment for certain crimes or by providing more rigid
interpretations to existing laws which often went beyond what the Quran, the
primary source of legislation in Islam, and the Sunnah, its ancillary source,
had intended in the first place. Consequently, a certain rigidity began to
develop vis-a-vis the Syariah and public administration.
The situation
was exacerbated by a catastrophic event which has had a profound impact upon
the entire development of Islamic civilisation after the thirteenth century.
This was the
wanton destruction of Baghdad in 1258 by the Tartars led by Hulagu Khan.
Baghdad was not only the greatest centre of learning in the Muslim world. In
its time, it was undoubtedly a beacon of knowledge for the whole world. It was
not just Baghdad which was destroyed; the Tartars, in an earlier wave of
attacks, had annihilated other illustrious centres of art, culture and
learning like Bukhara, Khwarizm, Samarkand, Balkh, Merv and Nishapur.
As a result of
these invasions which “shook the world of Islam to its very foundations,” a
conservative mood took root within Muslim communities in that part of the
world. Because they had lost so much of their intellectual and cultural
heritage, they were determined to preserve and protect what was left. They
became afraid of reform and change. They were reluctant to question the wisdom
of certain laws in the Syariah formulated by their ulama.
Another major
setback occurred a few centuries later. The colonisation of almost the entire
Muslim world by Western powers starting from the sixteenth century onwards,
further strengthened the conservative trend within the religion.
Having lost
control over their lands and their destinies, Muslims became very cautious
towards ideas and practices from alien sources which might erode their
collective identity as a religious community.
This fear of
losing their identity has become even more pronounced in the post-colonial
period. It is a fear which is not without justification. For Western domination
and control of Muslim societies continues unabated.
Indeed, Western
cultural and psychological penetration of Muslim and other non-Western
societies today is so much deeper than what it was at the height of
colonialism.
A huge portion
of the Muslim populace has chosen to respond to the challenge by re-asserting
what it perceives as its Muslim identity via attire, food, laws and so on.
Adhering strictly to hudud and Syariah as they had evolved in the early
centuries of Islam is part of this re-assertion.
While it is
important to re-assert one’s identity as a way of protecting Muslim autonomy
and independence, it does not follow that this should lead to an unthinking,
uncritical acceptance of each and every aspect of hudud and Syariah.
Such an attitude
will be disastrous for the Muslim community. For there are elements in the
Syariah connected with basic human rights, the roles and rights of women, the
rights of non-Muslim minorities and international relations which have to be
reappraised in order to bring them into some harmony with the eternal,
universal Quranic commitment to human dignity and social justice.
Hudud laws and
other aspects of criminal justice should also be seen in that light.
This is a
position which has been taken by some of the most outstanding thinkers in
Islam.
Shah Waliullah,
for instance, argued that “every age must seek its own interpretation of the
Quran and the traditions”. He believed that “one of the major causes of Muslim
decay was rigid conformity to interpretations made in other ages”.
Another recent
thinker, the late Fazlur Rahman, pointed out, “To insist on literal
interpretation of the rules of the Quran, shutting one’s eyes to the social
change that has occurred and that is so palpably occurring before our eyes, is
tantamount to deliberately defeating its moral-social purpose and objectives.
It is just as though, in view of the Quranic emphasis on freeing slaves, one
were to insist on preserving the institution of slavery so that one could earn
merit in the sight of God by freeing slaves. Surely the whole tenor of the
teaching of the Quran is that there should be no slavery at all.”
It is this sort
of fundamental re-thinking that is urgently needed in the Muslim world today. Chandra Muzaffar.
Source: Sunday Star/Focus/29 May 2016 / page 20
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