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The stoning law, `wan'ni' and sharia implementation
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Tapol
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Nov 03, 2009 09:05 PST
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From Joyo
The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The stoning law, `wan'ni' and sharia implementation
Jennie S. Bev, San Francisco
Bylaws in Aceh for stoning adulterers to death and 100 lashes
for premarital sex should be nullified as they are not merely
against human rights and unconstitutional, but perpetuate the
myth of inequality and overindulge in the over-virtuousness of
Islam and sharia law.
Failure to nullify them will have grave consequences in which
not only will pluralism be threatened but it will engender an
age of distrust and Indonesia will be thrust back into the Dark
Ages.
The first argument comes from the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in
Islam, in which all human beings have the right to a dignified
life.
The second argument comes from Indonesia's national laws, which
include ratifications of international human rights conventions,
overriding the special autonomy region's bylaws.
The third argument comes from questioning the definition of
"sharia" laws themselves: which ones are Islamic and which ones
are customary. This article tries to reach an understanding of
the third argument.
Fiqh or jurisprudence in Islam is one of the most complicated
studies of all Islamic-related schools. It is also the most
powerful, because those who understand them are likely to be
listened to seriously by society.
In the past, sharia had been seen as a set of rules, in which
was the evolution of legal reasoning, this paradigm is now
acknowledged as a set of social practices and a set of
ever-evolving interpretive processes.
This, however, hasn't been uniformly understood, which has
caused there to be various interpretations, particularly among
the less academic clerics who interpret sharia as "written in
stone because God tells us so."
Certain principles, however, are indeed absolute, such as God as
the source of utmost mercy and compassion. This principle alone
contradicts the so-called "sharia law" implementation, such as
mutilating limbs, lashing, and stoning to death.
That grave wrongdoings require draconian consequences may sound
fair, but it comes with a huge logical fallacy: God has been
belittled as a human being and God's reasoning has been reduced
to a petty human being's.
An example of feudal practice that has been considered as
"Islamic" is the tradition of wan'ni in Pakistan, in which
female family members of a murderer are given away to the
victim's family as a form of restitution.
Islamic scholars have agreed that the practice of wan'ni is
indeed unIslamic as it shifted the notion of "sin" to another
individual, which is both unjust and unfair regardless of one's
gender.
The socialization of wan'ni as a form of gender-related human
rights violation and not as a part of Islamic law has been
attributed to Rubina Bhatti, who was nominated for the 2005
Nobel Peace Prize.
Indonesia recognizes national law, adat law, and Islamic law,
and such acknowledgement creates an environment of possible
conflicts of laws, if both the enactment and the implementation
are not clearly regulated.
At this point, many legal scholars argue that Aceh is a special
autonomy region, which provides it with legal privileges.
While this argument makes some sense, we must see Indonesia as a
whole picture and the puzzles of legal implications and social
consequences at various levels must be taken into account.
So far, the tendency has been the implementation of draconian
measures, which include stoning to death and mutilating of
limbs, attributed to so-called "Islamic laws."
Whether this assumption is valid or not requires an in-depth
investigation of historical, social, customary, and legal
developments.
Here, Islam is more than a religion; it is a framework upon
which elements of an evolving civilization are based. And as a
framework, its elements keep evolving as well. Nothing is
written in stone, only God is ever-present and the most
compassionate.
Thus, adopting draconian inhumane measures for wrongdoings in
various communities, such as stoning to death, giving away
female family members as a restitution of murder, lashing, and
mutilating limbs must not be transplanted to Indonesia simply
because they have been labeled "sharia" by a few past clerics
who resided in various Arab countries.
It is, indeed, a grave fallacy to reduce the human reasoning
capacity to such an oversimplification and reversed dynamic.
While an Islamic society is based on virtue, which is very
noble, it is also expected that critical thinking is given a
strong emphasis.
After all, modernity is not the antonym of nobility and decency,
so one does not contradict the other. Modernity occupies
specific parts of the temporal domain while decency occupies
timelessness.
Abid Ullah Jan, a thinker of the Independent Center for
Strategic Studies and Analyses in Canada said that both Muslims
and non-Muslims are engaged in jihad (struggle), qital (war),
and ijtihad (struggle to reach right conclusion), but any
pseudo-Islamic state that indulges in fiqh alone is likely to
progress to be as the corrupt Taliban.
We certainly do not want Aceh to taint pluralistic Indonesia,
the beacon of the world's moderate Muslims.
The writer is an Indonesian-born author and columnist based in
Northern California. She can be found at JennieSBev.com.
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