The term “Shariah” evokes
bad memories among its victims as well as opponents who want the abolition or
drastic reforms of this Draconian code. Our experience tells us that Shariah is
inherently prejudicial to women, non-Muslims and freethinkers and that its
language, spirit and above all, execution, go against the spirit, ideals and teaching
of Islam as one finds in the Quran.
However, ironically the
mullahs or the various categories of Muslim clerics who are supposed to be the
upholders of the ideals of Islam, the religion of peace and tolerance, have
been the main promoters and defenders of Shariah which stands in contravention
of human rights, decency and civilized behaviour.
Another hindrance towards
the process of reformation of the
Shariah (if not its total abrogation) is the immoderate views of many
practicing and non-practicing Muslims who simply endorse the views of the
backward-looking mullah who mostly cite the Hadises ( “Sayings” of the Prophet)
and books of Fiqh (Muslim
jurisprudence) to justify the oppressive Shariah.
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| Sharia Hanging Ayatollah Style in Iran slowly stretches the victim's neck and poor woman in the photo lasted almost 6 hours. |
The Muslim community in general and that of Bangladesh in particular can replace this absurd, outdated un-Islamic code of Shariah with a liberal and modern one only through collective efforts of the members of the civil society, human rights groups, intellectuals and politicians belonging to both the Islamic and secular groups.
They need to educate both the mullahs and ordinary Muslims with regard to the obscurantist aspects of the
Shariah. The core of the problem is political. So, only social reformist agenda
by a few cultural groups will not be able to bell the cat.
Most importantly,
slanderous, Islam bashing writing and activists like Taslima Nasrin and others
with a built-in prejudice against Islam combined with their abysmal ignorance
about religion, history and culture of the people concerned are as counter-productive
as the close-minded mullahs in this regard.
Brief History and
Background:
Although apparently Bangladesh came into being in the name of Bengali
nationalism and secularism, the country has retained its Muslim/Islamic
character for the obvious reasons. Firstly, it is the third largest Muslim
country after Indonesia and Pakistan.
Secondly, those who believe
and promote the primordiality of the Muslim/Islamic identity for the country
also argue that a) the emergence of Bangladesh did not signal the death of the
“two-nation-theory” as the Muslim majority East Pakistan, for various reasons,
emerged with a new name as an independent country; and that b) “secularism” was
never a raison d’etre for the Liberation Struggle of 1971.
Not only “pro-Pakistani
elements” but many leading pro-Bangladeshis also hold similar views. It is
noteworthy that while the late Abul Mansur Ahmed, a leading pro-Bangladeshi
figure, portrayed the emergence of Bangladesh as the late realization of the
“Lahore Resolution” (of 1940 for separate Muslim states in the Subcontinent),
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his first public speech in independent Bangladesh in
1972 proudly asserted that Bangladesh was the second largest “Muslim country”
in the world.
In view of the above, it is
hardly surprising that Bangladesh has retained its Muslim/Islamic
character and of late has re-asserted its Muslim/Islamic identity by
incorporating Islam as the “state religion” through an amendment of the
Constitution.
This politically motivated,
opportunistic legislation of 1988 by military dictator General Ershad has
remained intact under the post-military oligarchs of the country. The pervasive
influence of Islam culturally, socially and politically has remained intact and
has been rather gaining ground in Bangladesh in the recent years.
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| Sharia manual for cutting right hand and left foot. |
This essay is, however, an
attempt to go beyond economics and politics to explain the prevalent influence
of the Shariah and mullahs on the bulk of the Bengali Muslims.
This is, in short, an
attempt to explain the influence of Islam on the Bangladeshi Muslim psyche in
terms of the psychohistory of the people.
Contrary to the popular
belief, the mass conversion process of Bengalis into Muslims in the medieval
period was neither initiated by the Muslim rulers nor had the people who got
converted primarily been the low caste Hindus. The bulk of the converts came
from the persecuted and marginalized non-Hindus, some Buddhist and mostly
tribal.
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| Victims of Sharia hand & feet chopping punishments. |
The Sufis, so goes the
theory, not only helped the indigenous tribesmen fight wild animals, especially
tigers, but also taught them the use of plough and bullocks and simultaneously
introduced Islam highlighting the concept of an almighty God or Allah, said to
be much more powerful than the hitherto worshipped gods and goddesses.
The process of reclaiming
forests and driving away wild animals in the newly reclaimed southeastern
Bengal under the Turco-Persian Sufi leadership under the Mughal patronage
exposed Bengali Muslims and the new converts to the “great traditions” [to
paraphrase Robert Redfield] of Islam as well as Sufism. However, the history of
mass conversion of Bengalis is also replete with stories of supernatural power
and “miracles” of the Sufis.
Consequently one may argue
that Islamizaion of lower Bengal was more due to the “miracles” and the
sincere support that Sufis lent to the helpless Bengali cultivators against
natural calamities and extortionist Hindu rulers and landlords than due to the
spiritual superiority of Islam.
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| Sharia flogging for beer drinking. |
Both the evangelical and
“warrior Sufis” (Shah Jalal, Khan Jahan and many others) and Mughal civil and
military officials promoted the Shariah-based “great traditions” of Islam in
the region. The British also retained the Shariah as the basis of Muslim
personal/family law to avoid further complications and confrontation with the
orthodox Muslims.
However, the so-called
“great traditions” or the Shariah-oriented Islam in South Asia, including
Bengal, actually incorporated thousands
of pre-Islamic “little traditions” of the
Middle East and Central Asia.
These post-Prophet
accretions, superstitions and both the non- and un-Islamic rituals, customs and
laws are collectively known as the Shariah law. Under the influence of the ulama (theologians), Muslims globally
believe that Shariah is in
accordance with the teachings of the Quran and the Holy Prophet.
Now, to understand the
nature of Shariah and the surrounding myth about its divinity and
inseparability from the Quran or scripture (“great traditions”) we need to know
its origin and growth during the last 1,000-odd years, including its
overpowering and malevolent effects, especially on women, minorities and Muslim
free-thinkers.
What is Shariah?
The proponents of Shariah assert
that there is no scope of further investigation or re-interpretation of the
Quranic texts and the Hadis literature. In short, Shariah is the combination of
legal opinions of Muslim jurists (Muftis and Faqihs) sought and enforced by
medieval Muslim rulers.
Thus
the main sources of Shariah
are: The Quran; Hadises or
the so-called and actual sayings of the Prophet; Fiqh or Muslim jurisprudence based on the
individual and/or collective opinions of jurists (Qiyas and Ijma,
respectively); local customs and traditions and common sense.
Since there are only around eighty-odd Quranic verses which
are regulative or prescriptive, the thousands of Shariah regulations are
obviously based on thousands of spurious Hadises and legal opinions of the
pre-modern Sunni and Shia jurists during the 8th and 11th centuries.
Since we know about the poor
quality of most Hadises with regard to their authenticity and the low level of
intellectual capacity of the medieval Hadis
collectors, including Imams Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmizi and Abu Dawood and Muslim
scholars and jurists like Abu
Hanifa, Hanbal, Shafi, Malik and
(even the great philosopher, Imam
Ghazzali), we have every reason to shudder at the very idea of accepting the
infallibility of the so-called Hadis and Fiqh-based Shariah considering it as
sacred as the Holy Quran.
A brief history of Shariah
requires a re-appraisal of the history of Hadis collection. Although the
collection process started during the life time of the Prophet and immediately
after his death, a systematic albeit unscientific collection process started
around two hundred years after the death of the Prophet.
From
its absurdity to abysmal vulgarity, unscientific crudeness, the Hadis
literature is full of contradictions, lies and concoctions to justify anything
that suits the caprice of unrefined
kings and nobles, debauch
husbands and womanizers, polygamists, rapists and child abusers, dictators,
ruthless murderers and slave owners.
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| Sharia nose removal for getting raped. |
One may forgive Imam
Bukhari’s lapses and limitations but there is no justification in accepting all
of these “Sahih Hadises” as the sayings of the Prophet ignoring their
vulgarity, contradictions and anti-Quranic expositions.
The
Hadis literature is full of vulgar, pornographic and totally unnecessary
narrations about the Holy
Prophet’s methods of cleaning himself after copulation, his sexual prowess,
said to be “equivalent to the virility of forty young and healthy men”.
We also find in these “Sahih
Hadises of Bukhari Shareef ”and in the collections by Muslim, Tirmizi and
others how Eve (Hawwa) was created from a rib of Adam; why wives should
prostrate before their husbands; how dogs, donkeys, horses and women belong to
the same category and hundreds of other
narratives which contradict the Quran, history, science, nature and common
sense.
They are also unjust and
humiliating for women, non-Arabs and non-Muslims. It is interesting that while
the “Rib Story” about the creation of Eve is a pre-Islamic, Biblical myth and is not mentioned in the Quran,
other pejorative expressions about women and non-Muslims, quite common in the
Hadis literature and Shariah, also do not exist in the Quran.
While
polygamy is very restrictive and conditional in the Quran (only the war widows
and orphan girls in the wake of the Battle of Wuhud were allowed to be married,
“two, three or four” at a time by Muslim men), the Hadises and the Shariah law
have not only justified polygamy but also the pre-Islamic institutions of
harem, concubinage, temporary marriage or Mutah (according to the Shiite
Shariah), veiling of women, castrating of slaves and among other vices, the
subjugation of women in every sphere of life.
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| Sharia Stoning of infidels. |
The early Abbasid rulers
ruthlessly persecuted many
leading Muslim jurists on charges of heresy, although most jurists justified
absolute monarchy and other vices associated with it in the name of Shariah.
The subservient jurists
virtually created two sets of Shariah law and principles, one for the ruling
classes and another for the masses. Under the aegis of these opportunist
jurists, women, slaves and non-Muslims suffered most.
Due to the double standards
of Muslim rulers and their subservient ulama/jurists it appears that what the
Quran has given to women and non-Muslims has conveniently taken away by the
Shariah.
The evil of Shariah became
most apparent during the ruthlessly autocratic Ottoman Turkish rule
(1280-1922).
Later Indian Muslim sultans
also introduced Shariah for their Muslim subjects.
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| Sharia Stoning Death. |
This resulted in the
publication of themagnum opus of
Shariah in the
Subcontinent, the famous or infamous Fatawah-i-Alamgiri.
This collection of Shariah laws dating from the early Abbasid period is the
standard source of Muslim law for the Sunni Muslims of the Subcontinent,
including Bangladesh .
Further elaboration of the
evil of Shariah and its anti-Islamic spirit and role reveals that it virtually
stands against the Quran by
placing a parallel theology, ethics and law in total contravention of Islam. We
may cite a few examples to prove our assertion:
1) While the Quran
prescribes 80 lashes as punishment for adultery, the Shariah
sanctions stoning to death for
both the adulterer and adulteress ( Stoning to death is a Jewish custom, once
applied by the Prophet as a mode of punishment for a Jewish man and woman in
accordance with their law in the nascent Jewish-Muslim state of Medina.);
2) While there is no death
penalty for apostasy in the Quran for renouncing Islam, the Shariah is very strict about
enforcing the death penalty for the apostate or Murtad (the proponents of this
harsh view might have been misled by the first Caliph Abu Bakr’s declaring holy
war against the apostates of Arabia who revolted and challenged the
Medina-based nascent state of the
early Muslims after the death of the Prophet);
3) While the Quran
stipulates equal status for men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims in the eyes
of Allah, the Shariah under the influence of spurious Hadises deviates from the Quranic injunctions
in this regard.
One may cite hundreds of
such violations of the spirit and prescribed Quranic code through Shariah. A
reappraisal of the mullah (his psyche, background and limitations) and the
mullah-elite and mullah-mass nexuses is required for a proper comprehension of
the problem.
Mullah and His Mindset:
As a class they represent
politically subservient, economically dependent (and not-so-wealthy and even
poor) and socially subservient but influential groups of people.
Their subservience and
dependence on the polity, especially since the disappearance of Muslim
dynasties in most Muslim countries during the colonial and post-colonial
periods (18th-20thcenturies), have turned them into angry
bigots vying for the restoration of their lost glory, power and influence under
Muslim empires and kingdoms.
The
mullah is perpetually unhappy with modernism as he rightly apprehends it will
eventually hammer the last nail into the coffin of mullahcracy.
Although “pragmatic” mullahs
collaborated with pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial cruel and corrupt
autocracies, justifying rulers like Yazid, Sultan Mahmud, Timur Lang,
Aurangzeb, British colonial masters, Yahya Khan, General Zia ul Haq, Saddam Hussein, General Ershad, General Suharto
and many others as “Islamic”, but simultaneously asserted their rights to
interpret the Shariah, for the obvious reason.
By legitimizing autocracy
they legitimize their privileged position in the polity. The mullahs are the
first ones to raise the “Islam-in-danger” slogan as they have successfully
drawn the synonymity between Islam and themselves.
In
short, they do not mind legitimizing autocracy, slavery, harem, polygamy,
concubinage and even genocide and terrorism provided there is give-and-take
between themselves and their patrons.
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| Sharia hanging for girls/women not covering up. |
Although the socially
conservative mullahs could be politically radical, as it happened during the 19th and early 20th centuries in British India , they nevertheless remain backward
looking and reactionary, as we know, the vast majority of Bengali mullahs
collaborated with the Pakistani military during the Liberation War of
Bangladesh.
Their lack of liberal
education and employability in lucrative jobs are also responsible for their
apprehensive, vacillating and opportunistic nature. What they learn in the madrassah, both in the old and the “modern” ones,
is simply unbelievable.
The
primitive madrassah system follows the thousand-odd-year
old curricula devoid of any modern sciences (natural or social). Geography,
history, sociology, economics, anthropology or psychology is simply beyond
their comprehension. They even have no idea about other religions.
The
only thing they know/believe that all the roots of knowledge are there in the
Holy Quran and that the followers of all the other religions will go to hell
(contrary to what the Quran tells us in the Surah Baqara, Chapter 2).
Most madrassah graduates, including the Shaykhul
Hadises or Muhaddises (Hadis scholars) and Fiqh scholars in Bangladesh cannot even converse in standard
Bengali. They only know some pidgin Bengali,
Urdu and Arabic.
The highest educated madrassah graduate has very sketchy to no idea
about the history of Bangladesh (let alone world history), politics
and economics.
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| Sharia slaughter of cattle inside a mosque/madrassa. |
Their
lack of exposure to liberal
education - the study of modern history, philosophy, logic and literature- has
turned them into extremely intolerant and angry people. Their anger, immoderate
views and megalomaniac attitude also reflect their inherent inferiority complex
vis-Ã -vis the modern/Western educated people, members of the rich and powerful
elite classes.
Hence
the emphasis on Shariah-oriented education and government so that the mullah
remain politically important and socially influential.
It would be too trite a postulate to assume that
only the Bangladeshi mullahs, including the “highly educated” ones, are the
only remnants of rusticity and obscurantism, but their counterparts in
Pakistan, India, Egypt, Afghanistan and elsewhere are also equally, if not
more, ignorant , intolerant and arrogant.
While
Maulana Delwar Hussein Saidi, one of the most well-known mullahs of Bangladesh , compares women with fruits and
animals in his public speeches, the late Sheikh Jadd al-Haq of the Al-Azhar University in one of his public statements in
1999 (quoted by the BBC) justified female genital mutilation or “female
circumcision” as Islamic and antidotal
to HIV (AIDS) infection. We know he was wrong on both counts.
The cruel genital mutilation
is a pre-Islamic Ethiopian and central African custom (practiced by Muslims,
Christians, Jews and animists in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa, west Asia and Southeast Asia ) and has nothing to do with Islam.
And we know that this cruel practice cannot save women from AIDS.
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| Children being chained together in a Madrassa in Bangladesh. |
What Should be Done:
Without giving more details
about the rusticity of the mullah, we may suggest the remedy as to how to
contain the mullah, curtail the influence of the overpowering Shariah and
motivate the civil society, political parties, civil and military bureaucracy,
students and intellectuals, peasants and working classes, including women, to
do something positive in this regard.
The educated, rich and
powerful sections of society
must call the shots. They must put their foot down and assert firmly that
neither the Shariah nor its main proponents, the mullahs, have any locus standi to interfere in the running of the
state and in the religious affairs of the Muslims.
They
must also assert that as the Shariah contradicts the Quran and so does the
Hadis literature to a great extent, so they are dispensable. We must assert
that to remain a good faithful Muslim, one does not have to believe in Hadis
literature and Shariah. One has to believe in six things to remain Muslim and
the Hadis is not one of them.
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| A mindless Quran reciting madrassa in Pakistan. |
For the sake of uniformity
and justice for the women and other weaker sections of society, the bulk of the Hadis
literature should be banned for its anti-Islamic and blasphemous contents
denigrating the Holy Prophet and the Quran.
Muslim intellectuals and
members of the civil society in alliance with all the secular/liberal political
parties and the enlightened sections of theulama should come forward with the argument
that since there is no priesthood in Islam, no Shaykhul Hadis or Maulana, let
alone the half-educated mullahs, should be allowed to arrogate the sole
authority of interpreting the Quran and the authentic sayings of the Prophet.
Any practicing Muslim social scientist
should be considered a member of the ulama,
entitled to interpret the Quranic texts in accordance with the need of the 21st century, not the 8th or 11th centuries.
The civil society, political parties and the government should come forward in support of egalitarian and just family law to give equal shares of property to the female family members and prohibit polygamy once for all.
Bangladeshi Muslims across
the board should support the government move to allow women to seek divorce
when they find it impossible to live with their husbands any longer, in
accordance with the Quran.
Unless
the unholy nexus between greedy Muslim men and the self-styled custodians of
Islam (the mullah) who resort to the Shariah to deprive the Muslim women from
their rights, forcing them to wear the hijab,
turning them out of the mosque and accepting the husband’s right to marry two,
three or four women at a time, there is no way out of the iron grip of the
Shariah and its obscurantist supporters among the mullah and other ignorant
Muslims.
We must stop the ignorant
mullah from giving speeches violating any injunction of the Quran or justifying
something as Islamic by citing conveniently some Hadis or Fiqh as their source.
They must not be given a
free rein on Eid and Friday congregations and should be strictly monitored by
the law enforcing agencies so that they do not publish or narrate things over
TV, Radio or in any public forum contrary to the teachings of the Quran and
against minorities and liberal/freethinking Muslims.
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| Madrassa-based education? |
Most of these books written
by various mullahs are pornographic and blasphemous to Islam. They represent
the popular Islam or the “little traditions” heavily influenced by Tantric
Hinduism, Baul cult and other local non-Islamic beliefs and traditions.
Finally, educated
Bangladeshi Muslims should stop the mullahs whenever they start narrating fairy
tales and absurd stories in the name of Islam and its Prophet in public forums
and mosques.
If the educated and powerful members of
society continue to protect the mullahs out of compassion and respect for their
“piety and knowledge”, then there is no way out of the quagmire of Shariah and
the evil influence of the rustic, syncretistic mullahs who promote pre- and
un-Islamic alien cults and belief systems in the name of Islam.
In
fact the mullahs (with a very few exceptions) are polluting the society as well
as Islam. Since the mullahs can be very vicious, as we experienced in 1971
during the Liberation War, we should be also very firm and united in our
resistance to mullahcracy. The mullahs only understand the
language of coercion.
They flourish most under
rulers like Aurangzeb, Zia ul-Haq and Ershad and are contained as mere
subservient clerics under bold and decisive rulers
like Akber, Jahangir, Jinnah, Sukarno and Mahathir Muhammad.
The moment a ruling class or
a party in power tries to coax the mullah to contain its political adversaries
or to legitimize its rule, the mullah sits on its head and “Islamize” the
polity to the detriment of secularism, liberal democracy and human rights.
We must make people
understand that neither the mullah nor his Hadis and Fiqh are necessary for us
to remain good Muslims. As there is nothing divine about the Shariah so is
there no truth in the mullah’s assertion that they are the naib-i-rasool or lieutenants of the Prophet of
Islam. A Muslim does not need any intermediaries to reach God and His Prophet.
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| Egyptian anti-Sharia activist Ahliaa Al-Mahdi protesting at Egyptian embassy in Sweden against Sharia-based new Egyptian Constitution (Dec 2012). |
(Following photo titled "Sharia beheading of Nick Berg" is extremely graphic. Please stop reading if you are under-aged or weak-hearted.)
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| Sharia Sacrifice of animals gives a lot of head-chopping practice to the Muslims. |
