Faith matters are beyond reason, but such matters are not unreasonable or non-reasonable. The historic Catholic Church made the original mistake of “declaring by faith ‘that the earth is the centre of the universe’.”
Thereby and thereafter two scientists, Galileo and Copernicus, used their instruments of science to establish and prove that the sun and not the earth was the centre of the universe. Faith lost believers. Finally, another Catholic philosopher, Rene Descartes, argued and established that one can use reason to establish the existence of God. His famous thesis is called ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’.
Faith still lost believers but philosophy recovered some, and the subject as we know it today was born; as the application of reason to contemplate all why and wherefore questions.
Whither morality?
In my last column, I took a detour from my pet thesis and series about ‘1Bangsa of Malaysians’ and began a discourse to simplify and try to explain what I am writing and saying. I concluded with the following sentence, “…we will know for sure that the local governance system in our community is not so common with values, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs. There is then no unity in the commons.”
Please go here to read that last column.
If our common spaces and places are meant for 1Bangsa of Malaysians, how can you dictate to me that I am sitting too close to you, in terms of proximity, especially in public spaces? Can it then be inadvertently right for one Malaysian and wrong for another? Consequently, are we really 1Bangsa of Malaysians? Are we not then by default arguing for a race-based and religion-defined public space morality?
No wonder then that we get ourselves all twisted up in knots arguing that ‘Allah’ is not just an ‘Arabic root word that pre-dates Islam,’ but has now become an Islamic personal and proper name of the one and true Almighty. I presume this one is only a Malay interpretation; and the rest of the world may not agree.
Then also, we allow the abuse of other Malaysians, including organisations, like Borders and now, BFM, to be abused within our public spaces of morality. But, since they (the Islamic authorities) have no locus standi to take on secular organisations, they simply seek to bully individuals who happen to be Muslims by belief, and do it through the force of compulsion of adherence.
The limits of hudud
Wikipedia defines hudud as follows:
Hudud (Arabic: hudud, also transliterated hadud, hudood; singular hadd, literal meaning ‘limit’, or ‘restriction’) is an Islamic concept, based on Quran and Hadiths, that define ‘crimes against God’. These include the religious crimes of adultery, fornication, homosexuality, accusing someone of illicit sex but failing to present four Muslim eye-witnesses, apostasy, consuming intoxicants, transgression, highway robbery and theft.
For those interested in a more nuanced discourse please go to the sites below:
http://meccaaudio.blogspot.com/2013/01/mohammed-abed-al-jabri-avoid-hudud.html
My question is what is the ‘hadd’ of this limit, which Muslims believe, by faith is given by God Almighty. To my mind and heart, there is unfortunately a clear limit in Malaysia but not in ‘Melayusia’. Melayusia is a worldview that is entirely defined by the Malay worldview, inclusive of ‘jins’, ghosts, and other valid ‘pantangs’ or folklore. It is both and mindset and worldview.
Kelantan, which is only one of the nine states of the federation, and one-ninth of the states of peninsular Malaya, but which is only one-third of the Federation of Malaysia has amended their ‘hudud regulations for that state and for Muslims in that state’. Frankly I do not have any serious objections, if I think if it is done only for family and personal matters, and it is well within their allowance under Schedule II of the federal constitution.
But, as it stands, and as currently amended, I think it exceeds the boundary of another defined limit, very clearly and well articulated by the federal constitution. That limit is Article 4 of the constitution which speaks very loud and clear.
It declares of itself as supreme law of the land and no other is more supreme. I will let lawyers argue and debate the actual wording. My ‘ulama’ who taught me this wisdom is none other than the late Professor Ahmad Ibrahim of Universiti Malaya. After all, the word, ‘ulama’ comes from the root of ‘ilmu’, right? And in my lexicon, ‘ilmu’ has four layers at least; data, information, knowledge and then wisdom.
When one is very wise and knows truth about all matters in life, we say the person is an ‘alim person’ or an ulama”. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Public abuse of moral space
Premised upon the foregoing, I am of the view and opinion that in both the Borders case and now, in the BFM case, rights of individual Malaysian citizens are being abused and denied of their God-given dignity. They therefore do not have the freedom to carry on with their jobs and professions; regardless of the religious background they come from. That is human dignity denied.
In all our workplaces and spaces, we need a common morality which defines what we can and cannot do! Therefore, for one poor instance, in Selangor the ulama have given a legal opinion that smoking is bad for health and have advised against it. But does that make it illegal to smoke in public spaces and places in Malaysia?
The fact is, in such public places there is now subsidiary civil legislation which states that smoking is disallowed, and therefore very often special spaces are provided for such activity. It is nonetheless not totally banned.
Morality, as a word, has its roots in ‘mores’ or cultural ways of doing things. Now, can such culture be legislated? For example, my late mother would never wear jeans or pants for that matter. Should she have taught my girl siblings never to wear anything other than saris or long skirts? That would have been a sure way of keeping them imprisoned to the kitchen and to that limited way of life.
Why then does the Quran quote this phrase that there is no compulsion in religion. Taken from the Internet, it states:
Sahih International
There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing.
Why then do we tread where others do not? May God bless Malaysia with more wisdom.
