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| Kassim Ahmad (photo: The Malaysian Insider) |
Yes, God says: “There is no compulsion in
religion.”And yet...
In
1986 the writer-poet Kassim Ahmad was declared a murtad (apostate) by the Perak
Religious Council for publishing a book highly critical of the Hadith
(traditions of the Prophet). The book, which sparked off a heated controversy in
the press, was eventually banned, and Kassim himself received an anonymous death
threat for having written it. A similar thing happened in Egypt recently. A
noted law professor was declared an apostate because of his critique of strict
Islamic law.
Fundamentalists even demanded that the courts dissolve his
marriage; his being an apostate, it was claimed, had made the marriage illegal.
His alleged apostasy had made his wife an adulteress who deserved to be stoned
to death. Some militant fundamentalists even take the law into their own hands,
assassinating individuals, whom they brand as apostates or blasphemers. The
shooting of the distinguished Egyptian writer and thinker Farag Foda last year
is a very disturbing sign of things to come. Recently the al-Gamaa al-Islamica (Islamic Group) announced that the Nobel
laureate Naguib Mahfouz, considered disrespectful to Islam, was at the top of
its death list. The old writer now moves around with police bodyguards.
Egypt has long been known as one of the
most liberal of Islamic countries, but it seems to be becoming less so. The
militant fundamentalists, who seem to have taken root in many areas of
government and institutions, are becoming more influential and dangerous. Even
the Al Azhar University – Islam’s oldest theology school – is showing signs of
being controlled by fundamentalists. It has recently banned some of Mahfouz’s
novels from its courses, and its rector has even teamed up with an influential
ulama (Islamic theologian and jurist) in branding any arguments in favour of
the separation of religion and the State as “apostasy.” In September this year
a Bangladeshi woman writer, Taslima Nasreen, had a death sentence pronounced on
her for publishing a novel (Lajja or Shame) about discrimination against
religious minorities in her country. This so-called “fatwa” was not issued by
the Bangladeshi equivalent of an ayatollah or the chief imam of the state, but
by a group of fundamentalist clerics who sought to punish Nasreen for writing
books which allegedly “conspire against Islam.” The government of Bangladesh
has maintained a disturbing silence over this “fatwa”, thus virtually
legitimizing it.
In a number of Islamic countries, apostasy
as well as blasphemy are capital offences. But it’s one thing to have such
laws, another to actually implement them. A country which definitely implements
them is Iran. I believe Pakistan does too, at least it did until Benazir Bhutto
was returned to power recently. The Rushdie affair apparently has done a lot in
making the Pakistani Government more intransigent in religious matters. Is
there any justification for making apostasy a criminal offence? Going by the
verse in the Quran about the freedom of faith, there certainly isn’t. But the
vast majority of fuqahas (jurists)
maintain otherwise.
A book by a University Kebangsaan Malaysia
lecturer in shariah (Islamic law) – Islamic
Criminal Law and Criminal Behaviour (published by ABIM,1993) – puts the
dominant fuqaha viewpoint very
starkly: “Islam forces every Muslim to be Muslim forever.” This viewpoint,
embodied in the criminal law code of Islamic states like Iran and Pakistan, is
justified by reference to both the Quran and Hadith. It seems that the verse
about freedom of faith in the Surah al-Baqarah
is no inconvenience to the orthodox fuqahas.
They claim that if the verse is read with reference to the historical
circumstances of its revelation, it would be clear that “no compulsion” refers
to infidels, not Muslims.
In other words, God forbids forced
conversion of infidels, but once a person is Muslim his renunciation of his
faith is a criminal offence punishable by the state. This more or less standard
reading of the verse from al-Baqarah
is reinforced by reference to other related verses of the Quran (such as verse
217 of the same Surah, verse 11-12 of Surah at-Taubah, verse 86-87 of Surah al-Imran
and verse 137 of Surah al-Nisa). I
myself am not convinced that the verses of the Quran really regard apostasy as
a criminal offence. It is a sin, and grave one, yes; but nowhere is it
suggested that the apostate as such deserves to be executed. What is
implied is divine punishment in the Hereafter. To me, the unambiguity of the
emphatic line from al-Baqarah is made
even more unambiguous by lines like the following: “Whosoever will, let him
believe and whosoever will, let him disbelieve.” (al-Khaf, 29); “Unto you your religion and unto me my religion.” (al-Kafirun, 6).
When a particular verse does talk of
slaying apostates, the historical occasion of the Revelation must be taken into
account. It has to be remembered that in the early years of Islam, when the new
religion was struggling to establish itself, persons who defected from it
tended to join its enemies and were therefore a threat to it. This means that a
distinction must be made between apostate as apostate and apostate as active
enemy. The Quran, therefore, specifically guarantees Muslims liberty of belief;
any act of apostasy is an affirmation of that liberty, and therefore shouldn’t
be punishable – by the state or by an militant fanatic who appoints himself a
guardian of the faith, and as guardian misappropriates the function of God.
But the dominant orthodox view on apostasy
finds its strongest justification not in the Quran but in the Hadith. There are
a number of hadiths which are categorical in their rejection of freedom of
belief enshrined in the Quran. The best known one has the Prophet say “Whoever
changes religion, cut his head off!” (narrated by Ibn ‘Abas). He is also
believed to have said: “It is not lawful to shed the blood of a person
professing Islam . . . except in three cases – when he commits murder, adultery
and apostasy.” When a hadith is invoked we enter an area that should be fully
open to debate but in some countries (like our own) it is not, as the case of
Kassim Ahmad showed.
Recently there had been much sinister talk
by the religious authorities about “anti-hadith” group in institutions of
higher learning. It seems that “anti-hadith” is becoming a convenient smear
word used by the ulamas as readily as the word murtad. My view of the Hadith in relation to the question of
apostasy is a simple one. If a hadith, like the two quoted above, contradicts
what is unambiguously affirmed in the Quran, then it has to be rejected as
inauthentic. Surely it’s obvious that the Prophet is unlikely to have uttered
anything that contradicts the word of God. As for the poet he should always
listen to the voice of his artistic conscience; that “other voice” Octavio Paz
talks of which affirms unity in diversity and sings the song of concord that
transcends conflicts of doctrine.
Poetry, like other forms of literature, can
only perform its proper function in a state of creative freedom. There
shouldn’t be any compulsion in poetry as there shouldn’t be in any religion. Given
the transcendent unity of religions, what the jealous guardians of orthodoxy
too readily call “apostasy” may only be the healthy exercise of that creative
freedom sanctioned by God Himself.
17 November 1993
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