Malaysia: Making minorities count

---The Nut Graph, Malaysia

Making minorities count
2 Oct 09 : 8.00AM

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah at thenutgraph dot com

“PAS for all” was an enchanting slogan indeed during the March 2008 general election. It was a sentiment that allowed for a warm partnership to develop between PAS and its eventual Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and DAP. It was also what convinced Malaysians of all races to vote for PAS candidates even in non-Muslim majority constituencies. A case in point is PAS central working committee member Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud’s landslide victory in the 51% non-Muslim Kota Raja parliamentary seat.

But post-March 2008, there seem to have been some caveats to this inclusive slogan. For one thing, there has been an ongoing tussle in Selangor regarding the status of the Ahmadiyah community in Selayang. And the Selangor religious exco from PAS, Datuk Dr Hasan Ali, has been instrumental in efforts to restrict religious worship among Ahmadiyah.


Granted, Ahmadiyah are but a tiny minority in Malaysia. Ahmadiyah probably make up 0.007% of the entire Malaysian population. Still, the slogan would not be as sexy if it were to say “PAS for 99.993%”, so this is probably why “PAS for all” remains the preferred brand strategy.

But PAS is not alone in having such contradictions between speaking for an inclusive Malaysia, and yet trying to clamp down on those it disagrees with. Just look at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s much-praised as well as lampooned 1Malaysia slogan. And yet, someone in his administration is guilty of perpetuating, or at the minimum excusing, intimidation of minorities. We just need to recall Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s defence of protesters who brandished a severed cow-head as a means of protesting the relocation of a Hindu temple.

Context matters

The question then is not just about how people deal with diversity and disagreement. It is also about how the many treat the few, and how the powerful treat the weak. It is something humanity has had to grapple with in witnessing the Jewish Holocaust in World War II, the 1994 butchering of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates by Hutus in Rwanda, and the systematic suffocation of indigenous communities in democracies such as the US and Australia.

Perhaps some of these examples are exaggerated in the case of Malaysia. Have we witnessed the gassing of entire communities here? Have we seen an ethnic majority bringing machetes and axes to systematically annihilate a particular ethnic minority? After all, the Selangor authorities are not bringing machetes or axes to the Ahmadiyah compound in Selayang — they are “merely” stopping them from worshipping. Is this cause for worry?

The situation is complicated. Sure, there may only be approximately 2,000 Ahmadiyah in Malaysia, but there are an estimated 200 million worldwide. And of this 200 million, many have settled in countries such as Canada and the UK, where they enjoy the support and protection of secular governments there. In fact, Ahmadiyah communities in these countries are able to lobby government ministers to put pressure on Muslim countries that persecute Ahmadiyah.

Ironically, it’s not that different being a “mainstream” Muslim in certain situations. Plant yourself in the US and you become the target of racial profiling, harassment and torture. Move to, for example, Pakistan and you are suddenly all-powerful. In practise, you could then profile, harass or abuse Christian, Hindu and Ahmadiyah communities and very likely get away with it.

A numbers game?

Furthermore, there are minorities and then there are minorities. On some levels, it is a numbers game after all. For example, Indian Malaysians are an ethnic minority, and have been the butt of racist jokes and not-so-helpful policies. But this minority group, spearheaded by Hindraf, managed to summon 30,000 from its ranks to march the streets of Kuala Lumpur in November 2007, demanding reparations and better treatment.


The Indian Malaysian vote also went squarely against the Barisan Nasional (BN) in March 2008, and this inflicted a painful enough blow to the ruling coalition. And so, policies towards Indian Malaysians, especially in terms of education, have changed since then. Is this what it takes for a minority to assert itself? To demonstrate, “Hey, we have the numbers too, and we can inflict some real damage.”

There are various minorities in Malaysia. There are the tiny, often invisible, communities — indigenous people, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals, and “deviant” Muslim groups. There are minorities of circumstance — those with HIV/AIDS, migrant workers, refugees, underprivileged urban settlers, and so on. And then there are the “bigger” minorities — Chinese and Indian Malaysians, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and so on.

Sometimes different categories of “minority” intersect. A Christian Indian Malaysian would already be a minority. But what if this person was also lesbian, poor and HIV positive? What would we do with her then? Were the 30,000 Hindraf protesters thinking of her when they took to the streets in 2007?

Hunting season

Would it be easier if we just did not have to deal with minorities? Either by doing away with them, or by making them comply with what the majority dictates? Anti-Ahmadiyah quarters might use this argument — in a democracy, we must accept the will of the majority. But what if the will of the majority, as in Rwanda, is that minorities must be killed? If that were the case, then there is not much difference being an Ahmadiyah in Pakistan, a “mainstream” Muslim in the US, a gay teenager in Iran, or a refugee in Australia. You just have to look out for when “hunting season” begins, and when it ends.

And yet, it’s not like societies have not learnt to deal with minorities before. In 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised to the country’s indigenous population for wrongdoings caused by successive administrations. Germany openly grapples with its anti-Jewish Nazi past. The staunchly Catholic Ireland ultimately decriminalised homosexuality in 1993.

But getting back to Malaysia, what direction then is the BN government going to take with 1Malaysia? Where is PAS going to take “PAS for all“? Or are these merely the soundtrack to a prolonged hunting season?

The misguided majority-rule argument fails to acknowledge that democracy isn’t just about the will of the majority; it also entails that the majority government recognises the legitimate rights and freedom of the minority. For if it were merely the former, democracy is no more than giving the majority the right to tyrannise over the minority.

See Also:

• The non-Muslim Muslims
• A day with the “deviants”
• Living with the Ahmadiyah
  

URL: www.thenutgraph.com/making-minorities-count

Malaysia: Living with the Ahmadiyah

---The Nut Graph, Malaysia

Living with the Ahmadiyah
29 Sep 09 : 8.00AM

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah at thenutgraph dot com

“WE have to live with those who do not accept Islam,” Emeritus Prof Datuk Dr Osman Bakar tells The Nut Graph in a phone interview. Osman, who is deputy chief executive officer of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) Malaysia, says this applies to how Muslims treat Ahmadiyah as well.

“The theological aspect is clear, based on the 1975 fatwa that declares them to be outside the fold of Islam,” he says. “But what should Muslims do to those who accept the Ahmadiyah founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as a prophet? Should they go about discriminating against these people?”

It is a timely question. The Ahmadiyah community in Selangor has been targeted over the past year by the Selangor Islamic authorities, led by Selangor’s religious exco Datuk Dr Hasan Ali. In fact, in April 2009, the Selangor Islamic Religious Council forbade Ahmadiyah in Selangor from worshipping in their own headquarters in Batu Caves on Fridays. In December 2008, the Selayang Municipal Council tried to make them remove the kalimah syahadat, or Islamic creed — “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God” — from their headquarters.

The question of why the Islamic authorities are training their sights on Ahmadiyah is interesting, given that the 1975 fatwa explicitly declares them not Muslim. “If they are to be treated as non-Muslims, then we should not treat them differently from other non-Muslims in Malaysia,” says Osman.

What seems to complicate matters is that Ahmadiyah not only preserve most of the prayer rituals that make them indistinguishable from Sunni Muslims in Malaysia. They are also mostly Malay Malaysians in this country. In other words, one cannot tell if a Malay Malaysian is an Ahmadiyah just by looking at him or her. Perhaps this is why the 1975 fatwa also asks for the state to strip Ahmadiyah of special Malay privileges.

And that’s not the end of it — even though Ahmadiyah are considered non-Muslim according to the 1975 fatwa, Ahmadiyah children have to attend Islamic Studies classes in primary and secondary school. Their identity cards list “Islam” as their religion.
This, then, is the quandary that Ahmadiyah in Malaysia face. Osman says, however, that the formulators of the 1975 fatwa would have taken these complexities into account.

“You see, there are two schools of thought in the Ahmadiyah movement. In the Indian subcontinent, they have distinguished between these two groups. The group that views the movement’s founder more as a saint, who urged spiritual renewal, is not considered to have fallen out of Islam,” says Osman.

This group is the Lahore Ahmadiyah Movement, but it is not the sect that exists in Malaysia. In Malaysia, Ahmadiyah believe that their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a prophet, only not a law-giving prophet as Muhammad was. But according to Osman, “The word for prophet in Arabic, ‘nabi’, is very technical and cannot be taken lightly.”

Even so, Ahmadiyah in Malaysia are but a tiny minority. They number only 2,000 at the most — that’s a mere 0.007% of a population of 28.3 million. Assuming roughly that Muslims form 60% of the Malaysian population, Ahmadiyah would only form 0.012% of all Muslims. That is, if they are considered Muslims at all.

Seeing the humanity

Zaid Kamaruddin, president of Muslim non-governmental organisation Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM), tells The Nut Graph that it is important to just see the humanity in everyone.

“Somebody who was born into that sect only knows that as their religion, and we have to see this person as a human being. Only knowledge can alleviate matters,” he says in a telephone interview.

“Nobody should take the law into their own hands,” he says. “We don’t want violence towards them the way it happens in Indonesia.

“But as far as the fatwa goes, it is up to the Islamic council to decide. After all, those sitting on the religious councils are appointed by the sultans. It is not the purview of the state exco to implement the fatwa,” he says.

Osman agrees. “It is true, there are claims that Ahmadiyah in Malaysia try to propagate their religion even to Malay [Malaysians]. But the authorities have to act wisely, and not let people take matters into their own hands. We have seen what has happened to Ahmadiyah in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia.”

In Pakistan in 1974, the constitution under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s administration was amended to effectively render Ahmadiyah as non-Muslims. After Zia-ul-Haq seized power from Bhutto in 1977, the persecution of Ahmadiyah intensified under his Islamisation project.

In Indonesia in 2005, the Indonesian Ulama Council issued a fatwa calling for the government to ban Ahmadiyah. This opened a floodgate of violence against Ahmadiyah by Muslim groups which persists to this day.

Thus, Ahmadiyah in Malaysia are afraid for their safety. However, they remain transparent and upfront about their beliefs and do not attempt to disguise or hide their headquarters. In fact, they say they have called for several public dialogues with the religious authorities, including the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department and religious exco Hassan. However, they say their requests have yet to be entertained. The Nut Graph’s attempts to reach Hasan also proved futile.

“The Ahmadiyah community here should have their own private engagement first with the authorities,” says Zaid. “Only if there are people taking the law into their own hands should the Ahmadiyah here press for a public dialogue.”

But with or without private or public dialogue, the fate of the Ahmadiyah at the hands of the state doesn’t look all that promising. From being declared non-Muslims to being persecuted as “deviant” Muslims, it is obvious that the state is unlikely to provide protection for the rights of this minority group of believers.

URL: www.thenutgraph.com/living-with-the-ahmadiyah

Malaysia: A day with the “deviants”

---The Nut Graph, Malaysia

A day with the “deviants”
28 Sep 09 : 8.00AM

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah at thenutgraph dot com

“FROM what we see, Islam [in Malaysia] appears like a one-way religion. But in the Quran, it’s not like this. Even if someone apostates, it’s not another human being’s right to persecute them,” Ainul Yakin Muhd Zin, 41, tells The Nut Graph. Perhaps this is why the sect that Ainul leads, the Jemaat Ahmadiyah Muslim of Malaysia, was branded a “threat to national security” in a 3 Aug 2009 Kosmo! report.

In fact, Ainul says that in 1975, a fatwa by the Selangor Islamic authorities declared Ahmadiyah to be outside Islam’s fold. The fatwa also asked for Ahmadiyah followers to be killed by the sultan. Why indeed are Muslims and the Islamic authorities so afraid of Ahmadiyah?

After all, according to Ainul, there are only around 2,000 Ahmadiyah in all of Malaysia. In the Klang Valley, there are maybe 600 Ahmadiyah followers only, and most of them are Malay Malaysians. This, then, was what The Nut Graph aimed to find out on 4 Sept 2009 at the Ahmadiyah headquarters in Batu Caves, Selangor.

Difference in beliefs

Perhaps before answering the question of why there is so much hostility towards Ahmadiyah, we must look briefly at how Ahmadiyah differ from Sunni Muslims who make up the dominant group of Muslims in Malaysia.

Ahmadiyah believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, their founder from late 19th-century Qadian in present-day India was a prophet in his own right. However, they acknowledge Muhammad as the last of the law-giving prophets sent by Allah. Sunni Muslims, however, see this as an unforgivable deviation — there can be no prophets after Muhammad in Islam, full-stop.

Ahmadiyah also have their own caliphate. Their current caliph is the fifth succeeding Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whom they count as their first caliph. In terms of doctrine, they also differ by arguing that the prophet Isa, or Jesus, died a mortal death and was not raised to heaven by God.

Ahmadiyah also believe in Darwinist evolution to a certain extent — to them, Adam was not literally the first human being, but rather the first evolved human being.

Unverified allegations

So in this sense, it is easy to see why Sunni Muslims have problems with Ahmadiyah doctrine. But the allegations against Ahmadiyah practices and beliefs do not stop here. “They say our prayers are mixed-gender. They say our kiblat (direction of prayer) does not point towards Mecca. This is all untrue,” explains Ainul. In fact, none other than Selangor religious exco Datuk Dr Hassan Ali claimed that Ahmadiyah “do not need to pray, do not fast during Ramadan and do not perform the haj”.

Ainul, however, says, “First of all, there are Muslim governments that prevent us from performing the haj in Mecca when they find out we are Ahmadiyah.” During the asar (late afternoon) congregational prayer, The Nut Graph also observed the Ahmadiyah’s kiblat was no different from the conventional kiblat. When asked if any journalist from the traditional media came to verify this fact, Ainul said they hadn’t.

“And do you see any women praying beside us? We observe purdah (gender segregation) very strictly,” says Ainul. That was indeed clear. In fact, The Nut Graph had to request repeatedly to interview some women Ahmadiyah because they were nowhere to be seen.

“All just a misunderstanding”

But Ainul is good-natured enough to entertain this request. On 9 Sept, The Nut Graph met with two women Ahmadiyah leaders in Malaysia — Afiatunnur, 34, the Kuala Lumpur women’s chief, and Najmul Laila, 38, the moral outreach secretary. Najmul is also Ainul’s wife. Both women are Indonesians married to Ahmadiyah Malaysians.

Afiatunnur and Najmul attest that things were once peaceful for them in Indonesia — Ahmadiyah even had protection from the state. But all this changed in 2005, when the Indonesian Ulama Council issued a fatwa calling for a government ban on Ahmadiyah. Violence then ensued. In July 2005, the Ahmadiyah headquarters in Bogor was attacked, causing it to be shut down. Attacks then spread all across Java, until today.

In 2008, even former President Abdurrahman Wahid appealed for calm and for protection of Ahmadiyah, but his plea was ignored. In June 2008, Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni, Home Minister Mardiyanto, and Attorney-General Hendarman Supanji signed a decree outlawing Ahmadiyah from spreading their faith.

But Najmul and Afiatunnur are nothing if not forgiving of such persecution. “It’s all just because they misunderstand Ahmadiyah teachings,” says Najmul.

“Even here in Malaysia, my family was renting from a house owner who was not happy that we are Ahmadiyah,” says Afiatunnur. “But once they saw that we are just like anybody else, they became okay with us.”

Najmul elaborates, “But then the others in their community think these people are suddenly nice to us because we have bewitched them!”

But is this forbearance and humour from these two women too good to be true? When asked, for example, if women are obliged to cover their hair, both women agree fully. But are there Ahmadiyah women who do not cover their hair?

“Yes, a few,” Najmul admits. Are these women then encouraged to cover their hair? “Yes, we advise them.” What if they still do not cover their hair after this advice? Are they forced to cover their hair? Najmul is scandalised. “Of course not,” she says. “But we just keep advising them, that’s all.”

Just another dayThis chill-out attitude pervades other aspects of Ahmadiyah life as well. Yes, they fast. And when they broke their fast, the meal was simple, and they did not dilly-dally before performing maghrib (dusk), and then isya (night) and terawih prayers in congregation. And yes, they have a 10-point pledge of allegiance, or baiat, that followers have to accept, calling for strict observance of morality, piety and worship.

But Ahmadiyah are not fussed if there are those who do not accept the creed, or who want to leave the community. As Jariullah Ahmad, another Ahmadiyah spokesperson in Malaysia, explains, “If I leave the Ahmadiyah community, then I leave. The Ahmadiyah community will survive and go on. God will find a replacement for me among Ahmadiyah.”

In fact, Ahmadiyah claim they have nearly 200 million followers worldwide. Their communities flourish especially in secular Canada and the UK, where they are recognised and visited by ministers and Members of Parliament.

How do they deal with negative attitudes towards them, though? Ainul gives an example. In December 2008, he says the Selayang Municipal Council (MPS) ordered them to remove the kalimah syahadat, or Islamic creed — “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God” — from their headquarters.

“I said we cannot bring ourselves to do this, because this is truly what we believe. But if you believe we are wrong, then you need to be the ones to remove the kalimah yourselves,” he says. According to him, MPS then left the kalimah alone.

There are, of course, even more sinister threats, and Ainul says that he has made several reports to the police and other authorities about these threats. He says, though, that until now no action has been taken based on these reports. “Why is this so? And if we are considered non-Muslims from the 1975 fatwa, why do the authorities continue to harass us? Why do they not leave us alone like the Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and other non-Muslims in Malaysia?” asks Ainul.

Jariullah takes this questioning a step further. “Can the authorities just declare openly if they are able to protect our basic rights? If they admit they truly can’t, then at least we can plan our lives accordingly.”

URL: www.thenutgraph.com/a-day-with-the-deviants

MAIS forbids Ahmadiyya worship

---The Nut Graph, Malaysia

MAIS forbids Ahmadiyya worship
28 Apr 09 : 7.55PM

By Shanon Shah
shanonshah at thenutgraph dot com

PETALING JAYA, 28 Apr 2009: The Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) has forbidden the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect to perform Friday prayers at their mosque with immediate effect.

In a letter to the Ahmadiyya dated 24 Apr 2009 made available to The Nut Graph, MAIS said, “If [the Ahmadiyya] fail to comply with, defy or neglect the directive, the council will take legal action without any notice.”

In a statement, Ahmadiyya spokesperson Ainul Yakin Muhd Zain said, “We … feel deeply hurt and aggrieved at this unjust action to deny us our right to perform our religious obligations.”

MAIS issued its directive on the grounds that the Ahmadiyya mosque did not get the council’s approval first.

In December 2008, Selangor religious exco Datuk Dr Hassan Ali said that he was willing to negotiate with the Ahmadiyya community over seizure of land which they used for their mosque.

PAS Shah Alam chief and Member of Parliament Khalid Samad elaborated to The Nut Graph over the phone: “We should engage and discuss with the Ahmadiyya to understand their perspective.”

According to Ainul, however, no such dialogue has taken place between Hassan and the Ahmadiyya community.

“Besides, he is only willing to talk about the issue of land, not the issue of our aqidah (belief system),” Ainul said in a phone interview today.

“The way the Pakatan Rakyat government is treating us is the same as how the Barisan Nasional treated us,” Ainul added.

The Nut Graph was unable to reach Hassan, but Khalid said it was important to clarify the Ahmadiyya sect’s status.

“There are 1,001 religions in the world, so if they declare themselves non-Muslim, then the solution is easy for us,” he said.

“The problem is if they insist that they are still Muslims,” he noted.

However, Ainul said, “It is … incomprehensible to us that we are subjected to this kind of treatment, as firstly we have been declared non-Muslims.”

In 1975, the Selangor Fatwa Council issued a fatwa declaring the Ahmadiyya sect non-Muslim.

The fatwa also said that ideally, if the Ahmadiyya did not “repent and return to the true teachings of Islam, they should be killed by the Imam which is the King”.

Acknowledging, however, that this was not legally possible, the fatwa then recommended that the Ahmadiyya be stripped of all special Malay privileges.

To believe or not

According to constitutional law expert Prof Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, however, such declarations that someone is a non-Muslim have massive consequences.

“Every religion has its own jurisdiction to ‘excommunicate’ deviant followers, but in this case it should be a matter of last resort since the implications are devastating,” he said in a phone interview.

Shad said that an official declaration that someone is Muslim or not has implications on the status of marriage, guardianship of children, and inheritance.

Shad also said that the fatwa itself seems to contradict Section 6 of the Selangor Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment, which says that it is illegal to declare any Muslim non-Muslim.

According to Shad, the authorities’ treatment of the Ahmadiyya stands in direct contrast with its treatment of cases such as Lina Joy’s, in which a Muslim sought to publicly renounce Islam.

“We are effectively saying that an individual’s affirmation of faith is not enough for them to follow the religion of their choice,” he said.

“In Lina Joy’s case, she is being prevented from leaving Islam, while the Ahmadiyya are being forcefully kicked out and yet are still liable to punishment by the Islamic authorities,” he said.

Shad said that as far as the law was concerned, the Ahmadiyya should enjoy constitutional protection for their freedom of religion if they are considered non-Muslims.

“But if they want to declare themselves Muslim and follow their version of the faith, then the superior courts will defer to the syariah courts,” he said.

The Ahmadiyya movement was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, India, in 1889. They are sometimes inaccurately referred to as Qadianis.

Although Ahmadiyya consider themselves Muslim, mainstream Muslims reject this because the Ahmadiyya believe that Ahmad was the metaphorical second coming of Jesus.

The sect has its headquarters in the United Kingdom, and Ahmadiyya are persecuted by religious authorities in Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia.

According to Ainul, there are approximately 1,500 Ahmadiyya followers in Malaysia, with the majority in Sabah.

Most Ahmadiyya Malaysians are ethnic Malays, and the movement was founded in Malaya in the 1930s.

URL: www.thenutgraph.com/mais-forbids-ahmadiyya-worship