Call to Reinterpret the Islamic Law
This interesting report came up today in the Khaleej Times. See what you think of it.
NEW YORK — The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Shaikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, has issued a strong call for re-interpreting Islamic texts in order to address the social, educational and other constraints impeding the equality of women in the Middle East.
Pointing to the dynamism of Islamic Shariah to adapt to the changing situations, she called for new interpretations of the texts in the light of the new life circumstances.
"The concept of human rights is based on the notion that all human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms," Shaikha Haya noted in an address to a panel discussion on May 16 on "Women and Human Rights in the Middle East" at Rutgers University, New Jersey, US.
She said the situation stems in part from the interpretation of Islamic text. "Women are subject to family laws that are Shariah-based, which strictly follow the interpretations of Islamic scholars who lived 1,000 years ago at the beginning of Islam. These interpretations are applied now without making any allowances to the very different social contexts of today," she said.
"In fact, these interpretations are sanctified as holy which prevent them from criticism and change. This is one of the main reasons behind the discrepancy between personal status codes on the one hand and the current social circumstances on the other."
The General Assembly President blamed a "lack of rational interpretations of the texts that integrate the current social circumstances."
2 comments:
As far as I am aware, Shariah does continuously evolve. There are mechanisms built into Shariah (a bit like Continuous Improvement or Quality Assurance) that allow the adjustments to laws based on current thinking, particularly areas at the brink of scientific research, etc.
The challenge is to have the scholars well versed in these areas of social, scientific and economic progress so that they make their decisions and judgements with them in mind. A good example of this, is the recent "revival" of Islamic Finance: remodelling lending systems to more closely match familiar schemes, but still remaining within the bounds of God's law (in Islam, taking or paying interest is forbidden). I bought a house as a result of this!
The problem comes when lay-people, like me, with neither expertise in the Islamic Law nor in the technical fields, try to form solutions based on whim, fancy, personal preference, political agenda etc, and then pass them off as Islamic.
In Islam we have constants and variations.
Constants are those that dont' change no matter what the place or time. e.g. husband will always have authority over his wife.
Variations are what could change with time and place, e.g. its not safe for women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia due to the fact that they can be harassed, but its okay in the UAE.
So we cannot reinterpret anything that has to do with constants, but with variations it is possible.
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