Imam Abdullah Haron in Shamis' "The Imam and I"

Khalid Shamis' documentary on Imam Abdullah Haron of South Africa is a masterly treatment of a man and his times. It brings out the multi-facetted dimension of the Imam, his colleagues in the Muslim Judicial Council, the Muslim community, and of course, the apartheid state.
Imam Abdullah Haron emerges in the documentary as a sensitive and courageous leader against the growing force of apartheid repression. Inspired by activist youth whom he invited to his mosque, he soon outstripped them in the services he offered to families of detainees and anti-apartheid activists. It was not long before he too became a victim, and was brutally killed in police custody in September 1969.
The producer of "The Imam and I" is the Imam's grandson, the son of his eldest daughter, Shamila, who had been sent to London to study. Khalid Shamis had heard a lot of the Imam, and felt that he was the grandson of someone important. We are grateful that he set out to find out more, and share the story with the rest of us.
The documentary consists of slices of the Imam's life and death. It includes elements of his position within the leadership of the Muslims, and its shameful silence. It also includes his innovative attempts to attract youth to the mosques, whilst raising funds for anti-apartheid activism with James Bond and other movies. Drawing on photographs and footage of the time, the documentary also reveals his great style and love for suits, fezzes, a shiny bald heard and a stylishly trimmed beard.
Most importantly, the documentary also raises some interesting questions. Some of these questions are thrown out briefly for deeper reflection. Khalid, for example, refers to the connection between London bombings and his search for knowing the truth of his 'terrorist' grandfather!
Others are more explicit, as for example, the silence of the leadership of the Muslim community when the Imam was imprisoned and then killed. Their reluctance  to raise their voices against apartheid was deafeningly portrayed! It contrasted strongly with Reverend Wrankmore's retreat and fast on a Kramat on Signal Hill!
At other times, though, the evidence presented raises questions, intended by Shamis or not. The  massive turn-out at the Imam's funeral contrasted with his isolation during imprisonment, and even more so with the fate of his wife, Galiema Sadan, and her two young children. The fate of a martyr was captured beautifully, and also painfully.
At the same time, however, the presence of thousands at the funeral by men, women and children, could not all be seen as hypocrisy. The death of a witness provided an opportunity for ordinary people to register their rejection and abhorrence of a wicked system. One may criticize them for not doing enough, but one cannot afford to miss the registration of protest.
Finally, in my view, the documentary left an impression of a complex ideology (if such a contradiction may be permitted). The Imam was inspired by an emerging ideological approach to Islam, which he hardly represented in his life and work. The footage did not even reveal this in his family and associates.
Islamism in full flow came later to Cape Town, and drew much of its strength on a greater range of books, ideas and a different style of Islam. Soon, it also drew on the Imam's fame as anti-apartheid activist in the name of Islam. This activism in the name of Islam, however, was different from Imam Haron in his family, his congregation, his fashion-statement and his activism.
In the last couple of weeks, I have had an opportunity to see a play and a film dealing with religion in Cape Town. Davis' play Mass Appeal was brilliant in its portrayal of religion between ideals and institutionalization, and Beauvois' Of Gods and Men (2010) brought home the meaning of witness  and sacrifice. It is amazing how religion flows through our secular society!
"The Imam and I" did not set out to prove a point about this or that religious value (it seems to me). It nevertheless portrayed the ordinariness of living a life of religious value. Imam Haron was serious but it did not prevent him from smiling, smart-looking, stylish and ready for some fun.

Islamic Newthinking: “We are all Christians!” and In Sha Allah Heretics!

I was privileged to observe and participate in a meeting in Essen, Germany, to commemorate and take forward the work of Prof. Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid who passed away about a year ago. Abu Zeid had made a significant contribution to the history of the interpretation of the Qur’an. However, he was not only interested in the topic for its historical value but searching for a way to read the Qur’an as a living text that spoke to the great demands of the day.

The meeting was attending by friends and colleagues who traveled with him on the same road. It was honoured also by the participation of Prof. Ebtehal Younes, Abu Zeid’s wife and professor at Cairo University. The meeting honoured both Abu Zeid and the path that he unlocked with his works, his friendship and his deep humanity.

As expected, the meeting was provocative and challenging. From the keynote presented by Prof. Shabestari (Tehran) on the first day, the focal point turned around the Qur’an. Prof. Shabestari asked what a new philosophy of language would be for a claim that the Qur’an was both revelation and Prophetic word. Prof. Barlas concluded the meeting with a plea to a return to the theology of the Qur’an, against the ‘anti-foundationalism of  Abu Zeid.’ There were also contributions that rejected any real future of the Qur’an (or religion) in Islamic Newthinking.

Clearly, all were agreed that a new theology or approach to the Qur’an in particular, and Islam in general, was long overdue. The participants were leaders in this search, and presented the meeting with reflections that honoured Abu Zeid and his work.

I would like to contribute with a reading of the substance of the meeting. In short, I think the speakers and commentators came close to admitting and arguing that we are or should be like Christians. Of course, none put in this way. But I could not help coming to this conclusion at the end of the 2-day meeting. And was further confirmed in my assessment when I looked back at my notes.

By way of substantiation and perhaps proof, let me explain. On the second day, Prof. Soroush opened the day with a challenge that Muslims have easily reconciled themselves to socialism, but could not do with liberalism and rights. He then challenged listeners with a question about how Muslims would produce such a theology of rights (arguing that it would be more difficult than anything that they had attempted thus far).

Prof. Barlas followed with her own thesis. Listening carefully to her argument, I could not help noticing how her claimed devotion to the Qur’an was nothing but a highly subjective reading thereof.She was, moreover, a witness to justice buried in the Qur’an through centuries of male witnesses. A young commentator alo praised her this "disclosure of God" in her reading of the Qur’an.
In my reading and listening, Barlas answered Soroush about where this theology of rights would come from. It was easy to find a theology of freedom in the Qur'an, but Soroush was clearly asking how Muslims would be persuaded (i.e. converted).

Rolling back to the first day, I recalled Prof. al-Azmeh arguing that the Qur’anic text was an aesthetic and at most a privatized religion. Prof. Sadiq Jalam al-Azm supported him by saying that Muslim Arabs have had nothing radical to offer (nothing radical enough for Islamic Newthinkig to put aside Islam and religion).

And my friend and colleague Prof. Esack pulled down all binaries and distinctions for a reading of the Qur'an. Beginning with the Jews and Muslims, he proceeded to question the contraries of human and non-human, the able and non-able, the living and mineral. We had arrived at the Kingdom of God, where the lion lay beside the lamb!

Translated, I head them saying: We are Christians! We should be Christians! We have no option but to become Christians! In fact, this declaration was relatively easy, even if it was not expressed in this way.

However, what the meeting struggled to find was if we were still Muslims! Everybody posed some interesting questions for the future. Those questions affirmed the history of Christianity in modern times, but only posed questions about the future of Islam. At least for Abu Zeid the music of the Qur’an was foundational, we were reminded by Prof. Younes. And Prof. Wadud was insistent that tawhid included women. Otherwise, Christianity was confirmed while Islam was put on a search.

When I thought about this, I was at first appalled by the implication. It reminded me once at a meeting in Brussels similar to this one when a Jesuit priest told me that only Christianity could accommodate modernity. I thought at the time that it was more likely the other way around. It also reminded me of an essay by Derrida entitled “We are all Christians.” And it reminded me of many similar reflections on how Christianity was made for modernity!

After the initial shock , I accepted this conclusion. I was not resigned to it, as I remembered how I have struggled with Islamic identity for some time now.

Once I gave up the block of identity, however, a new path opened for me. I was reminded how much Islam and Muslims (including the Prophet) had taken from the Christians. They too had become 'Christians' (okay, 'Jews' more accurately). I then also remembered how the Prophet and Muslims later took a ‘heretical turn.’ Both Jews and Christians were in turned incensed at this heresy.

And I thought that perhaps we should also embrace this silent implicit conversion. It might be best to declare this conversion, though, for ourselves and Abu Zeid's and our legacy. But unlike the born-again Christians of our times, we would probably soon declare our heresy.

I am not so sure if our meeting got to this threshold of heresy. We toyed with some ideas and thoughts, but mostly we were too busy declaring our conversion. It was a bit of an odd conversion, I suppose, since it included some angst for the next step.

Maybe heresy after conversion will be new thinking.

Wrankmore and Haron: Witnesses for Our Times

Rev. Wrankmore died on 17 June at the 86, and Imam Haron's three children were all in Cape Town on the release of "The Imam and I". It was a perfect opportunity for the Western Cape Religious Leaders' Forum and the Cape Town Inter-faith Initiative to organize a commemoration service on Signal Hill yesterday (23 June 2011). Rev. Wrankmore had fasted on Signal Hill in 1971, two years after Imam Haron was killed in police detention, and demanded a judicial inquiry into his death.
About 80 people braved the wind and rain, and sat together in the small kramat on Signal Hill. The ceremony consisted of prayers, and short recollections. There were also poignant remarks by the children of both Wrankmore and Haron. It was a moving ceremony, and the cold and wind was quickly forgotten.
All present were visibly moved by the witness that both Rev. Wranmore and Imam Haron brought to the days of apartheid. The word was repeated by almost every speaker in one way of another. Their witness spoke to the great depth of their lives, and what they were saying to apartheid, inter-faith relations, and to the people of Cape Town, South Africa and beyond.
It was also not forgotten that Prof. Kader Asmal, who had just died, was a great witness to the current politics of South Africa. Tributes were paid to him for breaking ranks by standing up for truth and justice. Although Asmal, in comparison with Haron and Wrankmore, was not too concerned with organized religion, he too was recognized as a witness. And with Asmal, it was clear that witnessing was not a thing of the past.
The event prompted me to reflect a bit more on the idea of witnessing. Asmal may have been different from Haron and Wrankmore in terms of religious affiliation. It is clear, though, that all three had to break ranks from their groups and homes. A witness seems to be someone who is not comfortable to stay in one place, and is prepared to go where her convictions takes her.
Witnessing stands at the centre of religious conviction, though. I have read that the word in English is derived from a martyr or knowledge (from wit). It recalls acts of extreme courage by early Christians in the face of danger. The witness/martyr would express his conviction, on pain of death. The witness also proclaims the real truth in this demonstration.
There is a similar sense of presence in the Qur'an, but it is not always associated with danger. A witness is a shahid and shares a linguistic affinity with words that mean 'looking' and 'seeing'.  In fact, most of the instances in the Qur'an refer to God as shahid ('God is shahid over all things').
When shahid refers to a human being, however, she demonstrates the truth. There is a verse in the Qur'an that calls upon people to becomes witnesses (shahids) like the prophets. They brought the truth and demonstrated it. The same obligation rests on the rest of us.
I draw two conclusions from these. The one is the very act of witnessing implies a presence and a demonstration. Haron and then Wrankmore represent this in an inspiring way. People like Asmal continue that important tradition.
Secondly, the fact that God is the shahid (witness) turns things around. One could turn around and say that the witness or martyr is herself divine. But I think that God witnessing adds a very different dimension. It means that the real frame of witnessing has to be beyond the here and now. For religious people, it means that God is the only reality of the witnessing. For me, it means that witnessing (true witnessing) is Godlike and overcomes the politics and contradictions of the day.
Hamba Kahle Berni Wrankmore, Kader Asmal and Imam Abdullah Haron.

South African Muslim Marriage Bill Not Unique

The regulation of Muslim marriage in the South African legal framework currently under way is not unique. We should consider the matter in the light of developments in other parts of the world, and particularly in other parts of Africa.
The role of the state and religious authorities have come under intense scrutiny in South African media. The South African constitution very clearly enables the recognition of marriages conducted under diverse cultural traditions, which the state is obliged to facilitate in one way or another. In this particular case, Muslim religious authorities are divided between those who see the new developments as state encroachment on religion matters, and others who see the potential for a constructive partnership.
By examining similar developments in Egypt (2001), Morocco (2005) and Kenya (1998-2010), a fundamental trend seems to emerge. Since the 1990s, more inclusive approaches to politics and law have affected Muslim societies in many parts of the world. In matters of Muslim personal law, women's demand for rights is main driver of the demand for change and which has often been obscured in an ideological conflict between state and religion.
Egypt passed the so-called Khula law in 2000, which basically gave women the right to apply for a no-fault divorce without the consent of her husband. The law was a development on the 1920s when judges were obliged to look beyond one school of Islamic jurisprudence. This 2000 law took the matter one step further by permitting separation (khula) without a husband's permission. Interestingly, the main justification came from an ancient hadith in which the Prophet granted a woman separation from her husband on her request. The 2000 bill was opposed by Islamists for four years before it was finally ratified.
In 2004, Morrocco passed a Reformed Family Code after years of intense public debate. Human rights activists demanded more rights for women in Moroccan marriages, whilst opponents saw the 1956 Family Code as the centre-piece of national tradition. The latter was produced after independence from French colonial rule. At the end of a lengthy national discussion, the Moroccan King Muhammad VI eventually passed the code in 2004 .
A similar public demand for reforms in Kadhis courts was initiated in Kenya as part of a country-wide constitutional review process. Muslims in particular demanded that these Muslim courts set up by the British during the colonial period should be made more accessible, subject to review and willing to deal with new developments such as AIDS. This popular demand was diverted by some Christian groups, arguing that Kadhis courts should not be part of a national secular constitution. Eventually, a new constitution was accepted in a referendum in 2010, albeit without any substantial reforms in the Kadhis courts.
The South Africa situation, as in the other cases cited here, has brought into focus the expected tension between state and religious authorities. In Egypt, the autocratic government of Hosni Mubarak had since 1980 made numerous concessions to the Islamic religious establishment in return for their political support. In Morocco, the king deftly balanced and played off human rights activists and traditionalists. In Kenya, on the other hand, Muslims and Christians saw the Kadhis courts as symbols for their competing political positions.
In each case, ideological groups took centre stage in the public debate over a matter that affected communities and families in more fundamental ways. In each case, the source of pressure to adopt new laws to regulate Muslim marriages was obscured. Individual research has shown in these countries that social and economic conditions had changed the structure of marriages over the last few decades.
Relations within the families were drastically changing, driven mainly by dire economic conditions. Like others, Muslim marriages were increasingly supported by single-parents or  double incomes, pressurised by poverty, unemployment and extensive migration patterns.
Laws that assumed the male as the sole or main breadwinner were no longer reflecting these changes. Laws that had been formulated at independence or in the 1920s (in Egypt) could not longer address the challenges of globalization, low employment and a discourse of equal rights.
Muslim women, feeling the brunt of these pressures, were the catalysts for change. They took their problems to courts, mediation offices and informal adjudication centres run by Islamic legal experts. Driven by a desire for justice, they expected local Islamic institutions to respond to their predicaments. They did not start with the assumption that religion was an obstacle to their predicament. Rather, their conviction was and continues to be a hope and desire for justice.
In public debate, the conflict between different ideological groups tends to obscure this hope. Driven by the familiar antagonism between religion and state, and reformists and traditionalists, actual conditions in which families find themselves are forgotten.
Ideological conflicts cannot explain the similarity of these wide-ranging demands in very different countries. A monarchy, autocratic and authoritarian regimes, and an emerging democracy are too different from each other to align modernists and traditionalists, conservatives and liberals, against other.
It is more fruitful to look further down the social system to see who is pushing change and in which direction. It is, I believe, women who are expected to juggle the impossible between new social conditions, and social mores and laws that do not deliver justice.

 

Muslim Marriage Bill: Between Justice and Identity?

The Ministry of Justice in South Africa has tabled the Muslim Marriages Bill for comment until 15 March 2011. Until a few weeks ago, it seemed that those opposed to the Bill had dominated the public debate with dire warnings of fire and brimstone to anyone supporting what they called the Kufr Bill. 

Supporters now seem determined to gather support for the Bill. The United Ulama Council of South Africa has organized a number of public discussions to clarify their support for the Bill, and email petitions are being collected in support. 

I support this bill and have supported this process since it began about 15 years ago. My support was based on some fundamental grounds. Most importantly, non-recognition of Muslim marriages in South Africa had fundamentally disadvantaged women and children.  And it was the obligation of the state to recognize any contract engaged in by its citizens.

A proper format needed to be found for this. The Muslim Marriage Bill is a South African legal instrument towards this process. It is not Islamic Law.

My second ground for supporting the Bill was the obvious fact that Islamic law was open to interpretation on the basis of justice and fairness. As it had been interpreted in the past to empire and culture, it could also respond to basic human rights. This would include the right of a woman to a dignified life even if that may lead to divorce. It also could respond, I thought, to the contribution that women make  to build homes, and contribute to household incomes. 

Rejection of the Bill implies that the South African government does not recognize an agreement signed between a man and a woman when they get married. Rejection means that Islamic Law does not stand up for justice. Rejection means that Islamic law has become a mark of Islamic identity and male privilege. 

Muslim Marriages on the Rocks Again

The place of Muslim marriages in the country’s legal and parliamentary frameworks has once again landed on the rocks. This time, debate among South Africa's Muslim leaders is building up to the Ministry of Justice’s call for comment to the draft Muslim Marriage Bill (MMB) before 15 March 2011.

Positions have hardened, but the challenge remains the same. Can the South African parliament pass a law that recognizes Muslim marriages, as enunciated in the constitution? Without a law, judges are left to interpret the constitution and also Islamic law on the basis of expert witnesses.  The sticky point is how to frame Islamic law on marriage in terms of the general intention of the constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights.


This reflection turns to those who have come to dominate public debate among Muslims. They reject the proposed Bill with all the religious rhetoric that they can muster. At the same time, they articulate unusual support for a secular constitution that separates religion and state. Both are worthy of critical analyssi. 

Founded in Port Elizabeth around a Newspaper and now a website, the Majlis under the leadership of AS Desai has led the charge against proposed Bill. His articles and writings have spread throughout the country, challenging Muslims and their religious leaders in particular to reject this and any other proposed Bill on offer. 
The highly charged debate on Muslim radio stations, on websites and in mosque platforms, is framed in extreme theological rhetoric. Anyone supporting the bill, even in some modified form, is meddling in heresy (kufr). The Bill itself is called Kufr MMB (Heresy Muslim Marriages Bill), and those who support it are themselves implicated in heresy.
This theological framing of the debate has had its desired effect. Many religious leaders who had previously supported the bill have turned around (and some have turned back to support it too).  New groups of religious leaders are formed, and coups engineered within existing ones. The charge of heresy has a salubrious effect.
The rhetoric has however obscured the main problem of non-recognition. Muslim women are the most obvious victims of non-recognition, particularly working-class Muslims who do not register their religious ceremonies in a civil court. In the past, when they approached the court for redress, they were turned away because Muslim marriages were “potentially polygamous” or did not conform to Christian ritual form.
The new constitution set out to change these colonial and apartheid responses. And the court record is beginning to build an alternative case history since 1994.
Not surprisingly, the defendants in these disputes have been men. They are the ones who unilaterally repudiate their wives, given them a limited amount of compensation at divorce, or take on second or third wives (often in mid-life crises). In all these cases, women receive meagre consideration or compensation for supporting homes, careers and businesses during the most difficult periods of a couple’s journey in life.
When summoned to court in these cases, men have taken recourse to fact that Muslim marriages are not recognized! The colonial and apartheid regimes harboured deep prejudices for not recognizing Muslim marriages; many Muslim men did not have to be taught how to use such prejudice to their advantage. One may say that these Muslim men have played an equally powerful role in supporting the no-recognition of Muslim marriage.
In post apartheid South Africa, Muslim men in conflict with their spouses want to naturally maintain this status quo. They do not want their wives to seek redress in court, nor in any progressive interpretation of Islamic law. The religious language of a Kufr MMB provides a perfect cover for this status quo.
All the substantive objections to the Bill reveal this male privilege. We are told in no uncertain terms that the rights of men are given by God and the Prophet Muhammad, and may not be tampered with. In some of the objections, women are regarded as emotional, deficient in intellect and wayward. Their demand for rights are framed as feminine weakness or religious infidelity.

Surprisingly, the objections raised to the proposed Bill also make a very explicit constitutional argument. They make an important point about the limits of the state in the definition and practice of religion. Echoing a venerable European tradition of the separation of religion and state, they are arguing that the proposed Muslim Marriages Bill interferes in the freedom of religion. Stressing all the values of a secular state, they want to preserve the so-called purity of Islamic law.

Clearly, the present debate does not revolve around the protection of ‘purely’ religious beliefs and practices like prayer, fasting and the like. And one has to look through the religious rhetoric to appreciate the underlying cause for concern. Not many would agree that the Bill of Rights was drafted to defend all cultural and religious practices. 

The Muslim Marriages Bill debate in South Africa deserves careful attention. On the one hand, it advances the cause of the secular constitution. More importantly, though, it points out how cultural practices can be clothed in religious rhetoric that limit the fundamental goals of the constitution.