How Indonesia & Malaysia Became Muslim

How Indonesia & Malaysia Became Muslim

The dark secret of Thailand’s child brides

 Absolutely disgraceful, we fail our own children.:(

The legal loophole has also created what Thai children’s rights activist Anchana Heemmina described as the “big business of cross-border marriage” – Malaysian men crossing into southern Thailand to easily engage in underage or polygamous marriages for which getting approval in Malaysia would be impossible or a very lengthy process.

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Mohammad Lazim runs one such business, helping arrange cross-border marriages for Malaysian men. He works with more than 50 bridegrooms a year, mainly wanting a second or third wife – but insists never with underage brides. He says that his business is tiny compared with some.

“People come from all over Malaysia to do this,” he said. “Business is booming: instead of applying to a sharia court in Malaysia and answering all their difficult questions – a process that takes sometimes a year – the shortcut is to come to Thailand. Here there is no law.”

The practice is also particularly lucrative for imams practising on the Thai side of the Golok river, who charge four times as much to conduct a marriage for a visiting Malaysian as they do for people from their own community. In Malaysia, Che Abdul Karim would have found it difficult or impossible to obtain permission to marry Ayu; in Thailand, he simply paid the imam 4,500 baht (£105), and it was done. He has since been fined 1,800 Ringgit (£340) in a sharia court in Malaysia after pleading guilty to polygamy and conducting the marriage without the court’s permission.

Wannakanok Pohitaedaoh was forced into a violent marriage when young and now runs Luk Riang, a children’s shelter in Narathiwat. She said: “The biggest problem with child marriage in Thailand is that nobody wants to talk about it – not the Islamic Council, not the imams and not the government. It has always been swept under the rug, and that’s where they want it to stay.”

Her opposition is deeply personal. Wannakanok, now 34, was just 13 when she was forced into marriage by her parents and says the experience “haunts my soul to this day”.

“When he asked me to have sexual intercourse, I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t even know really what that meant, so I refused, and then he raped me,” she said, sobbing at the memory. “He was very violent and every time he wanted to have intercourse, he would use violence. We were living at home, and my parents would hear me screaming.

“And it was the same for so many of my friends. Many of my friends who were 12 or 13 had been married to men who were a lot older than them, maybe in their 30s or 40s. But the girls were young like me and didn’t want sex, so violence was very common. We had no idea about sex at that age.”

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The female face of Islamic law in Malaysia

Good to see Malaysia leading the way. More women need in all leadership and decision making roles. 

Judge Nenney is hopeful that the rising number of female judges will help change the perception that Syariah courts do no treat women fairly.

"The public perception said male judges must be biased to women. I hope after this, to the women who come before me, they must know there's no difference between a male judge or a female judge. The judge just does their job."

On the other side of the bench, more women are also working as Syariah lawyers.

The number of women registered with the Syariah Lawyers Association, a voluntary membership group, has increased by more than 200 in the last five years, and they now make up more than 40 percent of the group's members.

Sa'adiah Binti Din was working as a lawyer in the secular courts when she first volunteered to do Syariah legal aid work 18 years ago.

She says she realised then that many Muslim women appearing in the Syariah courts were unrepresented, so she began taking on more divorce cases.

"That was my turning point," says Sa'adiah. "Now, I'm in the Syariah Court almost every day."

She says her female clients often find it less difficult to appear before a female judge and court officials.

"I believe now they find it easier to talk to a woman," she says.

At Malaysian universities, Islamic law courses are increasingly dominated by young women.

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The female face of Islamic law in Malaysia

Islamic law enforcers are not often credited with being feminist pioneers, but Judge Nenney fits both those descriptions.

She made history in Malaysia last year when she was appointed one of the first two female Syariah High Court judges in this Muslim-majority nation. "Syariah" is the Malay spelling for the Arabic word "sharia", meaning Islamic law.

And the 42-year-old mother of three doesn't shy away from imposing the harshest punishments prescribed by Islamic law.

"When I'm on the bench, I'm not a woman, I'm not a man. I'm a judge," she says. "I need to deal with the case fair and firm, to follow the law, no bias."

In Malaysia, more women are pursuing careers in the Islamic justice system, from judges and lawyers to court mediators.

Under Malaysia's two-tier court system, Islamic law courts deal with family and morality cases involving Muslims, such as consuming alcohol, gambling and polygamy, while secular courts hear criminal and many civil cases.

Malaysia appointed its first two female Syariah judges in 2010.

Now, 27 of the country's 160 Islamic court judges are women.

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[Revert to Islam] -Share Your GIft - Mary Ann Gooi Pei Pei

Wardina Safiyyah is a TV host, actress and model.

She used to sashay down the runways across Asia in short skirts and revealing tops.

Then 15 years ago she decided to 'cover up' and expose only her wrists and face as a way to profess her Islamic faith. She, like many Muslim women in Malaysia, began to wear the headscarf or 'tudong' as it is called it in Malay.

The headscarf is the most visible sign of the islamisation of Malaysia, which has been gathering pace since the Iranian revolution of 1979. While some non-Muslims are concerned about this trend, Ms Wardina says her ability to choose what she wants to wear is proof that Malaysia is still a moderate Islamic nation.

Today, Ms Wardina has become a fashion icon for Muslim women in the country and she hopes to redefine the concept of beauty.

Ms Wardina feels empowered by her new Islamic attire - forcing people to judge her on her talent rather than her cleavage, she says.

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Polygamy makes families unhappy: study

Men in polygamous relationships find it difficult to meet the needs of all their wives and children, and the result is unhappy and cash-strapped families, according to a landmark Malaysian study.

Polygamy is legal for Muslims, who make up more than 60 percent of Malaysia's population, allowing Muslim men to take up to four wives.

But activists and women's groups say polygamy is cruel and has deviated from its original purpose in Islam, which was to protect widows and orphans.

A study by advocacy group Sisters in Islam (SIS) found that the majority of first wives and children in polygamous families were unhappy with the arrangement.

Husbands and junior wives gave a more positive response, according to the study which backed activists' views that first wives are often forgotten after a man creates a new family.

"The husbands are the most advantaged in terms of fulfilling his desire and satisfaction in life. He has access to more than one sexual partner every day or night while the wives take turn," the study said.

According to preliminary data, more than 90 percent of the 523 children in households interviewed vowed not to enter into polygamy themselves, and two-thirds of first wives were against the practice.

"Generally, it is due to the fact that their right to demand (time and money) from their husband has decreased because their father now has another family," SIS researcher Syarifatul Adibah Mohamad Jodi told AFP.

"Despite some women saying they are not happy in the marriage, they have to accept it and they are resigned to it. They are in a vulnerable position -- financially or emotionally," she said.

SIS estimates that up to five percent of marriages in Malaysia are polygamous, a figure that has risen as rules limiting multiple marriage have been watered down over the years.

However, husbands were not entirely happy with the situation, either. Many of those surveyed said they found it "most difficult to fulfill the needs of the first wife and their children".

The study, which involved extensive interviews with 1,235 individuals from polygamous families, will be formally published next year.

SIS hopes it will trigger a change in legislation that allows the practice to flourish in Malaysia.

Adibah said that reforms should include ensuring that first wives are not cut off financially and that their consent is required before their husband enters into a second marriage.

Critics of polygamy say that such laws, where they exist, are frequently ignored in Malaysia.

Polygamy is illegal for non-Muslims in the multi-ethnic nation, which is also home to large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

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Let women judges do their job

We do need to look at justice with a gender perspective. It is always women who suffer, both from injustice and society’s blindness towards it.

IT SEEMS to be the unchanging lot of women in Malaysia. First we are elevated, and then we are brought down to earth with a thud.

When the first women syariah judges were appointed this month, Muslim women were elated. At last, not only are women recognised for their ability to sit on the syariah bench but also perhaps now we can expect better justice for women in the syariah courts.

The first uneasy twinge came, for me, when one of the new judges said that she wanted to show that just because she was female it didn’t mean she would be biased towards women.

While, yes, justice is supposed to be blind, this statement made it sound that she is determined to prove her credentials by bending over backwards not to favour women at all. Given that women have hardly found justice in the courts all this time, this is disappointing.

Then came the whammy. It seemed that only after appointing them, a syariah court panel, consisting only of men, was being set up to decide what the women judges could rule on.

How about that? Give someone a job and then decide what she can do. Was this just incompetency or an attempt at ensuring that they are kept “in their place”?

It is a fact that women have been getting short shrift in the syariah courts, whether in getting due compensation in divorce cases for themselves or their children, in inheritance cases and many others.

Even when courts have ruled in their favour, for instance in ruling that men have to pay maintenance for their children from their ex-wives, rarely have these been implemented.

As a result, many women and their children are left in dire poverty. Is that justice?

We do need to look at justice with a gender perspective. Otherwise “justice” will always be seen from a male perspective because it is generally men who make the laws. Or in the case of religious rulings, it is men who interpret them.

It would be nice to expect men to simply be gentlemanly and ensure that the mother of their children and their progeny are well cared for after divorce. But this rarely happens. Thus someone needs to stand up for women. Invariably this should be a woman who truly has justice in mind.

Not that this always involves only divorced women. The recent study on the impact of polygamy on families by SIS Forum Malaysia shows that generally polygamy does not lead to happy families.

First wives and their children generally suffer most, both in terms of attention from their husband and father as well as in terms of standard of living — after their husbands had taken on another wife, 44% of first wives were forced to go out and work just to ensure the survival of their family.

Considering that men are only supposed to take on another wife if they can afford to support both, this evidence, culled from interviewing over 1,200 families, shows they are coming up short.

Not that second wives and families are faring better either. All families complained about the amount of time their shared husband and father had to spend with them.

Equal time and attention is simply not humanly possible. As a result, there was dissatisfaction all round when birthdays, anniversaries, school events are missed.

Men may think of polygamy as their “right” but it is a stressful one, if nothing else.

It is always women who suffer, both from injustice and society’s blindness towards it. Heaven knows what we need to do to make society take violence against women seriously enough.

We can rightly point to many countries to show how our women are so much better off than theirs. But the reality is, unless women are protected from violence and can seek justice in the courts, such “equality” that we enjoy can only be superficial.

So let those women judges get on with their jobs. After all, their counterparts in the civil courts have been doing so for a long time.

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Second Honeymoon for warring Malaysian Couples

A Malaysian state is offering free second honeymoons for couples on the brink of divorce, hoping that romantic getaways will help rekindle their marriages, an official said Monday.

Under the ambitious plan, feuding couples will spend three days and two nights on one of the tropical islands off Terengganu state, said government official Ashaari Idris.

"Newly-wed couples are facing numerous problems. Among them are financial issues and problems related to their in-laws," said Ashaari, the state's welfare, community development and women affairs committee chairman.

"Before marriage, all was good. But after marriage, some are unable to cope with the new challenges," he told AFP.

"I want to strengthen family ties. If a marriage breaks down, it will hurt the children and it will have serious implications on society."

Couples will have to make an application and then undergo an interview before being accepted for the package which is worth an estimated 1,500 ringgit (440 dollars).

Ashaari said the state had already carried out a successful pilot project involving some 25 couples who faced marital woes.

He said that divorce rates in the Muslim-majority northeastern state were among the lowest in the country.

Picture Source: SkyScraperCity

Islam and Marital Rape

A Malaysian man who forced his wife to have sex with him has been sentenced to the maximum five years in jail, in the country's first successful prosecution under a new law against marital rape.

Prosecutor Law Chin How said the man was sentenced in a sessions court in eastern Pahang state.

He said the case was the first in the country under a 2007 law that makes it illegal for a husband to cause "fear of death or hurt to his wife ... to have sexual intercourse."

"We asked for a heavy sentence. First of all to protect women ... and to give others encouragement to stand up," he said today.

The amendment to the penal code that made marital rape a crime was considered a small step toward women's rights in conservative Muslim-dominated Malaysia. But some activists say it doesn't go far enough because the law doesn't stipulate a minimum sentence, which means a man could go to jail for as little as a day even if convicted.

The 35-year-old man was, however, sentenced to the maximum five years allowed. The punishment for rape outside marriage is up to 30 years.

The man was also sentenced to 10 years in jail and three lashes of the whip for forcing his wife to have anal sex, Law said. Anal sex, even when consensual, is a crime punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment in Malaysia. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Law said the man changed his plea from innocent to guilty for both charges Tuesday, a day after the trial started.

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So what is Islam's stance on Marital Sex?

Islam lays much emphasis on the concept of mutual love between spouses; why the Glorious Qur’an made it clear that “It is He Who created you from a single person, and made his mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her (in love).

Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America, clarifies this further by saying:

“The relations between the spouses should be based on tranquility, love and mercy. Allah says, "And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who reflect." (al-Rum 30:21)

Tranquility (sukun), love (mawaddah) and mercy (rahmah): these are very important concepts in Islam. These three summarize the ideals of Islamic marriage. It is the duty of the husband and wife to see that they are a source of comfort and tranquility for each other. They should do everything physically, emotionally and spiritually to make each other feel happy and comfortable. They must care for each other. They should not inflict any harm or injury, neither physically nor verbally, to each other. In order to increase the tranquility and comfort in their relations and in their home, they should love each other and should have mercy and kindness for each other.
Loving and merciful relationship is an important ingredient of a good marriage and good family life.

In Islamic marriage, neither the husband is allowed to demand his wife what is forbidden by Allah and what is harsh and unseemly, nor the wife is allowed to demand her husband to do anything that Allah has forbidden and what would put undue burden upon her husband. Sex is a natural urge and desire. Islam allows sexual intercourse only among the married couples. Fornication and adultery are forbidden in Islam. Since according to Islam there is no other permissible way for this desire to be fulfilled except between the spouses, they must be considerate to each other.

The Shari`ah has given us two important principles in this matter. (1) The first principle is that the husband should not deny himself to his wife and the wife also should not deny herself to her husband. They should do their best to satisfy their marriage partner. Even during the menses or post childbirth bleeding, when intercourse is forbidden, husband and wife can be together and can enjoy affection and intimacy in other ways.

(2) The second principle is that in their conjugal relations the couples should be kind and considerate. There are some Ahadith that report that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, disapproved when he heard that some husbands approached coitus abruptly and make a crude departure at the end of the act. It is reported, for example, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, "It is a rude manner of a man to proceed to have intercourse with his wife without first playing with her." Or "It is a vice in a man to assault his unprepared wife, seeking to satisfy his own lust and leaving her before she could achieve her own fulfillment…" Imam al-Ghazali in his Ihya' (vol. 2: 49-50) has mentioned these Ahadith. Most of the scholars of Hadith consider these Ahadith weak (da`if) and we cannot say with surety that they are the statements of the Prophet -peace be upon him, they do, however, contain some wisdom and etiquette that are natural and Islamic.”

As for the husband’s right to sexual access and its conditions, Sheikh Ibn al-`Uthaymin, the well-known Saudi scholar, adds:

“It is obligatory upon the wife to respond to her husband if he calls her to his bed. However, if she is psychologically ill and is not able to actively respond to his call or if she has a physical illness, then in such cases it is not allowed for the husband to call upon her. This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "There is to be no harm done or reciprocation of harm." He should either refrain or enjoy her company in such a way that does not harm her.”

So, this indicates that there shouldn’t be anything called marital rape in the Islamic marriage, i.e. marriage governed by the rules and teachings of Allah Almighty and the beautiful example set by the noble Prophet, Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Sexual relationship between husbands and wives should be based on mutual love and respect. This point is stressed by the following fatwa, issued by the eminent Muslim scholar, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hanooti, member of the North American Fiqh Council:

“Intimacy should be a matter of etiquette and courtesy, not a matter of abstract desire. The Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, as `Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her narrates, used to have good foreplay and fondling and the like so that a spouse should be in the mood to have intimacy. What the Hadith means is that a wife should respond positively. Man should never jump to the extent of forcing his wife, but she should show no arrogance or hatred or denial when it comes to her appreciation and respect of her husband. Her denial to intimacy usually should give a hint to the husband that she is not physically or emotionally ready for that.

The husband should be of good reason and understand her situation. The husband should show almost the same response, and the same etiquette, if the wife hints to desiring intimacy with him. However, he is less offensive than his wife if he doesn't show a good response. In general, the Qur’an says, "They (wives) have as many rights as they are committed to duties." But a man should not be away from intimacy for any longer than four months, if the woman is in need of it.”

Malaysia bars non-muslims from abusing Allah's name

Non-Muslims especially Christians have been translating God as Allah and passing their missionary literature in a disguised form to Muslims, causing confusion.

The Catholic church in Malaysia has failed in a bid to suspend a government ban on the use of the word "Allah" in its weekly newsletter after the court rejected its application.

The high court ruling on Thursday effectively upheld the federal government's 2007 ban, which has become a symbol of religious tensions in the country.

The government directive bars non-Muslims from translating God as "Allah" in their literature, saying it would confuse Muslims in this plural, Muslim-majority country.

The Herald, which reports on Catholic community news in English, Malay, Tamil and Mandarin, tried to get the order suspended while waiting for a court decision on the ban's legality.

The court will hear the newspaper's original bid to review the administrative order on July 7.

Lawrence Andrew, a Catholic priest and the editor of The Herald, told Al Jazeera they had asked to suspend the ministerial directive until the court rules on whether the ban is legal.

"Since the status quo remains we will not use the word "Allah" in our publication. In fact we have not been using it since our January edition."

The government had previously warned The Herald, which has a circulation of 12,000 limited to Catholics, that its permit could be revoked if it continued to use the word "Allah" for God in its Malay-language section.

The section is read mostly by indigenous tribes across the country who converted to Christianity decades ago.

In 2007, the government issued a warning over The Herald's use of the word "Allah", which officials had said could only be used to refer to the Muslim God.

Christian groups say the ban is unconstitutional, arguing that the word "Allah" predates Islam.

Print publications in Malaysia require a permit which is renewed every year, and is subject to conditions set by the government.

In multi-racial Malaysia, the government considers religion a sensitive matter and often classify related matters as a security issue.

S Selvarajah, a lawyer for The Herald, told Al Jazeera the court said about 10 Malaysian states had similar prohibitions on non-Muslims' use of the word "Allah".

He said the judge explained that suspending the ban "would tantamount to the court aiding the infringement of those provisions".

"But it [the ruling] has no real prejudice as such because The Herald, in compliance with the ban, had stopped using the word since January," he said.

"We'll wait for July when the court will hear the parties and decide on the matter once and for all."

About 60 per cent of the country's 27 million people are Muslim Malays, with one-third of them ethnic Chinese and Indians, and many who are Christians.

The minorities have often said their constitutional right to practice their religion freely has come under threat from the Malay Muslim-dominated government.