The actual resolution by PAS is this:

Mendesak Majlis Fatwa Kebangsaan membuat penyelidikan ke atas SIS yang membawa aliran Islam Liberal dan seterusnya mengharamkan pertubuhan tersebut sekiranya terbukti bertentangan dengan syariat Islam serta membuat program pemulihan ke atas ahli-ahlinya.

The key words are “penyelidikan” and “sekiranya terbukti”. This is clearly a call to investigate and if found to be against the syariat, only then to take action. In the earlier part (the preamble), PAS is expressing its own opinion.

I agree that PAS is making an accusation against SIS but I do not agree that it amounts to a challenge to the Fatwa Council akin to that: “We have decided that SIS is a threat to Islam; you should investigate and then ban them.” We shouldn’t be adding our own words to the resolution. The call is to investigate, period.

I recently attended the National Convention of Kelab Penyokong PAS held in Klang. According to the leaders of the club (all non-Muslims of course) they now have some 60,000 members. Their message was that they know very well PAS aspires to set up an Islamic government and that their position was that they were convinced that an Islamic government would better protect their rights as compared to the present set-up. The reason PAS supports the setting up of the club is to engage non-Muslims in open and candid discussion. But these are early days and much more engagement and discussion is necessary to explain Islam to the non-Muslims.

Islam is not averse to dissenting views. Some have said that we should not “ban” organisations with whom we disagree. This is off-track. It is not a matter of mere disagreement, which is perfectly understandable and OK. The problem is the name SIS is using. By using Islam in its name, some people might think that it is an Islamic organisation and thus get confused as to what Islam actually stands for. That’s why that if SIS changed its name and did not purport to be an Islamic organisation, then what it says or does would not bother me.

I would like to add that if SIS maintains “Islam” in its name their actions and statements must at least conform to the basic tenets of Islam. If one would have noticed, PAS is accusing SIS of “mengancam aqidah” which is the very foundation of the “Islamness” of a person.

I confess that I am a member of PAS (a low level activist). The opinion expressed here is strictly my own and I am not authorised to speak for the party.

5 replies on “PAS v SIS”

  1. Dear Katharina Sri,

    Noted your passage with interest.

    It is ever so important to separate one from another, that is to say, to know the difference between :-

    (1) Politics/Idealogy;

    (2) Culture;

    (3) Religion;

    (4) Freedom guaranteed under the Malaysian Federal Constitution;

    (5) Protection of Women's right to education, expression and to live the way a woman chooses to live;

    (6) Let it be know that women whom are deprived of her rights to live as any human being is cruel and inhumane.

    (7)If it wasn't for women, there would be no leaders in this world.

    (8) As we all know, the hand that rocks the cradle rule the world… that means every man will have a mother whom is also a woman.

    The leaders of this world must remember the love and care provided by their mothers, whom are also women, and therefore they must remember to nurture their women folk instead of controlling them with unfair and unkind practices.

    Liberate with education and protect your daugthers, sisters, and other younger women whom are or will be subject to such unreasonable practices as they have the right to think rationally and live on this planet like any other human being, and not a lesser one just because she is a woman.

    Regards,

    Janetlee

    Janetlee

  2. PAS is not to be trusted – since it is an Islamist organization. Many do not understand the difference between ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islamist’. Islamists are supporters of Arabic-centric medievally dogmatic political Islamic ideology i.e. Islamism (just like Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism etc), and do not have to be Muslims, that seeks to construct or sustain racist, sexist and fascist dominant power over ordinary Muslim believers and non-Muslim communities alike. This is in order to achieve an absolute "(One i.e. homogenous) Islamic Empire/Ummah", from east to west, in opposition to modernity and westernization, especially against universal human and women's rights. Whereas Muslims are ordinary believers who regard Islam as a personal belief between oneself and God (thus not interested in gaining dominant power over anyone). Further, Islamist ideology will never fundamentally recognize full liberation and equality for women/girls, gays, non-Islamic communities, converts/apostates from Islam and so on. Moreover, this include forcing girls as young as from three years old to SUBMIT to Arabic-centric veiling ideology; so that their consent can be manufactured as when they become adults, rather than from rational i.e. complete, free will! Go to PAS organized meetings and you will see this very clearly – disgusting!

    Lastly, even in oil-rich Malaysia and Indonesia, the Pakistan-led (& Bangladesh to a certain extent – including by marrying local village or poor women/girls especially in Borneo – including non-Muslims) Islamist groups have infiltrated local Islamist movements, including PAS and fanaticized such groups, thus causing increasing extremist Islamisation of the two countries, besides targeting our oil, including in oil-rich Borneo. Further, these once dynamically multicultural tolerant two countries will be the Islamist Empire base in South-East Asia.

    Katharina Sri (former: Noor Aza Othman)

    Germany.

  3. The basic question is whether SIS is allowed to interprete Islam differently. In fact, there are many different interpretations of Islam historically. Why should this be different in this case?

    Perhaps Sister In Islam is more of Sister of Islam rather than Sister In Islam. They are 'in' and yet they are 'of', i.e. they do not always conform to the normative Islam prescribed. Who decides then? Who has the power to say this is the only true interpretation?

    This raises the question of equality of power in relationships of the interpretor and the interpreted. In civil society, the power to interprete is not hegemonic or prymidal. The process is mutually interacting, each allows to influence one another and not linear.

  4. This is great!

    Loyarburok shouldn't only be a forum for one side to present their views.

    Keep it coming.

    (As to the article itself, I had a feeling that it was not an outright call to ban, contrary to what was reported.)

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