Prof Dr Nasarudin Umar: Holy Books are Gender Biased!

This article was firstly published in Indonesian at 26/4/2004

In the contemporary study of Koran, the Koran is assumed as a product of culture (muntâj tsaqâfi). Meaning some contents of the Koran are a reflection of the social-cultural conditions in which the Koran was revealed. Therefore, besides being believed to be Allah’s universal teachings, the Koran also considered accommodating the local traditions in that time (Arab tradition). The problem arises when that tradition does not meet the spirit of the modern era, for instance regarding woman. Yet the holy books have compromised and even accommodated it. How can one analyze the relation between the holy book and this cultural element?

The expert of Koranic science, Prof Dr Nasaruddin Umar, who is the master teacher of State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah discussed those matters with Nong Darol Mahmada and Novriantoni from Liberal Islam Network.

JIL: Mr. Umar, you held a serious research on woman in sacred text, especially in Islamic text. Recently, you also held research in university libraries in America and England. What is your discovery?

PROF. DR. NASARUDDIN UMAR (NASAR): Firstly, I think it is nothing. My research is not too much serious, although it is consistent. Meaning what I thought about woman and holy book is still the same as the previous one. However, I will continue researching to know whether my discovery contains any defect, needs revision and so on.

In England, I attempted to study Talmud and other Jewish resources. In SOAS University of London, literatures particularly about Jew are excellent. To me this Jewish literature is important to support my study about woman. I do not know why Jewish literature is forbidden in muslim countries. Yet to me, there are many important elements in it. However, Jewish matter is acknowledged by Koran and stimulates us to observe. The word yahûdiyyan (Jews)appears several times in Koran. Therefore, if I want to get a direct verification from the Jewish original text, I have to work hard since I have to study Hebrew language because those Jewish texts are generally in Hebrew.

JIL: Are you studying woman in particular?

NASAR: Yes. I am consistent in that matter. I try to comprehend various holy books to know its view regarding woman. Ironically, I find that Koran, Bible and other holy books like book of Confucius and Buddha and even the classic book like Talmud do not give proper position to woman. I think there must be something wrong here. I try to see where the root of problem is.

In my last book, Teologi Perempuan: Antara Mitos dan Kitab Suci (Woman Theology: between Myth and Holy Book), I found two important elements contribute in the building of a gender-biased religious discourse; it is the factor of theology and myth. Sometimes the myth is considered as holy book. Here I try to clarify which one is the holy book and which one is the myth; which one is the Arabic culture and which one is the Islamic doctrine. This point must be clarified.

JIL: In that selection process, do you find blend of inter-relating theology and myth in the holy books?

NASAR: Yes. Our problem –Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholar’s problem- is about how to understand the holy book, and about how to cleanse its deviating interpretation. In Islam, we have to recognize a thing: the political battle.

The political matter is this: why Islam -that is revealed in Mecca and Medina- is shifted to Damascus due to the political contestation between Ali and Muawiyah. In that case, Ali ruled the mass bases in Mecca and Medina, while Muawiyah who had no bases there eventually shifted the capital of Islamic politics to Damascus. We know that Damascus (Syria) is influenced by the Jewish-Greek cultures, since this region had been conquered by Rome-Byzantium. Here we recognize the codification of classic literatures. Therefore, contamination between local culture and Hellenism, the Greek culture that is misogynist, is strongly embedded among the people of Damascus.

JIL: Do you want to say that actually misogynist view in the holy book is not originally strong, but due to assimilation with certain cultures’ religious view regarding woman it got worse?

NASAR: I think it is exactly like that, because no holy book revealed within society without culture. No holy book is revealed in an area without humans. All holy books including Koran, is revealed within primordial society. Therefore, there is dialectic pattern of how the holy book suits itself with the local values. There is process of tasyri’ and tadrîj in Islam, God’s gradual process to introduce his normative concept. There is also ‘adamul

h

araj, avoiding tension and trouble; al-taqlîlut taqlîfî, little by little.

Allah realizes that He reveal Islam within society with certain culture. Hence, there is a gradual socialization process. For example, Arab society was a usurer society that exploits other’s sweat for its own interest. Within 23 years, God revealed more than eight verses forbidding usury up to the last verse ‘wa a

hallalLâhul bai’ wa h

arramar ribâ’ (trade is allowed and usury is prohibited). The prohibition of usury is gradually just as the prohibition of alcoholic drink. God knows that alcoholic drink is a part of Arabic culture so at last it is prohibited absolutely in the fourth verse. It did not deconstruct the previous values directly; there is no revolution but evolution.

JIL: Is there such evolutionary process in Talmud?

NASAR: Firstly, I want to explain what Talmud means. In fact, Talmud is not a holy book but an interpretation upon Old Testament/Torah like Tafseer Al-Marâghî, Al-Manâr, so on. Talmud is divided into two: firstly is the thick Babylonian Talmud (I have 20 volumes of this version). Secondly is the thin Palestine Talmud.

To me, several views in Talmud resemble Muslim scholar’s views in classical fikh literatures. If only those Jewish literatures allowed in Islamic library, we may see the closeness between Jewish and Islamic literatures. Regrettably, we are anti-Jew although we do not realize that actually some Jewish elements settled under our consciousness. For example about the treatment upon woman. Up to now, I see Jewish cosmology on woman’s affair influence the Islamic cosmology through cultural accommodation, like in Damascus where literatures are written, hadits are codified and tafseer is compiled.

Politic also influence the religious view on woman. When there was political contestation between Muawiyah and Ali, the capital city is moved from Medina to Damascus. Afterward, the Abbasid ruled and moved the capital city further to Baghdad. We know that Sassanian and Persian cultured had developed in Baghdad, where the activity of writing literatures continued. This Persian tradition is misogynist and anti woman. Therefore, local influence upon religious discourse -mainly in formulating classical literatures- is huge.

JIL: You say that holy books accommodate the available social-cultural condition. Then, those insights will be fixed, for instance, in its accommodation on polygamy. Is it a problem.

NASAR: If religion wants to survive within society, it should not remove their tradition radically. I want to give example about Islamic dialectic upon its society. Firstly, Koran comes into the elites, since Arab society is very paternalistic and patriarchic. It is assumed that by accommodating the elite, people will be included, and by accommodating man, woman will be included.

This is the strategy of Koran socialization. We should not consider Koran patriarchic and paternalistic, since it accommodates the objective condition of society. There is a good example of how Koran gives liberty toward woman. Before Koran revealed, woman cannot get her inheritance at all, and not all man can get it. It is only man who goes to the battle who gets it. The male children or the elders get no inheritance. Islam comes with the teaching that men, children, and women also get inheritance despite of the fact that her share is half of the man’s. At that moment, woman cannot be a witness since it is a part of public matter. However, Islam come to legalize woman to be witness.

JIL: But the awareness upon Koran’s history is low. How can we reinterpret Koran at present?

NASAR: It is the matter of methodology. Islam comes to liberate the oppressed people. At that time, there is no ransom regulation for murdering woman. If a man is murdered, the ransom depends on his social strata; 500 camels for murdering the aristocrat, and 50 camels for murdering the ordinary man. Islam comes and determines 50 camels for murdering woman, 100 camels for murdering man.

Thus, there is transitional phase initiated by Islam just like the polygamy matter. Transition how Islam liberates society from the polygamy. At that moment, man can have 10 wives, so the Prophet required them to select four wives whenever they embrace Islam. It is radical for Prophet to tell them selecting only a wife. If Islam straightforwardly forbids usury when the first verse revealed, Islam will be abandoned.

JIL: However, the radicals may say, “it is the furthest measure given by Koran for woman. And it is what God has said regarding them.” What about that?

NASAR: As far as I know, all verses about woman have asbab nuzul or historical background. There is question: which one is the directive, text or historical background? One says al-‘ibrah bi ‘umumil lafadz lâ bi khusûsis sabab, it is the universality of text, not the particularity of cause. Al-Syâtibî said, al-‘ibrah bi maqâshidis syarî’ah, the directive isthe objectives of sharia. It is an important ushul fikh subject.

To me, there are already-solved-problems and unsolved-problems in the Koran. For example the problem of usury and alcoholic drink: usury and alcoholic drink are absolutely prohibited. However, there is unsolved matter like slavery that still available until the Prophet died. Fortunately, this system has vanished.  You can imagine how Koran dialectic to remove slavery. Everyone who did certain crime must liberate a slave. Liberating slave must ransom many criminalities such as the fake oath, intercourse in the day of Ramadhan etc.

JIL: Ironically, no ulama initiate the prohibition of slavery, but it is American regulation that firstly prohibits it under Lincoln.

NASAR: That is the problem. Koran has stopped by the death of Prophet before reaching into the edge of problem. However, we will reach a point where Koranic concept will remove slavery, since it obliges every criminal to liberate slave. The matter of woman is different. In the last period of his life, the Prophet seemed to be very protective upon woman. For instance, trough the revelation of hijab verses.

Why did the Prophet in the end of his life show protection upon woman? We have to remember an important event called as haditsul ifk, fake claim. It is about a munafik’s (hypocrite) claim upon Aisha to have an affair. So what has been called as “Aisha scandal” to the western version, leads the Prophet to be protective upon woman. If we observe surah al-Ahzab, the protection is not upon all women, but particularly upon the Prophet’s family. So it is valid upon his wife and family, ahlul bait, and not valid universally upon all women.

But we have to admit that political condition post the death of Prophet and Islam afterward in the hand of Umayyad and Abbasid dynasty, return the woman’s position to jahiliyyah (ignorance) period. In the time of Prophet, the world of concubinage is not popular. However, Muawiyah reintroduce the local culture allowing concubinage. It is worse in the Abbasid dynasty. According to the research of Fatima Mernissi, only four Abbasid caliphs were born from legal wives, as the first wife of caliph, the rest are from concubines.

JIL: Substantially, the Islamic liberating mission upon woman is not yet finished and it may never be finished?

NASAR: It depends on our comprehension. If we see through Islamic dimension as the kaffah (complete) system, as basic elements, Koran says “mâ farrathnâ fil kitâb min syai” (we neglect nothing from Koran). All basic outlines are included in Koran, while the detail of humanitarian law is the human’s task by using his ratio. Human have the ability to perform synergy and democracy. Here, people’s deliberation, by the above standard, will lead to an ideal humanitarian aim. I am optimistic that the ideal world will comes true if we re-read Koran and take its general message.

JIL: Dou you mean that public reasoning can annul several misogynist texts?

NASAR: Not the sacred text, but its interpretation since in fact the sacred text is limited. We consider many things as the sacred book, yet it is not. There always is the potency of reduction whenever we translate Koran; into Indonesian or to other language.

JIL: How do you see the prospect of gender justice?

NASAR: As far as I know, Koran gives extra freedom upon woman. In researches about holy books it is affirmed that there is no system of value that appreciate woman remarkably just like the Koran did. Therefore, if we objectively see the context, Koran is the only value system appreciating the woman’s rights.

JIL: Is Koran better as compared to other holy book?

NASAR: Yes. The problem is that we straightly confirm it with things such as woman’s inheritance or witness that is half of the man’s, the prohibition to be leader, and divorce right. If we read the classical book of fikh, we will see that woman is man’s subordination. It seems that Islam put woman in the second class. However, I have read the oldest sacred text of ‘Hammurabi code’. This text is very old since 3500 BC. An article of it says that if a husband died, his wife should follow. Woman cannot hold any contract since the rights of performing contract belongs to man only. Just imagine that! []

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)