Haj and Islamic banking are centralised, so why not shariah laws, asks ex-mufti


(FMT) – Muslims in Malaysia are being deprived of justice under the shariah due to the application of different sets of Islamic laws across the states, says a former Terengganu mufti.

Ismail Yahya said this is also why the campaign to stop underage marriage among Muslims has met with failure, as some states have the power to allow a girl as young as 16 to tie the knot.

Ismail said the authorities should adopt a single courts system with uniformed Islamic laws.

“They say, ‘do we follow Islamic law or man-made law’. Please tell me where in Islam does it set the marital age as 16, 15, 11 or 9?” Ismail, a former shariah chief judge in Terengganu, said in a recent interview with FMT.

Ismail said physical and mental maturity are two different things in Islam.

He said there was a need to distinguish between “baligh sin” (puberty) and “baligh rushd” (maturity).

He said puberty does not mean a person is ready for married life, as well as the responsibilities that come with it.

He said this is why many Islamic scholars came to an agreement that 18 is the age at which a person achieves baligh rushd, or maturity.

“Some schools of thought even feel 23 is the right age, but when we discuss, the meeting point is 18, and that is not to simply follow civil law, but based on the view that 18 is the minimum age.”

He said it was unfortunate that many underage marriage cases were means to “resolve” unwanted pregnancies or as financial convenience.

Ismail said a uniformed set of Islamic laws is crucial to ensure justice.

He disagreed with the argument that it could undermine the powers of the sultans as the heads of Islam.

“The sultans’ status would not be diminished. He is still the head of Islam in the state and he has powers in other matters such as Malay customs, to grant clemency and so on.”

He cited Tabung Haji and Islamic banking as Malaysia’s success stories in the centralisation of some Islamic matters.

He said the haj was managed by the state before Tabung Haji was set up in 1963.

“Islam does not come under the federal government but why was Tabung Haji set up? Because it was about charity,” he said.

The same, he said, was the case with Islamic banking, where it was regulated centrally and not under the respective states as it was about banking and not just Islam.

 



Comments
Loading...