Zain Ali: Everyday Islam nothing to fear

Any publicity is good publicity, except, that is, when it comes to Islam. The recent expose on Islam by 60 Minutes, and the resulting need for "clarification" by MP Ashraf Choudhary serves as a good enough example.

For several Muslim viewers, the piece confirmed their belief that the media have a bias against Islam. I, for one, would like to congratulate TV3 for its work. My endorsement is motivated by one simple reason - Muslims tend to sugar-coat Islam.

Often one will hear the catch-cry that Islam is a religion of peace. In a sense this is true. The Arabic word "islam" does mean peace, but there is ample evidence that Muslims are not necessarily a peaceful people. My support of TV3 is tempered by my first-hand experience of Islamic tradition.

Consider the issue of wife beating. The Koran does allow a husband to beat his wife, but it also implicitly overrides this injunction with an apt analogy.

The Koran describes men and women as being garments for each other, in that men and women are for each other a source of comfort, beauty and protection, as opposed to abuse and domination.

Also, Muhammad the prophet of Islam - who is described as the walking Koran - never beat any of his wives, and abhorred those who engaged in spousal abuse, physical or mental. Importantly, Muhammad advised his companions that the best husband is someone who behaves best toward his wife.

There is also an underlying consensus within the Muslim community that spousal abuse is unacceptable.

All this poses the question of why the Koran allows wife beating in the first place. The Koran, it must be remembered, was first addressed to an audience from seventh-century Arabia, an audience who openly practised female infanticide and viewed women as nothing more than a commodity.

While the Koran acknowledges these preconceptions, there is also a gradual move to undermine these prejudices.

We can summarise the Koranic strategy in the form of a dialogue:

Early man: I own this woman.

Koran: Yes, but you have a responsibility to provide her with food, clothing and shelter.

Early man: Well sure, I always treat my belongings well. And what's so special about a woman anyway?

Koran: The woman you "own" came from the same soul that you came from.

Early man: Yeah, but God created women to be owned by men.

Koran: No, no, men and women are meant to complement each other, not dominate one another.

I may have oversimplified, but the dialogue makes clear the Koranic strategy. A similar strategy is used to halt female infanticide, slavery, alcoholism, polygamy and polytheism.

How about the stoning to death of adulterers and homosexuals, I hear you ask? The Koran in no way specifies a punishment for homosexuality. But Islamic law does endorse the death penalty for adultery and homosexuality.

The issue here is with Islamic law, or Shariah, and as the Muslim gay activist, Irshad Menj notes: in the 11th century there were 135 schools of Islamic legal thought. These were deliberately reduced to four, conservative, schools of thought.

This led to a rigid reading of the Koran as well as to a series of legal opinions - fatwas - that scholars could no longer overturn or even question, but could now only imitate.

In other words, Islamic law is caught up in the imitation of medieval norms, which have trumped legal and social innovation.

Given these considerations, I do feel totally let down by the double-dutch of Ashraf Choudhary, but then again I have heard him proclaim several times that he does not represent Muslims. Rather, he claims to represent New Zealand's ethnic communities. Point taken, although in the court of public opinion he is still regarded as the "Muslim MP".

So who are the true representatives of Islam? They are the everyday people, the ones who probably live next door, who are working hard to earn a living, making sure that their kids get an education and stay out of trouble. These everyday Muslims are the silent, law-abiding majority. These are the people who came to this country, as did my parents, in the hope of a better future.

* Zain Ali is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland.