God, dog and culture

I hate to be blasphemous, but God and dog have another thing in common, at least in Malaysia,besides their three letters. Both are at the centre of recent controversies involving Islam and Muslims, and a student of theology would be in good company sinking his teeth into all the theological arguments in the media.

Both debates seem to be based on a dichotomy of right and wrong, liberal and conservative.

But not all that has been described as “liberal views”, whether in a positive or negative tone, is necessarily so. It is interesting that what is considered “liberal Islam” by Malaysians may not be so in other Muslim countries, even the most conservative.

Take the Allah debate for example. Even the most 'fundamentalist' of militants such as those busy resurrecting the caliphate in Syria will wonder why there is ever such a debate about it in Malaysia.

Ditto the dog-touching brouhaha. While Malaysian Muslims who touch dogs have been branded “moderates” and “liberals” by both their sympathisers and detractors, keep in mind that this same act of patting the canines could also be a past-time of those Muslims who have been almost universally labelled as extremists.

So you see, the sentiments on God and dog do not necessarily make us liberal or moderate.

But here’s the silver lining. In the course of such debates: the Malaysian public, Muslims in particular, are being exposed to a plethora of views on Islam which perhaps never made it into our school Agama textbooks, and definitely not in the many preachy religious talk shows which have taken control of our television channels.

One topic which came out of the dog day afternoon in Bandar Utama last Sunday is the school of jurisprudence that Muslims here subscribe to. There are even those who hint that it is time Muslims, Malays in particular, begin to think out of their traditional Shafi’i references and adapt other schools of jurisprudence. Those who advocate this are supposedly among the more "progressive" Muslims.

So, long-held taboos and idiosyncrasies which are intertwined with religious rituals are being questioned.

While such questioning is welcome, we must not throw the baby out with the bath water. Any zealousness in trying to sift the mixture of cultural taboos from Islamic teachings could slide Muslim society into the abyss of Wahhabism.

When this happens, so many long held cultural preferences will be questioned. The danger of such an exercise is that it could descend into an endless exercise of demarcating what is Islamic and what is not.

Such a process has resulted in the kind of Islam that is practised in Saudi Arabia today, one that is devoid of its inner soul, stripped of the many cultural baggage adapted by Muslims, all in the name of preserving the purity of Islam while building a wall to separate cultural habits and religious interpretations.

Those of us who look towards Muslims of other regions in questioning local taboos, which are rightly or wrongly presumed as part of Islam, don’t know what they are getting into. Some have praised the Maliki school for its apparently more liberal stance on contact with dogs.

But this is also the same school in which a Muslim woman is prohibited from travelling without being accompanied by a male relative. It is also the launchpad which gave birth to the Wahhabi movementof the 18th century, whose divisive ideology continues today.

Such patronising rules on women later evolved into the silly prohibitions on women driving, as well as the impossibility for a Muslim woman pilgrim to get a Saudi visa, unless she can prove that she is travelling with a male relative. During Umrah, many a female pilgrim travelling alone would approach men on the same flight and ask them to accompany her at the Saudi immigration counter to pose as her brother or uncle.

This is not to say that the Imams of old whose teachings led to the establishment of the schools of jurisprudence were wrong or chauvinist. They are a product of their time and took into account cultural taboos and prohibitions in their teaching of Islam.

With their insight and knowledge, I am sure they would revise their stand on women travellers ifthey were to live today. At the same time, some of them would be turning in their graves if they knew the kind of fatwas being passed in their names.

Islam is not a rigid manual of dos and dont’s spelt out in over 6,000 Arabic verses. It is more than that, and its sacredness only works with thinking human minds.

As a living religion (although perhaps with many dead followers), nothing is static in Islam. This is the spirit in which the jurists of old taught the religion. Their teachings, in turn, were influenced by their own background, including the cultural environment where they lived.

Abu Hanifah who founded the Hanafi school, for example, was a businessman, and his experience in day-to-day interactions was probably why skin contact with the opposite sex is not frowned upon.

Not so the case with al-Shafi’i, who from a tender age was immersed in studies and the pursuit of religious knowledge. Unlike Abu Hanifah, he rules that touching of the opposite sex would invalidate one’s ablution, the symbolic washing of one’s face, hands and feet before prayer. Yet, cultural taboos among Hanafi adherents in Pakistan make touching between opposite sexes a sin.

In Malaysia, despite the Shafi'i strictures about mixing of sexes, it is normal for men and women to shake hands. This is culture.

I think it is better to let Muslims in Malaysia be comfortable with their cultural taboos against touching dogs, while not making a fuss about those who would like to keep them as pets. As long as they are responsible owners and carry a plastic bag to carry the poo when walking their dogs on public streets, nobody should be bothered.

But to keep invoking “true” Islam hoping they can overcome such long held cultural taboos, however “un-Islamic” they may be, would be opening the floodgate of puritanism in society.

Of course, some form of puritanism is needed in all societies. It keeps a check on common sense, especially when a tradition or culture leads to wastage and extravagance at the cost of taxpayers’ money. (Owing to our sophisticated sedition radar, I would leave this to your imagination.)

One should be mindful against going the Wahhabi way, passing judgement on everything through Quranic verses and age-old sayings of the Prophet, without taking into account the contexts of these sayings and verses.

As for me, although I grew up in a Shafi’i incubator, I have no qualms about following any other interpretations which I am comfortable with. In some cases, one has to give and take. Such as during my wedding, when I had to take part in the “batal air sembahyang” ceremony, where the groom kisses the bride’s forehead and invalidates his state of ablution.

This is a Malay custom influenced by books written by Shafi’i Muslim scholars, although not necessarily from the man Imam al-Shafi’i himself. So one could even argue that it has nothing to do with Islam. Yet the fact is, many Malay Muslims believe that even skin contact with one’s wife could invalidate one’s ablution.

I personally find this impractical and we never practised this at home. It probably works when you live in a large bungalow. But within our modern four walls, it would mean renewing your ablution every time you want to pray, just because you have made the trip past your narrow kitchen and brushed against your spouse.

Having said that, did I protest the ridiculous “batal air sembahyang” ceremony? No, because doing so would mean doing away with local norms and customs, however ridiculous they are. As long as they do not waste taxpayers’ money, and do not infringe on the rights of others, it does not do harm to maintain them.

But then again, who says culture makes sense? It is like marriage, a freedom-shedding exercise which doesn’t make sense, but is much needed for mankind’s survival!

I am sure Syed Azmi Alhabshi meant well in organising the 'I Want to Touch a Dog' event. He did not challenge cultural taboos, but made sure that the canines were treated as traditional Shafi'i teachings required, that ritual purification should be done upon contact with them.

The problem is when some Muslims deemed progressive by Malaysian standards take the opportunity to squeeze in their Wahhabist agenda in Malaysian Muslim society, by saying that the protests over the event had to do with ignorance about true Islam, the typical argument which often accompanies Wahhabi discussions.

Wahhabism has done enough damage to Islam, and if it takes the Malays’ “un-Islamic” idiosyncrasies to act as bulwark against such narrow restrictive ideology, then be it.

The alternative would be to open the Muslim society to all intellectual and rational interpretations of Islam in the same spirit which gave birth to the many schools. And this should extend to all denominations, including those which have been vilified as deviant.

The truth is, there is good and bad in each school, so take the best and leave the rest.

As for me, I have long opted to become a Sushi Muslim, a hybrid of Sunni and Shia, and therefore have the best of both worlds. – October 25, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.