Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's Unique opportunity To Refashion Syariah

 Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Unique Opportunity To Refashion Syariah

M. Bakri Musa

 

To me the iconic picture of Malaysia is not that of the Petronas Twin Towers, as is typically seen on glossy tourist brochures, rather the squalor of the Malay settlement of Kampung Baru with the imposing Towers in the background.

 

            That should shame Malay leaders from the sultans on down. That jarring scene encapsulates and portrays the current pathetic state of our community, made that much more lamentable considering that the major levers of power in the country have been in unchallenged Malay hands since independence.

 

            Kampung Baru is emblematic of a far greater problem; our lack of intellectual capacity to analyze problems and come up with effective solutions. The issue with Kampung Baru, as with all Malay reservation lands as well as other assets reserved for Malays (as under MARA and Tabung Haji), is not lack of financial capital, as the conventional wisdom would have it, rather the lack of intellectual efforts at solving the major obstacle facing Malays today – the bewildering complexity of Islamic inheritance laws that have trapped Muslim assets under needless prolonged probates. About RM 80 billion worth of assets are thus frozen!

 

            Despite the plethora of Malay economists and the frenzy of “Islamizing” the discipline, few have addressed this critical glaring issue. Instead we have been deluded by Malaysia’s glittering development, forgetting the significant if not overwhelming contributions of non-Muslims. Scrutinize the government’s tax receipts.

 

            Meanwhile our ulama, their obsession with the Hereafter aside, are busy defending the Syariah against phantom enemies. Witness the recent mass gathering during the Federal Court’s hearing on the challenge to Kelantan’s Syariah enactments. If those demonstrators had just stayed back in Kelantan to clean up the lavatories of their local masjids and schools, they would have done a far more beneficial service. As to whether such activities would land them in Heaven, their central preoccupation, Allah hu Allam (Only Allah Knows!)

 

            Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent (November 21, 2023) setting up of a special committee “to empower and elevate the status of the Syariah court,” though well intentioned, was misplaced. Far more important to make sure that cases do not end up in the courts (syariah or otherwise) in the first place. Courts are there to resolve disputes. More sensible to prevent them from arising in the first place.

 

            Making Syariah laws clear, explicit, and relevant to current realities would do much to achieve that. Unfortunately Syariah fails miserably in this. No surprise there as its norms are based on medieval Arab society. The priority is not to “modernize” or “strengthen” Syariah courts, rather to make Islamic inheritance laws (and other Islamic laws) as simple and explicit as possible, putting a premium on an individual’s unhampered personal choice. The complex Qur’anic injunctions apply only when someone dies intestacy(without a will).

 

            Timur Kuran’s  The Long Divergence:  How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, singles out Islamic inheritance laws as the culprit preventing Islamic enterprises from surviving their founders.

 

            Classical Islam is replete with brilliant innovations and enduring productive economic initiatives not mentioned in the Qur’an, testimony to the brilliance of those early thinkers. Consider the concept of circulation, as opposed to stagnation. When performing ablution we seek flowing water. Stagnancy is unclean. Likewise with wealth; it must be kept circulating. Stagnant or trapped wealth is a waste, and Allah does not like that. Trading, an esteemed profession is Islam, is at its essence the circulating of wealth; likewise with zakat and charity. Spending on the poor, quite apart from helping them, performs this crucial role of circulating and thus purifying wealth.

 

            Modern economists’ “velocity of money” as a measure of the vibrancy of an economy reflects this wisdom. Banks, and other financial intermediaries' critical role in economic development is precisely this – circulating wealth. Show me an undeveloped country and I will show you one without an effective banking system. Yet Muslims today are obsessed with their superficial comprehension of ribaa, failing to differentiate it from such concepts as the time-value of money ( a ringgit today is not of the same value as the one a year ago), returns on investment, and modern banks’ role in circulating wealth.

 

            Another classical concept, again not mentioned in the Qur’an, is waqaf or trust. It predates the modern corporation in allowing families to maintain their wealth through generations, quite apart from protecting them from predatory rulers, as stated by Benedict Koehler in his Early Islam And The Birth Of Capitalism.

 

            Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is the only leader with the caliber and standing to bring these present day medieval-minded Islamists to the 21^st Century. I hope he would leverage his unique standing to do just that, and not to humor them. The only Muslim leader who has the courage to do that today is Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman. Pray that both would be successful.