Zuhairi Misrawi, a scholar with Indonesia’s Nahdatul Ulama, the world’s largest Islamic organisation, said the Medina Charter laid the foundations of the first Islamic nation and never spoke of hudud law.
“When the Prophet Muhammad drew up the Medina Charter, he stressed on peace and unity. He spoke openly of a single community, with no distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims,” he said. “If you read the Medina Charter, you will not find hudud. Instead, you will find love, peace and compassion.”
The Medina Charter, also known as the Constitution of Medina, was drawn up by Prophet Muhammad in the year 622 after he arrived in the city of Medina after the hijra from Mecca. It formed the basis of a multi-religious Islamic state in Medina and ended bitter fighting between tribes and clans there.
Speaking at a symposium here yesterday, Zuhairi, a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, said Indonesia had used the Medina Charter as a reference when drawing up the country’s national principles, the Pancasila.
Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, does not have a ministry for Islam and instead, has a Ministry of Religious Affairs to look after all religions, Zuhairi pointed out.
In Malaysia, PAS is pushing for the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 to strengthen the Shariah Court, which some see as a back-door method to introduce hudud Islamic criminal penalties in the country.
At the symposium, human rights lawyer Firdaus Husni said it was crucial to refer to the Federal Constitution when it came to the link between state and religion.
“Since the 1980s, competition between the ruling government and PAS saw the government making announcements and policies with the intention, directly or indirectly to base all aspects of governance, including the personal life of Muslims on Islamic principles.”
He said the question was whether the extension of the Islamic agenda, which many see as a political agenda, was done within the framework of the Federal Constitution.
Firdaus cited the example of the amendments to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution in 1988, which prevented the civil courts from interfering in the jurisdiction of the syariah court. The amendments separated the jurisdictions of both courts, but failed to provide guidelines for overlapping jurisdictions.
“The decisions of the Syariah Court are bound to have an impact on non-Muslims involved in a dispute,” he said.
Such cases, include the custody battles between M Indira Gandhi and her convert ex-husband Mohd Ridhuan Abdullah, as well as the case of S Deepa and her convert ex-husband Izwan Abdullah, in which the Syariah Court and civil courts made differing rulings.