Does the Koran render women as second class citizens? Do the holy verses say that women are incapable of handling their own affairs or that they are the wards of someone else?

These were among the questions raised by women's rights activist Zaitun Mohamed Kasim in a paper "Roles of Muslim women in the family and society: rights and responsibilities" at a recent seminar.

She blamed the misunderstanding over women's role and rights on human intervention which brings the strengths, weaknesses and biasness to the process of interpreting the Koran.

Citing Surah An-Nisa and Al-Bara'ah , she said the Koran makes it clear that men and women are equal in origin and status, with the deeds of both being of equal value.

She reasoned that out of all the knowledge required to interpret the Koran and the Sunnah (the traditions of Prophet Muhammad), including methodologies, considerations, juristic views and subsequent laws, only the Koran is divine.

Inequality of women intentionally imposed

Zaitun, representing Sisters in Islam, a group of Muslim women professionals promoting women's rights within the framework of Islam, said she believes that the Koran addresses men and women explicitly without discriminating.

"Yet some interpreters insist that women are to be protected as though they do not have autonomy and are incapable of handling tough situations," she told more than 70 participants attending a one-day seminar on human rights in Islam in Dungun, Terengganu.

Organised by Era Consumer Malaysia, the seminar saw representatives from civil society, human rights and women organisations as well as members of PAS and its legal bureau.

She said selective reference to Qur'anic verses had led men and assumed that this gave men authority over women and that all men are superior to all women.

Therefore, she argued, if women were autonomous on their own, they would have all the rights accorded to men the right to speak, to privacy, to represent oneself, to believe and to question.

"In practice though, things are different."

Citing the issue of wali (the person who gives a woman away in marriage), she said Malaysian laws do not accept the Maliki school of thought which says that a woman can marry without a wali despite the law-making process accepts all four major schools of thought.

(The other three schools of thought are Shafie, Hambali and Hanafi)

"In Kelatan, Kedah and Malacca, the father/paternal grandfather can marry off a virgin daughter/granddaughter without her consent (even if she is 50 years old)!" exclaimed Zaitun.

Another example is the Terengganu's Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment (Takzir) amended to include Section 48 which makes it an offence for an underaged girl or boy to abscond without reasonable excuse under Hukum Syara' from the custody of the parents or legal guardian.

Unjust implementation casts shadow on Islam

If found guilty, the offender can be fined a maximum RM2,000 or sentenced to one year's jail, or both, and the court can make any appropriate order regarding the offender.

She said Section 35 makes it an offence for a woman to publicly expose any part of her body which arouses passion, carrying a maximum RM1,000 fine or six months' imprisonment, or both.

"It is difficult to understand this antagonism towards women. Why this unequal treatment by human beings when there is no place for discrimination in the Koran? What gives mere mortals the rights to do this?

In conclusion, she said: "Gender inequality is not inherent in Islam and cannot be assumed to be so. To do so would mean suggesting that Islam is inherently discriminatory when it is clearly unjust and unequivocally un-Islamic."

Questioning the current law-making process, Zaitun said it was disturbing how they were made and implemented because often times, it was a case of tripping over the laws because the process of law-making is not transparent nor publicised.

"The case of the beauty pageant contestants who were arrested in the most humiliating manner possible can hardly be said to be just and people remembered how cruel the whole process was and not how 'efficient' the law enforcers were."

She said the monitoring of private lives and religious rituals of individuals has no precedence in Islam because privacy is highly regarded, and yet the "social and moral policing that goes on at the moment seem to never take this into account".

"The laws enacted today seem to think nothing of 'spying' and barging in on people in their homes. Whether it is social policing on what people do or whether they pray five times daily, this kind of monitoring finds no resonance with the spirit of the religion."

Apart from that, Zaitun said law-makers must be also able to distinguish between consensual sex and rape with the capacity to analyse the spirit of the law, instead of lumping them together.

In conclusion, she said that none of the four imams claimed that their views and opinions were final but had encouraged discourse and debate.

"So, it is unwarranted that religious persons today claim their words to be the only way and create laws to keep others out.

"There is no monopoly on interpretation, excluding and claiming to be the only authority does not invite syura (mutual consultation) and bold discussion, instead it invites animosity and distaste," she added.