HADI AND THE MYTH OF A SECULAR MALAYSIAN CONSTITUTION

 

HADI AND THE MYTH OF A SECULAR MALAYSIAN CONSTITUTION

Recently, Malay Mail reported that PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang called for the abolition of laws he described as colonial legacies which obstruct the fuller implementation of Syariah law in Malaysia.

Among the issues he raised were Act 355, the Civil Law Act 1956 and the division of legislative powers under the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution. More fundamentally, he argued that laws preventing Islam from taking its rightful position above "man-made laws" should be removed.

With all due respect to Hadi, perhaps we need to unpack the real issue behind this debate.

THE QURAN AND SYARIAH LAW ARE NOT THE SAME THING

The first issue is the distinction between divine revelation and human law. For Muslims, the Quran is divine revelation. But Islamic law, as it is interpreted, codified and applied, necessarily involves human reasoning and judgement.

Muslim jurists have differed across time, place and schools of thought precisely because human interpretation is involved. We should therefore not equate the Quran with every law made in the name of Syariah. This is why the contrast between Syariah law and "man-made law", as though one is entirely divine and the other entirely human, is problematic.

We can see the distinction during the Prophet Muhammad's leadership of Medina. The Quran was not the constitution of Medina. The Prophet established the Piagam Madinah - the Medina Charter - to govern a real community made up of different groups. It dealt with relationships, responsibilities, security and the practical realities of organising a community.

The Quran provided the moral and spiritual guidance, while the Charter dealt with governing people in the circumstances of that particular society. Our Federal Constitution performs a similar constitutional function. It provides the framework through which Malaysia is governed - defining institutions, powers, rights, responsibilities and relationships within our Federation.

Of course, the Federal Constitution is man-made. But Islamic law, once interpreted, codified and translated into an enforceable legal system, also necessarily involves human judgement.

The more useful question, therefore, is not whether a law is "man-made". The question is whether our laws uphold values such as justice, fairness, compassion, dignity and the common good. These are values Islam itself seeks to uphold.

HADI HAS EVERY RIGHT TO SEEK CHANGE

Having said that, Hadi has every right to propose changes to our laws and constitutional arrangements. The Federal Constitution is not written in stone. It has been amended many times and can continue to evolve as Malaysian society evolves.

If Hadi believes that the present constitutional arrangement is inadequate and that Syariah should be given greater jurisdiction, he has every right to make that case. But he must persuade Malaysians and secure the necessary political and constitutional support.

There is an irony here that should not be overlooked. The very constitutional system that Hadi considers inadequate is also the system that provides him with the legitimate pathway to achieve the changes he seeks. The Constitution protects his right to advocate for change. At the same time, it establishes the procedures and safeguards through which those changes may legitimately be made.

So the Constitution is not merely an obstacle standing between Hadi and his objective. It is also what gives him the constitutional means to pursue it. That needs to be recognised.

MALAYSIA IS NEITHER PURELY SECULAR NOR THEOCRATIC

This brings us to a much bigger question. What exactly is Malaysia's constitutional system?

Unfortunately, both sides of our political divide oftentimes fail to tell the whole story. One side insists that Malaysia is a secular country and uses that position to resist a greater role for Islam in public affairs. The other side also portrays our present constitutional arrangement as essentially secular, but uses precisely that argument to say Malaysia is not Islamic enough and must move towards a more Islamic constitutional order.

In that sense, both sides are actually working from the same premise. They may want to pull Malaysia in opposite directions, but both reduce our much richer constitutional arrangement into a contest between "secular" and "Islamic".

So this is not just about Hadi. Right-thinking Malaysians without a political agenda should question both sides. We should question those who insist Malaysia must be understood as a secular country just as seriously as we question those who insist that our present constitutional arrangement is insufficiently Islamic. Both can use these labels for political purposes, and both risk dividing Malaysia into two artificial camps.

The reality is far more interesting. Our Federal Constitution is neither purely secular nor theocratic. I would describe it as a hybrid constitution, carefully developed around the historical realities of our society.

It did not begin with a blank sheet of paper at Merdeka totally sired from a colonial legacy. It recognised the history and traditions of Tanah Melayu, the position of the Malay Rulers, Islam, the existing communities and institutions that are thousands of years old, while at the same time establishing a modern constitutional democracy for a new independent nation.

Then, with the formation of Malaysia in 1963, the constitutional arrangement had to embrace another layer of history and reality - particularly those of Sabah and Sarawak, with their own peoples, traditions, religions, customs and constitutional safeguards.

There is an important idea here - kesinambungan, or continuity. Our Constitution did not attempt to erase what came before and start everything again. It carried our history forward while creating institutions capable of governing a changing society.

It will never be perfect. No constitution is. But there is something quite brilliant about the way ours managed to capture that continuity - the old and the new, tradition and modernity, Islam and other faiths, different legal traditions, the Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak - and bring them within one constitutional framework. That is an important part of what makes the Malaysian constitutional arrangement distinctive.

We are clearly not a theocratic state. The Federal Constitution is supreme, and we have civil laws, democratic institutions and constitutional rights. But neither is our constitutional system purely secular. Islam has a specific constitutional position, and Islamic law and Syariah institutions operate within areas provided for under the Constitution.

And lest we forget, Malaysia's legal landscape is even richer than simply civil law and Syariah law. Sabah and Sarawak have native laws and customs, including Native Courts recognised within our constitutional framework. The customs and customary rights of the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia also receive legal recognition, although through a different legal framework.

Malaysia has therefore never been built around only one legal tradition. Our constitutional arrangement accommodates civil law, Islamic law and indigenous customary laws within one overarching constitutional framework.

That is why "hybrid" is perhaps a more useful way of understanding Malaysia. It accommodates the requirements of a modern constitutional state while recognising the religious needs of Muslims, indigenous traditions and the realities of a multi-religious and multicultural society.

THE CONSTITUTION CAN EVOLVE

None of this means that the present balance must remain exactly the same forever. A constitution must serve its society. As Malaysian society changes, our constitutional arrangements may also change. But those changes must reflect where Malaysians collectively want the country to go and must take place through the constitutional processes already provided.

And when we say "Malaysians", those of us in the Peninsula must never be myopic. Malaysia is not the Peninsula alone. Any discussion about fundamentally changing our constitutional arrangement must take into account our fellow Malaysians in Sabah and Sarawak and the constitutional foundations upon which Malaysia was formed.

Hadi has every right to propose his vision for Malaysia. Those who advocate a more secular vision have the same right. But right-thinking Malaysians without a political agenda should be prepared to question both sides when either presents only part of our constitutional story.

Perhaps we should stop trying to squeeze Malaysia into labels borrowed from elsewhere - secular on one side, theocratic on the other. We have created something distinctly Malaysian. It is not perfect. It can evolve. It can be improved.

But before dismantling the balance we have inherited and developed over nearly seven decades, we should first understand what we actually have - a constitutional arrangement that has found a way to accommodate different legal traditions, religions, histories and communities within one Federation.

Perhaps the question is not whether Malaysia should become more secular or more theocratic. The better question is whether our constitutional system continues to deliver justice, fairness, dignity, good governance and peaceful coexistence for all Malaysians.

That should be our measure.

Peace,

Anas Zubedy

 

STARBIZ TODAY - FOUR LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES CAPTAINS CANNOT IGNORE

 

FOUR LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES CAPTAINS CANNOT IGNORE

Dear Captains of Industry and Public Institutions,

Across industries and organisations, certain leadership concerns seem to repeat themselves decade after decade. The circumstances change, but when CEOs, Boards, and senior management discuss the challenges they face in developing their leaders, the same familiar concerns continue to surface.

They revolve around four primary issues: the inability to See the Big Picture; Move the Task, Team, and Individuals towards corporate goals; Build Relationships; and Practice Effective Followership.

We hear about silo mentality - managers who are very good within their own functions but struggle to see the organisation as a whole. We hear about managers who deliver results but bruise people along the way. Others build strong teams but inadvertently create turf and friction with other departments. Some are excellent at taking care of their people but become reluctant to hold them accountable. We hear about leaders who manage upwards but not downwards, or downwards but not sideways. And increasingly, we hear about execution - where clear corporate strategy becomes slowed, diluted, or resisted as it travels through the organisation.

These are not merely leadership-development issues; they directly affect productivity, efficiency, execution, collaboration, and succession planning.

SEE THE BIG PICTURE

The first challenge is probably the most familiar: silo mentality. Most people begin their careers by becoming good at something specific. An engineer becomes a good engineer, a finance professional becomes good at finance, and a salesperson develops expertise in markets. Organisations need specialists.

The difficulty begins when a person’s responsibilities expand, but their perspective does not expand with them. A department head continues to think primarily about the department, and a functional leader continues to see organizational issues mainly through the lens of their function. What was once a strength slowly becomes a limitation.

As responsibilities increase, the central question must change. It can no longer simply be: “What is best for my department?” It must increasingly become: “What is best for the organisation?”

Organisations are interconnected systems. What appears efficient for one department may create additional work or problems elsewhere. This is why senior leaders must develop an enterprise-wide perspective to understand corporate priorities, recognize interdependencies, and make decisions based on what moves the entire organisation forward. Otherwise, highly competent managers may successfully optimise individual parts while collectively sub-optimising the whole. The fundamental transition is clear: From MY AREA to OUR ORGANISATION.

MOVE THE TASK, TEAM AND INDIVIDUALS

The second challenge concerns how managers actually lead. Over time, many managers develop a preferred way of managing people. Broadly, we see three primary orientations: those who focus heavily on the Task, those who focus on the Team, and those who focus on the Individual. Each has considerable strengths, but problems begin when one orientation becomes dominant at the expense of the other two.

We all need task-oriented managers. They focus on targets, deadlines, standards, and results. They get things done. But when task orientation becomes excessive, the manager achieves results while bruising people along the way. Everything becomes about delivery, people are pushed rather than developed, and the manager becomes a bottleneck through which everything must pass. The challenge here is simple: Get the task done without unnecessarily bruising the people.

The team-oriented manager is very good at building camaraderie and belonging. However, there is a point where team building turns into turf building. The manager becomes fiercely protective of their resources and people, information is guarded, and other departments become competitors rather than collaborators. Ironically, the manager builds a highly cohesive team while simultaneously weakening the wider organisation. When loyalty to the team becomes stronger than commitment to the organisation, team orientation has turned into silo mentality. The challenge: Build a strong team without building turf.

The individual-oriented manager places strong emphasis on being supportive, caring, and approachable. The problem begins when the desire to care for people turns into a need to be liked by people. In their eagerness to stay popular, these managers avoid difficult conversations, tolerate underperformance, postpone tough decisions, and repeatedly make exceptions. A manager’s responsibility is not to win a popularity contest, but to help people succeed while achieving organizational goals. The challenge: Care for the individual without needing to be liked.

Effective leader-managers cannot choose between Task, Team, and Individual. Their responsibility is to balance and move all three towards corporate goals.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

We cannot effectively move the Task, Team, and Individuals if we cannot build relationships. Yet organizational relationships do not move in only one direction. Leaders need to manage in four distinct directions: upwards, sideways, downwards, and self.

Some managers are excellent at managing upwards, but their direct reports tell a completely different story. Others are great downwards, but struggle to collaborate across functions with peers because disagreements become personal and territorial. And then there are those who struggle with perhaps the most important direction of all: managing themselves. Ego, insecurity, and uncontrolled emotions eventually compromise decisions and professional conversations. A person who cannot manage themselves will eventually struggle to manage others.

Technical competence may get a manager promoted, but the further one moves upwards, the more results depend on the ability to build trust, manage oneself, and work effectively with people in every direction, especially those over whom one has no formal authority.

PRACTICE EFFECTIVE FOLLOWERSHIP

Standard leadership programs focus heavily on teaching people how to lead, but far less time teaching leaders how to follow. Yet no organisation can function effectively if everybody wants to lead but nobody knows when and how to follow.

At the senior level, a long-serving manager with deep credibility may quietly disagree with a new corporate strategy. Without open resistance, they can simply slow down execution, interpret instructions selectively, or delay implementation. A senior leader with tremendous personal influence can paradoxically become the biggest obstacle to organizational direction.

At the middle-management level, strategy travels through managers before reaching the workforce. Middle managers translate corporate intentions into daily priorities and behaviours. Because change is uncomfortable, middle managers can easily become bottlenecks where strategy is diluted, reinterpreted, or quietly allowed to die.

Even at the operational level, responsible followership is essential. Good followers are not passive; they contribute ideas and challenge assumptions constructively. But once a legitimate organizational decision has been made, discussion must turn into alignment, and alignment into execution.

FOUR CHALLENGES, ONE ORGANISATION

Dear Captains, these four challenges are deeply connected. A leader who cannot See the Big Picture protects the silo; one who cannot Move the Task, Team, and Individuals remains trapped in a single management style; one who cannot Build Relationships struggles beyond formal authority; and one who cannot Practice Effective Followership becomes the obstacle standing between direction and execution.

These capabilities rarely develop naturally through seniority or titles alone. They need to be deliberately developed through structured management development, coaching, and mentoring.

Perhaps we Captains should regularly ask four questions about our leaders: Can they think for the whole organisation? Can they move the Task, Team, and Individuals together? Can they build relationships in all four directions? And can they practice followership and know when to align and execute?

If we are not happy with the answers, then perhaps these are areas that deserve greater attention in how we prepare and develop our leaders for the future. After all, we cannot prepare people for bigger responsibilities simply by giving them bigger titles. We have to deliberately develop them for the responsibilities ahead.

THE QUR'AN, THE DOG AND MAN

 

THE QUR'AN, THE DOG AND MAN

Once again, the dog has become the subject of religious controversy in Malaysia.

Recently, celebrity preacher Haris Ismail, better known as PU Riz, suggested that ordinary Malaysians should no longer keep dogs. He explained that he personally dislikes the presence of dogs, including those belonging to his non-Muslim neighbours.

In making his case, he referred to the mazhab and religious restrictions surrounding dogs. Yet noticeably, he did not refer to the Qur'an.

To me, this is a serious flaw in any argument presented in the name of Islam. A mazhab represents the accumulated reasoning and interpretation of Muslim scholars. It deserves respect, but it is not the Qur'an.

Before asking what a mazhab says, surely we must first ask what Allah says.

So what does the Qur'an actually say about dogs?

WHAT DOES THE QUR'AN SAY?

The dog appears explicitly in only a handful of Qur'anic verses.

In Al-A'raf 7:176, the dog is used metaphorically. A dog pants whether it is driven away or left alone. This is a parable about human behaviour. It is neither a command to keep dogs nor a prohibition against them.

Then we have the remarkable story of the Companions of the Cave.

In Al-Kahf 18:18, their dog lies at the entrance of the cave with its forelegs stretched out. In 18:22, it is mentioned repeatedly when discussing their number - three and their dog the fourth; five and their dog the sixth; seven and their dog the eighth.

The Qur'an calls it simply "their dog"  -  kalbuhum.

There is no condemnation. The dog accompanies a group of faithful young people whose story Allah chose to preserve in the Qur'an.

But perhaps the most interesting verse is Al-Ma'idah 5:4.

Allah permits believers to eat what trained hunting animals catch for them. The verse speaks generally of al-jawarih  -  hunting animals  -  but uses the fascinating word mukallibin in describing their training.

Mukallibin comes from the same Arabic root as kalb  -  dog. This explains why Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall translated the expression as animals that "ye have trained as hounds are trained."

Think about that.

When discussing the training of hunting animals generally, the Qur'an uses language derived from the dog. Linguistically, dog-training becomes a paradigm for training hunting animals.

And properly training a hunting dog requires an extraordinary relationship between human and animal. The dog learns our instructions, recognises our signals, controls its instincts and acts for its human companion.

Such training cannot realistically happen through complete physical separation. It requires proximity, handling, feeding, touching, guiding, rewarding, caring and, above all, trust.

The Qur'an does not call the dog "man's best friend." But I would suggest that man's best friend sits very comfortably within the Qur'anic picture of the dog.

THEN COME THE HADITH

Hadith are an important second source for Muslims. Here the picture becomes more complicated.

Some hadith have contributed significantly to negative attitudes towards dogs. One says that keeping a dog, except for purposes such as hunting, livestock or agriculture, reduces one's reward each day. The Quran does not.

Another famously says:

"Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture."

Yet the hadith literature gives us another side of the dog.

One of the most beautiful accounts tells of a prostitute who saw a dog dying of thirst beside a well. She took off her shoe, drew water and gave the dog a drink. The Prophet reportedly taught that Allah forgave her because of this act of kindness to the dog.

What an extraordinary lesson.

A human being whom society might condemn shows compassion towards an animal some people consider unclean, and that act becomes the reason for divine forgiveness.

Clearly, even within the hadith literature, the picture is not simply "dogs are bad."

BUT THE QUR'AN MUST REMAIN THE CRITERION

This is where Muslims need to exercise greater care.

The Qur'an is our primary source. Hadith come after it. The Prophet cannot teach something that contradicts the revelation he himself followed.

Al-A'raf 7:158 describes Muhammad as:

"...the unlettered Prophet, who believes in Allah and His words. And follow him, so that you may be guided."

The instruction to follow Muhammad is therefore inseparable from the description of Muhammad as one who believes in Allah and His words.

This is why I have argued for many years that our scholars should continuously examine the corpus of hadith against the Qur'an.

This does not mean casually discarding hadith we dislike or pretending that centuries of hadith scholarship have no value.

But surely the Qur'an must remain the criterion.

Consider the hadith that angels will not enter a house containing a dog or a picture. Read absolutely, it raises questions when placed beside the Qur'an.

The Qur'an tells us that angels are appointed over human beings. They record our deeds, guard us by Allah's command and ultimately take our souls. If a dog can prevent all angels from entering a place, what happens to these angels?

Classical scholars themselves recognised the need to qualify the hadith and commonly understood it as referring to particular angels, especially angels of mercy.

That interpretation may reconcile the texts. But notice what has happened  -  the Qur'anic understanding helps us determine how the hadith should be understood.

That, to me, is precisely the hierarchy that should operate.

If our understanding of a hadith clearly contradicts the Qur'an, we must question the interpretation, the context or ultimately the attribution. To attribute to the Prophet something fundamentally contrary to the revelation he followed would itself be an injustice - a fitnah  - against our Prophet.

HUNTING WAS THEN. WHAT ABOUT TODAY?

There is another mistake we should avoid.

Some argue that dogs may be kept only for purposes specifically mentioned in early sources  -  hunting, livestock and agriculture.

But this risks confusing historical examples with underlying purposes.

The Qur'an speaks of horses, camels and other forms of transportation familiar to its first audience. We do not conclude that Muslims cannot travel by aeroplane because aeroplanes were not mentioned in seventh-century Arabia.

We understand the underlying function  -  transportation.

The same reasoning deserves consideration with dogs.

Hunting was one important function of a trained dog at the time. Today dogs guide the blind, assist people with disabilities, detect explosives and drugs, locate missing persons, search collapsed buildings, work with police and security services, detect medical emergencies, protect homes and families and, yes, provide companionship.

The uses have evolved. The extraordinary dog-human relationship remains.

This makes Al-Ma'idah 5:4 more interesting than hunting alone. Allah has created an animal capable of being taught by human beings. Indeed, the verse describes us as teaching these animals "from what Allah has taught you."

Knowledge flows from Allah to us, and through us to another creature.

PERHAPS THE PROBLEM WAS NEVER THE DOG

Perhaps somewhere along the way, we allowed our understanding of the dog to become more negative than the Qur'an itself.

And here Muslims need to be particularly careful. The Qur'an repeatedly warns against declaring something haram when Allah Himself has not declared it haram.

In An-Nahl 16:116:

"Do not say falsely with your tongues, 'This is lawful and this is unlawful,' inventing lies against Allah."

And Yunus 10:59 asks an even more uncomfortable question:

"Has Allah given you permission, or are you inventing lies against Allah?"

That should make every Muslim pause before declaring something haram in God's name.

Where does the Qur'an prohibit keeping a dog? It does not.

Where does the Qur'an say dogs may only be kept for hunting? It does not.

On the contrary, Al-Kahf presents faithful young believers accompanied by "their dog." Al-Ma'idah recognises the human relationship with trained animals and even uses dog-derived language to describe their training.

We should therefore be careful that, in our desire to protect religion, we do not create religious prohibitions that Allah Himself did not create.

There is a profound difference between saying:

• "I personally do not like dogs." and
• "God does not want you to keep dogs."

The first is personal preference. The second requires evidence from God.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE PICTURES?

Before we end, let us return to the hadith:

“Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture.”

Notice something.

It does not say only dog. It also says picture.

Muslim scholars themselves recognised that this hadith could not simply be understood without interpretation and context. They asked which angels were meant, commonly explaining that it referred to particular angels, especially angels of mercy, rather than all angels.

They also interpreted the word “picture”. Scholars distinguished between different kinds of images, how they were displayed and their purposes. With the arrival of photography, further interpretation became necessary, and Muslim scholars have differed over how photographs and modern images should be treated.

In other words, the “picture” in this very same hadith has already been interpreted and contextualised.

And today, pictures are everywhere - in our homes, schools, hospitals, offices and government buildings. Pictures of our leaders, and sometimes their spouses, are displayed throughout our institutions. Our phones, computers and televisions are filled with images.

So let us ask some simple questions.

Why do we focus so much on the dog, but so little on the picture?

If scholars recognise the need to interpret and contextualise “picture”, why should we not exercise the same care when interpreting “dog” in the very same hadith?

And since PU Riz raised this matter publicly, perhaps he too should reflect:

Are there photographs or pictures in his own home?

Peace,
Anas Zubedy