Wednesday, 19-Nov-2003 8:56 PM

SERUAN KEADILAN EDITORIAL

Taking God to court

Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, the founding President of the Muslim Lawyers’ Association, has just filed a petition challenging the Terengganu government’s right to implement the Islamic Hudud laws in the state of Terengganu. There is, however, a serious flaw with this writ. In situations such as this, the bringer of the news or the reporter of the news does not get sued alone. Normally, the originator or, in legal terminology, ‘the maker’, gets sued as well.

Therefore, the Terengganu state government, who is not the maker or inventor of the disputed laws should not bear the brunt of the suit all by themselves. The party that created or invented these laws should also be sued as well. In this case this would be God or Allah, as how He is referred to in Islam. God would now be the second defendant.

Then the court would have to determine whether God did in fact create these laws or were they actually man-made but somehow had been falsely credited to God. If God did indeed make these laws, then God, who decreed these laws on men, needs to be taken to task. The Terengganu government, after all, did not make these laws. The Terengganu government is only implementing what they perceive as God’s command. The party that decreed the act must also be brought to book.

If someone was to commit murder, but the act was a contract from another party, such as a husband paying an assassin to murder his wife, then both the assassin as well as the husband would face a charge of murder and, if found guilty, both would hang. The husband cannot claim innocence by saying that he just ordered the wife murdered but did not carry out the deed himself. The husband who merely ordered the deed done is as guilty as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

Assuming, however, the court rules that there is no conclusive evidence that God did indeed decree these laws, which means God need not be brought to court to face charges, then it has to be established where these laws came from if not from God. And the answer is: the Koran. However, since there is no evidence that Hudud is God’s laws (and the fact it can be challenged in court would appear that it is not God’s law) then the Koran, the source of these laws, would now need to be questioned.

Muslims argue that the Koran is God’s word. The court though says there is no evidence this is so (if not there would be no way what the Koran stipulates could be challenged in court). So the Koran would have to be declared false and a misrepresentation of facts. Since the Koran has become a serious source of dispute due to its misrepresentation -- it claims it is the word of God while the court does not think so -- the Koran therefore should be banned before it can cause further mischief. We cannot afford to have a book called the Koran continue spreading lies by claiming that God decreed certain laws when the court rules otherwise. I mean, either it is or it is not God’s word. If it is, it cannot be challenged and, if it can be challenged, then it cannot be God’s word.

But what is perplexing, how can non-Muslim lawyers -- Paul Subramaniam and Eugene Jayarash -- be handling this case that will be heard by a non-Muslim judge, Pajan Singh Gill, who has already lost his credibility in the way he handled the Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim appeal hearing and bail application. It is ironical that a Muslim like Zaid can place a case that will determine the credibility and authenticity of the Koran in the hands of those who can be regarded as enemies of Islam. This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.